Buying plants on line

At the David Austin gardens, the fragrance hits you when you get out of the car in the car park.

Thought we would try Montisfort Abbey this year as that has a glorious rose garden according to Carol K.

I do buy on line and get my plants mostly from Crocus but also from Sarah Raven and other specialized nurseries. Always been successful except a couple of plugs this year.

We often buy from a company called Hayloft and have always been very pleased with the condition they arrive in and the overall quality of the plants.

We're spoiled for choice with nurseries and garden centres around here, phoenix - there's a good GC just up the road but the one I love is just plants. Not a scented candle in sight.

I'm planning on doing a few garden visits this year as last summer was a difficult time for getting away. The next one on the list is East Ruston Old Vicarage. It's been on my wish list for years so DH has suggested we stay in a B&B as it's two hours away and it'll be a birthday treat for me.

Bloody hell My word. He's getting soft in his old age.

Mottisfont Abbey is my very favourite rose garden, whitewave. Get along early one evening, when the scent is strongest, it's wonderful. We used to live not far from it and I really miss it - we drove all the way down last year for a long weekend so that I could see it again!

Today a huge parcel was waiting for me when I got home. Inside were just three small plants I bought on eBay (rare perennial broccoli). They were more lovingly packed than any china I have ever been sent. They were also a third of the price that the only two nurseries I was able to find were charging.

We went to Mottisfort last year, and I was completely blown away, so much so that we stayed overnight at a B&B instead of coming home so I could visit again the next day.
Amazing place.

East Ruston is my very favourite garden ever. It's absolutely beautiful, and the owners are lovely. We go there quite often, and DBH bought us a guided tour and lunch there for my birthday one year. It takes over an hour for us, too, sadly, so we get there as it opens and leave when it closes.

I bought some plants for the first time from an advert on the TV.

12 lillies only 6 have grown and
12 begonias and I've 4 out of these and they don't look good.

Never again they were very expensive I am not a happy bunny.

The begonias I've potted on from last year are looking pretty good.

I would write and complain or leave a comment on their website.
That's pretty shoddy results

Yes, definitely worth a complaint, see my earlier post, I received a full refund. After complaining through their website and receiving no response, I actually put a comment on their facebook page and was contacted within the hour!!

That's where eBay is so good, you can make a complaint to eBay and get your money back, AND leave a bad feedback for them. I used to buy plugs from mail order companies who then started to sell online, but eBay ones are far better, they have to be. Thompson and Morgan have sent me some pretty dreadful plants over the years - and the wrong varieties, quite often.

Feeling jealous I have loads of perennials waiting to get planted now our old fencing has been fixed but on Friday evening I was merriily knitting and my long dodgy arthritic thumb sort of twinged and crunched and is now quite painful.
I am tempted to get someone in to do this planting up for me.

Nellie I am glad it is raining, my left hand has sort of died on me in the same sort of way yours has, at the base of my forefinger. I suspect I overdid it yesterday, I was attaching netting to cloches for several hours, with lots of tight gripping involved. Commiserations.

It's been too wet and windy for gardening today so I've painted some old cheap plastic pots using left over chalk paint in duck egg blue and olive green. I'm dead chuffed with the results and can't wait to get them planted up tomorrow.

I love upcycling

The weather's supposed to get better by the end of the week. Warm air from Spain, hurrah!

Like you Merlot I'm always on the look out for up cycling garden containers. Some years ago I bought some cheap children's stencils and decorated plain terracotta pots. They improved with age as the paint faded.

I have seen great planters made out of old washing machines drums. I have the old washing machine, but I need to persuade DH to dismantle it.

Happy planting in the coming week! x

One of my favourite thing is excahnging plants with friends. It is free and you get memories attached to them and think of the friends that gave you the plants when you see them. A few of my plants come from friends who are no longer with us- and it is a real treasure to be reminded of them through the plants. And it is such a pleasure to give plants when I have to divide them or when they self seed in the 'wrong' place etc- esepcially to young gardeners who are beginning, cash strapped and in need of advice and support.

