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Seed Potatoes, Onion &amp; Shallot&nbsp;sets &amp; Garlic bulbs are all available as well as Asparagus &amp; Rhubarb roots

Grow Your Own

Just arrived in time for the winter weather we have a new selection of doormats.

Super absorbant, machine washable, cotton mats in 3 sizes for indoor use only

Wire and Coir hard wearing brush mats for outdoor use in 2 sizes

Decorative decoir mats for indoor or outdoor, sheltered use.

Doormats range in price from &euro;12.99 to &euro;24.99

Doormats

New Arrivals

Plants need three main nutrients to do well: nitrogen for leafy growth, phosphorus to produce strong roots,&nbsp;and potassium, for flowers and fruit. If your plants go short, they'll grow poorly, fail to flower or fruit, and&nbsp;develop sickly, yellowing foliage.
If your soil is in good heart, all you'll need to kick start the year is a spring dose of slow-release fertiliser such&nbsp;as bonemeal or pelleted chicken manure, both available in our garden centre. Repeat in mid summer for&nbsp;greedy plants like vegetables, sweet peas, clematis and roses. Stop fertilising by late summer, though, as&nbsp;new growth after that point is more vulnerable to frost damage.
Plants in containers rely on you for nutrients. Balanced liquid seaweed added to your watering can once&nbsp;a week keeps them healthy. In our garden centre you'll also find controlled release fertilisers, available as&nbsp;granules or handy pellets to insert into the compost, releasing nutrients for up to 12 months.
Big heavy-fruiting greenhouse plants also benefit from some extra help: give them weekly feeds of&nbsp;potassium-rich tomato feed, also available in our garden centre, as soon as they start flowering.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about choosing fertilisers for your&nbsp;garden.

To fertilise... or not to fertilise?

With such a wide selection of different garden composts available in our garden centre it's sometimes difficult&nbsp;to know which to choose. Don't worry, it's simple: just ask yourself these three questions.
Is my plant growing in a border or in a container? Soil improvers such as well-rotted farmyard manure&nbsp;boost nutrients in the open garden, so that's what you should use added to the planting hole for new shrubs,&nbsp;trees and perennials.
Annuals and bedding in containers enjoy multi-purpose compost, but for longer-lasting displays of shrubs,&nbsp;perennials or grasses mix this 50:50 with a soil-based compost like John Innes no. 3 which holds on to&nbsp;nutrients for longer.
Is my plant acid-loving? Ericaceous or acid-loving plants, including rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias and&nbsp;blueberries, only grow well in soils with a pH (acidity) of less than 6.5. If your soil isn't naturally acidic, grow&nbsp;them in containers of special ericaceous compost, also available in our garden centre.
Do I want compost for propagating seeds or cuttings? Seeds germinate best in soil-based seed compost&nbsp;such as John Innes Seed. Later, young seedlings can be potted up into multi-purpose compost.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about choosing the right composts&nbsp;for your plants.

Stronger plant development, more flowers, more vibrancy, longer plant life, ideal for containers and hanging baskets - 60 lit

 
&euro;8.99 each&nbsp;

Offer - Multi Purpose Compost with added John Innes 50L

Compost choices

Feed your soil, not your plants is a good piece of advice for any gardener: a well-cultivated soil is like deep&nbsp;brown breadcrumbs, rich and hearty and able to provide everything your plants could need.
Healthy soils have an open structure, so water drains through easily. They're also moisture-retentive, with&nbsp;sponge-like particles which absorb water and hold onto it until plants need it. Open soils also teem with&nbsp;micro-organisms, making it easier for roots to absorb nutrients and generally helping your plants to thrive.
Getting goodness into your soil is straightforward: all you need is plenty of organic matter. Well-rotted&nbsp;farmyard manure, available by the bag in our garden centre, works deep into the soil through the season&nbsp;releasing nutrients as it goes. Dig in to the top layer of the soil at half a wheelbarrow load per square metre.
Slow release fertilisers such as bonemeal and pelleted chicken manure, also available in our garden centre,&nbsp;increase nutrient levels gradually over the season too: apply in March and again in late June. Follow with a&nbsp;mulch of more well-rotted organic matter and your plants will be in heaven.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about soil improvers for your&nbsp;garden.

