Bedding Plants for Your Garden: a talk by Mr David Usher


at Carhampton Gardening Club

Friday 17th February

7.30pm at Carhampton Village Hall

Also Including: Stalls — Raffle — Gardening Tips

Competitions

Foliage pot plant

Photograph of a winter scene

Admission (including refreshments)

Members 50p

Visitors £1

Just read about this fantastic bedding plant talk!
Fancy growing some bedding plants? Visit Bedding plant offers website to buy some

Fancy trying some home grown potatoes this year? They can’t be beaten for taste when you dig them up and cook them within half an hour from plot to plate!
How to Grow Potatoes in the Ground
and

How to Grow Potatoes in bags or containers

Thompson and morgan have two great guides for growing them as well as a huge choice of spuds to grow!

New products today at Thompson & Morgan

Potato ‘Allotment Favourites Collection’ – 6 x 10 tuber packs £14.99
First early, second early, maincrop.Grow these reliable and trusted allotment favourites for an ongoing supply of home grown potatoes. Height and spread: 60cm (24″).Please note: This collection CANNOT be sent to Northern Ireland or Eire.Collection comprises:Potato ‘Lady Christl’ (First early) – Smooth oval, pale yellow skinned tubers with creamy flesh that remains firm on cooking.Potato ‘Orla’ (First early) – With good foliage and tuber blight resistance, producing creamy skinned, pale yellow fleshed, round-oval tubers.Potato ‘Kestrel’ (Second early) – Producing tubers of consistent size and shape, with attractive, smooth skins and violet eyes.Potato ‘Sante’ (Early maincrop) – Probably the most pest and disease resistant variety, growing well in all soils.Potato ‘Cara’ (Late maincrop) – Creamy skin and striking bright red eyes.Potato ‘Lady Balfour’ (Early maincrop) – A reliable variety with excellent disease resistance.Useful links:How to grow potatoes in the ground Potato Selector GuideHow to grow potatoes in bags     How to stop blight

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The Bee Garden: How to Create or Adapt a Garden To Attract and Nurture Bee

The Bee Garden: How to Create or Adapt a Garden To Attract and Nurture Bees

Bees play a vital and irreplaceable role in pollinating our flowers, fruits and vegetables.


The more bees in your garden the healthier, more productive and more pleasant a place it will be.


Yet bees are declining rapidly and many people, even if they do not wish to keep bees themselves, are asking what can be done on an individual basis to help the bee. This book is a response to that request. It will demonstrate in one accessible volume how each of us can play our part in providing a bee-friendly environment, no matter how much gardening space and/or time we may have.


It includes:


* How bees forage, what bees you can expect to find in your garden and what plants are best for them. :


* Why honey bees are so important; what they need to thrive and how they detect and access those requirements; and what varieties of plants are best suited to provide those needs.


* How the gardener can offer and maintain a bee-friendly garden, followed by a season-by-season account of what beefriendly plants are in flower and when, and what jobs the gardener can be doing during these times to help bees thrive.

* A gazetteer of selected bee-friendly plants, arranged by type of plant in seasonal sub-sections.


* Illustrative, practical planting plans, including a culinary herb garden, a potager, a wild flower garden, and a 3 seasons traditional border.

There is a fantastic short series on BBC 2 at the moment called Bees, Butterflies and Blooms which is Sarah Raven’s attempt to get more pollinating insect friendly plants across the UK. It’s on iplayer at the moment and is well worth a watch.

in the second episode she visits Harrogate’s Britain in Bloom team and encourages them to plant beds with more biodiversity in. They plant a couple of beds up and the immense number of insects on these beds is impressive when there are none on the normal bedding displays.

Sarah also challenges the UK gardening industry, the Horticultural Trades Association and the Royal Horticultural Society to champion pollinating insects by launching a ‘pollinator-friendly’ logo at the Chelsea Flower Show. The logo and label would enable gardeners to identify the best plants for bees and butterflies throughout garden centres and nurseries in the UK.

And at home, Sarah meets expert garden naturalist Steve Head, and explores her own garden’s suitability for insect pollinators. Inspired by what she discovers, she develops a nectar garden – a mini oasis for pollinators.

The moth collector she had in the garden discovered an elephant hawk moth that was really pretty and one that looked like a twig.

Well worth a watch!

And Sarah Raven has several gardening books available: Sarah Raven’s books at Amazon

Thompson & Morgan has this fantastic bee friendly Thrift available.
Flowering Period is May, June – so a good plant to start the summer with. Planting for bees should try to include something in flower every month and sometimes the early part of the year can be vital to their survival.
Other spring plants to consider are bulbs like bluebells and daffodils, as well as ornamental flowering cherrys.