But I rarely buy on line- I like to go to a good nursery and talk to the experienced nursery wo/man and have a chat and get advice. The great thing is that they know me as a gardener with experience, and if I have any problems (very rare) will replace without batting an eyelid. I like to see the plant, examine it, feel it- before I buy, and I am very picky.

David Austin's rose garden is fabulous, just outside Birmingham, and so worth a visit- best time in June. Kiffsgate near Stratford is wonderful too.

I love David Austin roses and I'd love to visit them, but we don't live near
I've found a few sellers on Ebay who charged reasonable postage and some on Facebook too - there's a page where people advertise cuttings, seeds and plants at very reasonable prices (they aren't nurseries, just ornery people ;) )
THorncroft is expensive but IMO an excellent supplier of clematis. All of their plants are good, strong, healthy and well packed.

Is there a good company for bedding plants? One of our "In Bloom" group ordered a load a wallflowers for our winter planting (can't remember where from - a catalogue) and we were most disappointed in the condition and size of them. Lost quite a few and most of the rest didn't reach their full potential.

What about B &Q or local supermarkets for bedding plants? They are very cheap and usually of very good quality.

I agree about the memories attached to plants jura

When I wander around my garden i see the lilies that Peggy gave me, the weigela cutting my SiL took for me, now a lovely shrub in full bloom, the snowdrops we took from MiLs garden before her house was sold, the Rose my DS gave me one year, a nameless but beautiful purple flower a dear friend gave me from her garden, and so on.

So many memories, some of people long gone.

i do buy plants on line occasionally, with mixed results, but prefer a wander round real nurseries - not the type, like one I visited recently, where you could buy any flavour of scented candle but not any pea sticks

I agree with sharing plants and memories. If I buy something particularly unusual or attractive, I try to pick a pot of plant that possible could be divided. Then I can put some in my garden and a bit in in a 'nursery' pot to share.

My best buy was an end of season sale Magnolia. The soil was dried so before planting I put it in a bucket of water. When it had finished soaking, two Magnolia stems separated, so I had two plants.

X

We've used B&Q for stuff like lobelia, but it's things like trailing geraniums which need to be a bit bigger that can work out expensive. We can now get 10% off at our local garden centre but on line is still cheaper. Obviously for a reason!

BTW, David Austin has a 15% off offer in the National Trust magazine, use code TR11 valid until August 31st.

I have 2 wonderful DA roses that moves from our garden in the Midlands to the mountains of Switzerland, and they've adapted so well, although the flowers are smaller here. Both bronzy coloured- one is Pamela Austin, not sure about the other one. Gorgeous reddish leaves too.

Glad you agree sharing and exchanging plants is a great way to garden (and by far the cheapest too) - I often 'talk' to some plants as they represent good friends- one especially of my 'bestest' ever friend, from birth to her untimely death, aged 52, of pancreatic cancer 13 years ago- I still miss her so.

What really upsets me, breaks my heart really, is all those shops like Lidl and other large stores that sell plants but do not thave the knowledge, or facilities (they can't water them in the shop without making a mess) and they are all half dead, or totally dead even. The other day at our local Aldi they had plants reduced by 50% - but they were dead!!!!

I did buy one miserable looking half-dead japanese maple from there last year and brought it back to like- and this Spring it is gorgeous and very happy. But it is such a massive waste of peat (which causes massive destruction in Eastern Europe), transport, plastic pots, heat for the greenhouse, etc, etc- and all to end in the bin. Tragic!

We have a great plant market in our local French town on Thursday morning (+ all local veg, cheeses and other produces) and it is very good value, all locally grown and with nursery wo/men who really know their stuff- and that is a pleasure to buy there.

granjura I have noted that some of these stores do not look after their plants in terms of basic watering.

B&Q are not good. I have seen some in Aldi dying off.

If a shop has plants on trolleys outside the front of the store they need the facilities to water them which realistically means hoses out at the front of the shop and a water supply and making the entrance around the shop wet.

Some plants can survive quite bit of neglect. Others curl up and die or just bolt.

However the Rhodedendron I bought at ALDI last year is now flowering a gorgeous deep pinky red.