Feeding your soil

For some plants, ordinary feed just isn&#39;t enough. Orchids, for example, need magnesium and other trace&nbsp;elements; even fuchsias are particularly greedy feeders which need more potash than the average soil can&nbsp;provide while they&#39;re flowering in late summer and autumn.

For plants like these, buying a feed that&#39;s specially formatted to suit their needs is a shrewd move. You&#39;ll&nbsp;ensure that those nutrients which your soil can&#39;t provide are there when your plant needs them.

As well as specialist orchid and tomato feeds, in our garden centre we have fertilisers formulated for acid-&nbsp;lovers like rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias, full of the iron and magnesium they need to avoid leaf&nbsp;yellowing and produce those explosions of flower in late spring.

Citrus like lemons, limes and calamondin oranges enjoy a high-nitrogen food in summer, when they&#39;re in full&nbsp;growth, but like to switch to a more balanced feed in winter, to help keep them healthy and avoid premature&nbsp;leaf fall.

Also available in our garden centre are high-phosphate feed for free-flowering African violets, root-&nbsp;strengthening potash rich feeds for bonsai trees and low nitrogen feeds for slower-growing cacti. Please ask&nbsp;the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about specialist feeds for your plants.

Special feeds for special plants

The soil beneath your feet is your most precious resource in the garden: look after it, and your plants thrive.&nbsp;There&#39;s a huge range of bagged composts, soil improvers and fertilisers in our garden centre to keep&nbsp;container plants happy and your soil in tip-top health.

Multipurpose compost is perfect for container-grown bedding, cuttings and potting on. In our garden centre&nbsp;you&#39;ll find environmentally-friendly peat-free and peat-reduced composts, and composts with added fertiliser&nbsp;and water-retaining gels - great for thirsty hanging baskets.

Specialist composts are tailor-made for the needs of plants from citrus to roses. You&#39;ll also find soil-based&nbsp;composts in our garden centre for permanent container planting, ericaceous composts for lime-hating plants&nbsp;and fine-grade seed composts for sowing.

Soil improvers like farmyard manure and soil conditioner&nbsp;beef up poorer soils to keep plants growing&nbsp;strongly. Mix with your soil when planting and use to mulch the surface to suppress weeds and hold in&nbsp;moisture.

Fertilisers include liquid feeds such as liquid seaweed and tomato feed to encourage flowering and fruiting.&nbsp;Add slow-release fertilisers such as fish, blood &amp; bone&nbsp;to planting holes and mix granular feeds into potting composts&nbsp;for feed-and-go convenience.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about composts and fertilisers.

Combining plants in containers to make a display that looks good all year round is something of an art. It's fairly easy to create a fabulous display in summer: simply choose from the vibrantly colourful bedding plants available in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;from late spring.
But what if you want colour from the same container in March, as well as autumn fireworks and some winter colour too?
Here are some great combinations of plants you can find in our garden centre to put together in a roomy container, giving you a potted display that looks good from January to December.
Container 1: Green and gold for shade 
Shopping list: Hosta 'Gold Standard' (or any green and gold variegated variety), Carex oshimensis 'Evergold', Saxifraga x urbium. 
Central to the display in this container is a broad-leaved hosta with striking golden-edged leaves; filigree leaves of evergreen Carex make a contrasting fountain of gold. Underneath the small, frilly leaves of London Pride are topped with summer flowers.
Container 2: Red, red, red 
Shopping list: Cordyline australis 'Torbay Red', scarlet pelargoniums, Oxalis triangularis, Tulipa praestans. 
The evergreen purple spears of Cordyline erupt like a firework from a sea of scarlet in summer, with the deepest purple, clover-like leaves and pink flowers of the oxalis at their feet. Early-flowering tulips start the flaming reds from spring onwards.
Container 3: Fabulous foliage 
Shopping list: Cryptomeria 'Compressa', Heuchera 'Amber Waves', Heuchera 'Plum Pudding', bronze chrysanthemum. 
This container relies on colourful, evergreen heuchera leaves for its impact, though the star of the show in autumn is the low-growing conifer, Cryptomeria, which turns fabulous bronze. Choose a red-bronze variety of chrysanthemum to complement the other colours.
Container 4: Black and white 
Shopping list: Phormium 'Platts Black', Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens', Galanthus nivalis, Tulipa 'Purissima', white chrysanthemum. 
Find a super-modern container in matt black for this fabulous combination of white snowdrops and tulips against evergreen near-black foliage of New Zealand flax and black, grass-like lilyturf. A pure white chrysanthemum keeps the contrasts going into autumn.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planting containers that look good all year.