Armeria maritima – 6 jumbo plugs £8.49
Dense cushions of bright green foliage produce spherical flower heads set atop sturdy upright stems. The pretty pink flowers of Armeria maritima appear the whole summer long in the loveliest shade of pink. Undemanding and easy to grow, these appealing little perennials are well suited to poorer soils and coastal conditions with a toughness that belies their beauty. Height and spread: 30cm (12″).

Foxgloves are fantastic plants for bees. They have a success of flowers on their long stems which means there’s flowers for the bees over a long period. The single flowers are well designed for bees to collect the nectar and they are lovely looking plants for the gardener to look at too!

Foxglovess at Thompson & Morgan – lovely flower range. They grow to different heights, make a lovely addition to a cottage garden style planting, add height. They take two years to grow from seed to flower though. So plant them in trays or start them in a nursery bed. They will often self seed once established though. Save some seed for the next year to sow another lot of plants with though so you have a success of flowers – year 1 is no flowers, year 2 is flowers, so start some more plants in year 2 from seed to in year 3 you get flowers again. After that if the conditions are right they will self seed. They don’t mind a nice shadey corner with lots of leaf mould in the soil. Traditionally a woodland edge plant I think.

Foxglove ‘Foxy’ – 1 packet (1500 seeds) £1.99
‘Foxy’ is an ANNUAL foxglove. If sown indoors late winter/early spring it flowers in summer (regular foxgloves are biennial). ‘Foxy’ is dwarfer, invaluable for exposed sites in shades of pink to white with contrasting mottled throats. The flowers are useful for cutting. Flowers summer. Height: 65cm (26in).CAUTION: All Parts Are Poisonous

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Their RHS range of plants is worth a look!
Thompson & Morgan just added these new items

Arum Lily ‘Green Goddess’ – 1 tuber £9.99
NEW in 2012Stunning creamy white spathes with fresh green tips make these exotic calla lilies highly sought after for flower arrangements, with stems carrying hefty price tags in the shops. The elegant blooms of Arum ‘Green Goddess’ rise above sumptuous backdrop of large, glossy green, arrow shaped foliage. This RHS AGM variety is hardy to -5C(23F), and adds subtle sophistication to moist borders and the edges of ponds. Height: 75cm (30”). Spread: 60cm (24”).

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Petunia ‘Easy Wave Union Jack Mix’ on offer at Thompson and Morgan.
This looks like a bee friendly plant with it’s big open flowers! Stick them in full sun for a stunning garden design!
Stunning red white and blue for a very bold design! Turn it into a flag design maybe!
Thompson & Morgan has these new items today

Petunia ‘Easy Wave Union Jack Mix’ – 36 plugs £4.99
NEW in 2012Flying the flag for The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee & London Olympics 2012Create a spectacular, patriotic display for your hanging baskets, Flower Pouches™, window boxes and patio pots. Vigorous Petunia ‘Easy Wave Union Jack Mixed’ is great value – you can even use it for ground cover. These fast-growing Petunia plants tolerate both heat and cooler conditions, blooming freely without the need for cutting back. Enjoy spreading mounds of foliage smothered with colourful petunia flowers all summer long. Height: 30cm (12″). Spread: 60cm (24″).

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Offers of the week at Thompson and Morgan
Free delivery on orders over £50 too!
Garden Supplies Sale – Huge savings to be made

Their hugely popular garden supplies sale is back and with even bigger savings!
We have slashed the prices on many of our popular garden supply items. Included
in the sale are offers on planters, fertilisers, hanging baskets and much, much,
more.

Hurry, these prices won’t be around for long!

This week’s best selling offers – From ONLY 20p

Take a look at some of these best selling offers that are available this week.
Including offers on plants, seeds, fruit and potatoes! Create a dazzling, effortless
display in your garden with our Spectacular Flower Balls™ –
1 flower ball ONLY £7.49, HALF PRICE.

Petunia ‘Easy Wave Union Jack Mix’ – Half price

Create a spectacular patriotic display with these super vigorous and great value
petunias.

36 plug plants – HALF PRICE, ONLY £4.99
72 plug plants – ONLY £7.99, SAVE £5.00
Hurry, offer ends midnight Sunday 19th February.

Customer Favourites Collection – 72 plants only £9.99

Make your garden sparkle with this great value collection. We have combined
a beautiful mix of our most popular plants for you to showcase in your garden.