Year-round containers

Clematis win a place in the heart of every gardener for their breathtaking flower displays as they scramble becomingly up fences and over trellises. Most varieties are very well-behaved and just need a little tucking in to their supports every so often and an annual prune to keep them performing year after year.
One of the many good things about clematis is that there's never any need to be without their charming, sunny flowers, as there are varieties which flower at all times of the year. In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you'll find clematis that flower in spring, summer, autumn and winter: here's our pick to give you a clematis for every month.
January:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Clematis cirrhosa var. balearica has pretty ferny evergreen leaves and curious red-speckled&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; flowers: the fluffy seedheads which follow last for months
February: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;'Wisley Cream' is another early bird with greeny-white flowers and glossy evergreen foliage:&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; silvery, silky seedheads follow the flowers
March:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Clematis armandii is evergreen, with glossy, leathery leaves and almond-scented blossom
April:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Alpine clematis have daintily nodding, violet-blue flowers that last weeks: 'Frances Rivis' is&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; deep violet-blue and a prolific favourite
May:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Clematis montana comes in white or pink and is cheerfully rampant, a froth of flowers in May
June:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Early large-flowered clematis like 'Perle d'Azur' and 'Prince Charles' have huge and plentiful&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; satiny flowers
July:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Clematis viticella types are tough and trouble-free and come in rich, velvety colours: 'Etoile&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Violette' is deep purple
August:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Late-flowering 'Gravetye Beauty' is an eyecatching ruby red with lovely pompom-like&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;seedheads to follow the flowers
September: &nbsp; &nbsp; Clematis rehderiana needs plenty of room but if you give it the space it's an eyecatching&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;choice, with big panicles of scented pale yellow flowers like little bells
October:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;'Bill McKenzie' has bright yellow flowers with curiously thick petals, curling outwards like&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; lemon peel, and long-lasting silky seedheads
November: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Clematis tangutica is smothered in lantern-like flowers followed by big fluffy seedheads
December: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Clematis cirrhosa var purpurascens 'Freckles' is a very reliable evergreen type with deeply&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; speckled dusty pink flowers right through winter
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing clematis year-round.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Year-round clematis

When you're happily beavering away in the veg garden over summer, it can seem like the long days of abundant flowers and fruit will never end. But one day, inevitably, you cut the last pumpkin and pull up the bean plants and it is, undeniably, winter.
There's no need to stop enjoying your plot just because the weather has turned cold, though. Embrace winter as part of your veg-growing year and you'll find your patch can be as productive from November to February as it is for the rest of the year.
You'll need to begin planning in early spring, as these are plants which need a long time in the ground. Start by choosing some of the great winter veg we offer as seeds or plug plants in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre: here's our pick of the best.
<ul>
<li>Parsnips: sow fresh seed direct into the ground: the sweet, pale roots taste better after being kissed by frost. 
Recommended varieties: 'Tender and True', 'Gladiator'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Cabbages: super-hardy savoys have fabulous flavour and texture: follow with crunchy spring cabbages for an April treat. 
Recommended varieties: 'January King', 'Duncan' (spring cabbage). 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Brussels sprouts: plant early, mid-season and late varieties to pick fat sprouts from September to February. 
Recommended varieties: 'Trafalgar', 'Rubine'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Celeriac: knobbly roots with the fine flavour of celery but much easier to grow: keeps well, too. 
Recommended varieties: 'Prinz', 'Monarch'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Kale: if you want an easy-to-grow cabbage substitute, pick young kale leaves for a taste sensation. 
Recommended varieties: 'Dwarf Green Curled', 'Cavolo Nero'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Winter salads: sow spicy winter baby-leaf mixes under cloches, or pick from the new range of Japanese salads. 
Recommended varieties: Mizuna, Mustard 'Red Frills'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Chard: sow in September and you'll be picking spinach-like chard all winter. Protect with cloches in bad weather. 
Recommended varieties: 'Rhubarb', 'Swiss Chard'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Leeks: ramrod straight leeks are as hardy as anything: plant seedlings deeply for long white shanks. 
Recommended varieties: 'Musselburgh', 'Bleu de Solaise'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Rhubarb: force clumps of big, beefy rhubarb for tender pink stems from February onwards. 
Recommended varieties: 'Timperley Early', 'Victoria'.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing winter vegetables.

Winter vegetables

A greenhouse is a real asset in a garden. It can be a beautiful building, for one thing: when the sun glints off the glass of a white-painted greenhouse filled with vibrantly colourful plants it'll always make you smile.
But it's also a wonderful way to expand your gardening beyond all recognition. In our garden centre you'll find an Aladdin's cave of possibilities for your greenhouse, whether you want orchids, tender nerines and pelargoniums in day-glo colours, or tomatoes and cucumbers for warm fruit picked straight off the vine.
In fact, there's no reason you can't have something special in your greenhouse in every month of the year. Use our handy guide to make the most of your garden's best asset.
Spring 
Greenhouses are great for forcing plants into performing early, whether it's spring bulbs for a late winter display, or strawberries for a crop a couple of months ahead. And once you start sowing seeds in a greenhouse, you'll quickly be bursting at the seams and wondering how you ever managed without one.
Summer 
Glasshouses pump out the produce through summer as the extra heat allows you to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, chilli peppers and aubergines. Feed weekly to keep the crops coming and water at least once a day – automatic watering systems, available in our garden centre, ease the workload.
Autumn 
As the last of the summer crops go over, replace them with salads to keep the greenhouse supplying you generously through the months to come. Plant plug plants of lettuce, baby-leaf salads and winter spinach straight into the greenhouse border where they'll grow slowly till spring.
Winter 
You'll find a range of greenhouse heaters in our garden centre to keep your glasshouse frost-free through the coldest months of the year, so you can keep tropical plants like aeoniums and bananas going from one year to the next. Tender herbs like lemongrass, French tarragon or stevia suddenly become possible, too, when you can bring them under cover for winter.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about making good use of your greenhouse all year round.

The year-round greenhouse

It's one of the most exciting moments in a gardener's year: you go into your greenhouse or peek at your windowsill to find the seeds you sowed a week ago shyly poking out little green sprouts.
Seed-sowing is hugely satisfying and an economic way to fill your garden with colourful annuals, herbs and vegetables. Just choose what you want from the many packets you'll find in our garden centre in %locations%.
To make sure you get those little plants off to the best start, follow our tips for seed-sowing success.
Sowing direct:
<ul>
<li>Hold off till it's warm enough as seed sown in chilly soil sulks and rots. A constant soil temperature of about 7°C is a green light for most hardy varieties.</li>
<li>
Prepare the ground well so seedlings can get their heads out easily. Remove weeds and stones, and rake soil into the texture of breadcrumbs.
</li>
<li>Sow sparingly to save the trouble of thinning out, and to avoid diseases spreading among overcrowded seedlings.</li>
<li>
Don't sow too deep – about 1/2 cm is enough for tiny seeds; larger seeds can go in at 1cm deep. Sink really large seeds like broad beans to twice their depth.
</li>
<li>Sow in lines and then when your seedlings come up you'll recognise them. Weed seedlings growing between the lines are easily removed.</li>
</ul>
Sowing under cover:
<ul>
<li>Use specialist seed compost as it's sterilised and fine-textured: soil-based John Innes seed compost, available in our garden centre, is ideal.</li>
<li>
Sow in modules to avoid root disturbance and you can transplant seedlings without checking growth. Sow one or two seeds to each module and pot on once the roots fill the space.
</li>
<li>Water from the bottom to avoid disturbing the seed: half fill a tray with water and stand the seed tray in it till the surface turns damp.</li>
<li>
Use tap water rather than saved rainwater as many fungal diseases are water-borne: tap water is relatively clean, keeping seedlings safer.
</li>
<li>Keep them cosy especially if they're tender: bring indoors at night, or heat your greenhouse to about three degrees above zero.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about success in sowing seeds.