72 plug plants (6 varieties, 12 of each) –
ONLY £9.99, Worth over £20

Patio, Bedding and Basket Pack – Save £16.98

Everything you need for your garden! This fabulous collection will fill your
garden with colour that will last all summer long. You will receive 12 plugs
each of 9 fantastic varieties – enough to start filling your containers, borders
and baskets.

108 plug plants – ONLY £15.99, SAVE £16.98

Sunpatiens ‘Volcano’™ – from just £9.99

The world’s first sunpatiens for your hanging baskets!
Buy 2 or more packs for only £9.99 each!

Sunpatiens ‘Volcano’™ produces hundreds of large scarlet-red blooms on
tough, weather-resistant, drought tolerant plants.

Double the plugs for just £3 extra

View our fantastic range of great value plants!

Double up from 36 plug plants to 72 plug plants for just £3 extra. Choose
from begonias, petunias, geraniums, marigolds and many more!

Bumper Perennial Plant Collections – Save £19.96

Everything you need for your garden! Our ‘super jumbo’ perennial plants are
ready to plant straight into your borders. Each collection contains 15 plants
(3 of each variety) and will fill a border 3m (10ft) x 2m (6ft). ONLY £14.99
each, SAVE £19.96

Perennial Collection A
Perennial Collection B
Money Saving Collections – SAVE £££s

Save over 50% in some of our fantastic collections

View our great range of plant money saving collections. Including some exciting
new collections such as the giant-flowered dahlias of ‘XXXL’ Mix – 4 jumbo plugs
ONLY £9.99, SAVE £25.97.

Double the plants for just 1p extra

Double the plants for just 1p extra on some fantastic varieties. This range
includes the beautiful rare blue poppy – a ‘must have’ for borders and containers.

1 jumbo plug + 1 FREE – ONLY £9.99
Double up for 1p
2 jumbo plugs + 2 FREE – ONLY £10, SAVE £9.98

Seed Sale – Prices from just 20p
Customer favourites at new lower prices!
With many reduced price seeds. Including the delicious Tomato Sungold – 10 seeds
now ONLY 20p and the beautiful Sweet Pea ‘King Size Navy Blue’ – 20 seeds ONLY
99p.

Save £££s & grow from quality, low priced seed!

View all of T&M’s value seed varieties from this years range. With great
new packets from only 69p, grab yourself a real bargain and get sowing.Value
Seed Varieties from just 69p. Plus Popular varieties in great collections –
Take a look at their huge selection of this years best flower seed collections
– Prices start from as little as £2.49.

Snowdrops offers at Thompson and Morgan.

What does buying in the green mean? Snowdrops are best bought ‘in the green’ and this means with their green leaves attached. The bulbs are very sensitive to drying out and damage at other stages of their growth cycle so getting them whilst they’re in active growth is the best chance of success.

All the different options of snowdrops available:

Bulbs ‘In The Green’ Collection – 30 bulbs ‘in the green’ – 10 of each variety £9.99

Bulbs ‘In The Green’ Collection – 60 bulbs ‘in the green’ – 20 of each variety £16.49

Russian Snowdrop – 100 bulbs £8.99

Russian Snowdrop – 200 bulbs £16.99

Snowdrop (Double-flowered) – 25 bulbs £9.99

Snowdrop (Double-flowered) – 25 bulbs ‘in the green’ £11.99

Snowdrop (Double-flowered) – 50 bulbs £15.99

Snowdrop (Double-flowered) – 50 bulbs ‘in the green’ £16.49

Snowdrop (Single-flowered) – 25 bulbs £8.99

Snowdrop (Single-flowered) – 25 bulbs ‘in the green’ £9.49

Snowdrop (Single-flowered) – 75 bulbs £14.99

Snowdrop (Single-flowered) – 75 bulbs ‘in the green’ £16.49

Thompson & Morgan has these new products today

Snowdrop (Single-flowered) – 25 bulbs ‘in the green’ £9.49
Drifts of graceful nodding snowdrops signal winters end with an understated elegance. These native beauties love to shelter in dappled shade at the base of trees and shrubs, but look equally ay home in an alpine garden, or naturalised in grass. Why not try them in window boxes and containers as part of a mixed planting scheme. Versatile and vigorous, they will quickly multiply to create a carpet of honey scented, single-flowered blooms. Height: 15cm (6”). Spread: 10cm (4”).Snowdrop bulbs are ideal for autumn planting. For spring planting choose snowdrops in the green. Only cultivated stock used.Useful links:How to grow bulbs, corms and tubers 

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