Seed sowing success

Natural planting using swathes of gently-swaying grasses shot through with drifts of tall, open perennials to mimic the wild look of the American prairie lands caught the imagination of gardeners across Europe in the 1990s, and it's been going strong ever since - you can see some fabulous examples at public gardens like Trentham in Staffordshire. It's a look you can adapt easily at home for a gorgeous, contemporary design that's also very low maintenance.
You'll find all the plants you need in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre: here's how to create your own back-garden prairie.
<ul>
<li>Choose the right spot: prairies need sunshine, so pick an open, bright area of your garden, preferably not too damp as most prairie-style plants prefer free-draining conditions. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Restrict your varieties: prairie planting relies on repetition for its effect, so limit your range of plants to a handful of grass varieties and a few perennials or annuals - just plant lots of them. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Start with the grasses: these form the backbone of your design, so choose carefully. Tall grasses move gracefully in the wind: good choices are Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Molinia caerulea 'Transparent' or evergreen Stipa gigantea. All have spectacular flowers which sparkle in the frosts of winter. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Mix in the flowers: flat-headed or spherical flowers work best with grasses as contrasts in texture and shape. They often flower at the same height, too, giving that level prairie-like look. Go for achilleas, autumn-flowering asters, and other daisies: both echinacea and rudbeckias were made for prairie settings. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Plant in drifts: design your planting not in blobby groups, but in drifts of the same plant meandering naturally in waves through the design. Plant seven, nine or eleven of the same plant together: be generous for maximum impact. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Don't be too tidy: part of the charm of a prairie planting is the effect of frosty winter weather on seedheads and dead stems, so leave clearing up until February, when you can just chop everything back down to the ground and let it do it all over again.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about designing prairie planting.

Prairie planting

Most gardens have a shady spot: a north-facing wall, perhaps, or under a tree, or in the shadow of a nearby building. Learn to love your shade: you'll find a world of new plants opens up, and you get a cool, pleasant nook to sit out of the heat of the day: perfect for enjoying an iced drink after a hot session gardening.
The range of plants you'll find in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;to grow in shade is extensive and includes delicate woodlanders, broad-leaved foliage plants and pretty spring flowers. We've picked our top ten shade-loving plants to turn your shady bits into garden highlights.
<ul>
<li>Hostas: there's an ever-wider choice of bold, broad-leaved hostas, from beefy ribbed 'Sum and Substance' to white-splashed 'Fire and Ice'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Ferns: damp shady spots cry out for graceful Osmunda regalis or silver-and-purple Japanese painted ferns.&nbsp; If your shady spot is dry, grow Dryopteris felix-mas: 'Cristata' has curly-ended fronds. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Rodgersia: massive leaves like a bronzed horse-chestnut 30cm across erupt from the ground, followed by stately plumes of white or pink flowers 
.</li>
<li>Foxgloves: living wild in woodland, foxgloves love dappled shade. Grow common foxglove in purple or white, or an eyecatching modern multicoloured hybrid. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Epimediums: among the prettiest spring woodlanders, the young emerging leaves in shades of copper are almost as lovely as the dancing flowers. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pachysandra terminalis: a really useful ground-cover plant with a dense covering of evergreen leaves that grow even in the deepest shade. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Euonymus: choose from silver-and-green 'Silver Queen' or gold-and-green 'Emerald 'n' Gold' for an easy, evergreen, low-maintenance shrub that sings out from a shady spot. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Brunnera: with broad, ground-smothering leaves (in 'Jack Frost' they're silvery-green), it's the flowers which really steal the show, powder-blue and prolific throughout spring. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hardy geraniums: among the easiest plants to grow, geraniums flower profusely in shade: choose pale-coloured varieties like Geranium sanguineum 'Album' to glow in low light. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Heucheras: heuchera leaves are every bit as colourful as flowers, from rich plum 'Palace Purple' to 'Amber Waves', the colour of butterscotch. They're evergreen, too.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing plants for shade.

Plants for shade

'One generation plants the tree, another gets the shade' – so goes the Chinese proverb. The fruit trees you plant today will grow for many decades into the future, though luckily you don't have to wait till your kids take over to enjoy the fruit.
Once you've selected your tree – traditional apples and pears, or perhaps cherries, apricots or a fig, all available from our garden centre – give it the best possible start to its long life by getting the planting right. Here's how:
<ul>
<li>Choose the site carefully: some fruit trees, such as cherries, will fruit in partial shade but most need a sunny spot that's reasonably sheltered. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Dig your hole: the size is important so your tree grows at the right height in the soil. Make your hole a third wider than the rootball, and the same depth as the container the tree is growing in (if your tree is bare-root, look for the 'soil mark' just where the roots meet the stem). 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Use a garden fork to lightly loosen the soil at the bottom of the hole to let the roots get through easily. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Bang a sturdy tree stake, available in our garden centre, into the bottom of the hole at 45° to vertical, pointing into the prevailing wind. It should cross the trunk about halfway up. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Now place the tree in the hole next to the stake, spreading out the roots evenly if it's bare-root. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Back-fill the hole with soil, treading it in gently as you go so the tree is well anchored in the soil. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Water thoroughly, so the moisture sinks right down into the root zone, and top with a nice deep mulch of well-rotted farmyard manure, pulled back from the trunk so it doesn't encourage rotting. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Finish by tying the tree to the stake with a specialist rubber tree tie. You'll find these in our garden centre: they work in a figure-eight between tree and stake to prevent rubbing and allow the tree trunk to expand.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our&nbsp;%locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planting fruit trees.

Planting a fruit tree

Planting a veg garden really kicks off the year. By the end of March you'll have bought new potatoes and onion sets from our garden centre and tucked them into their new homes, and with a bit of luck you'll be getting out those seed packets you chose from our extensive range of fruit and veg to sow the first hardy crops like carrots, peas, cabbages and beetroot.
But what happens when that first flush of productivity is over? Once you've harvested those new potatoes it's still only June, there's half the growing year left but you've got bare patches opening up all over the place.
Planting for a continuous harvest throughout the year is one of the holy grails of veg gardening. With a little planning and some tricks of the trade you too can avoid boom and bust, evening out your harvest so there's always something to pick somewhere on the plot. Here's how:
<ul>
<li>Successional sowing: Fast-growing veg like baby-leaf salads and carrots are ready within weeks, so repeat sow just half a row at a time every month through the season to keep them coming. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Intercropping: use every inch of space by sowing quick-growing carrots, spinach or beetroot among slower-growing brassicas: that way while they're growing, you get an extra harvest from the same space. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Plug plants: in our garden centre you'll find a huge range of young vegetable plants, ideal for dropping into gaps opened up by harvesting lettuces, cabbages or leeks for a near-instant second harvest. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sow different varieties: many types of veg, like carrots, calabrese and sprouts, have early, mid-season and late varieties: sow all three and they'll mature at different rates, extending your harvesting time. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Remember winter: you won't feel like sowing crops for winter while it's still spring, but if you don't your harvest will stop dead in October. Plant purple-sprouting broccoli, winter cabbage, leeks and parsnips in March to keep the veg garden pumping out the harvest through the chill.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about keeping a continuous harvest from your vegetable garden throughout the year.

Keeping up the harvest

Few plants are as easy-going as herbs. You can pop them in any spare corner and they'll settle in without fuss. Many of the herbs you'll find in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre are evergreen, too, so they'll perform all year without demanding much in return.
But to encourage your herbs to produce plenty of fresh growth for you to pick, it's worth paying them a little extra attention. Follow our top tips to enjoy heavenly herbs all year round.
<ul>
<li>Improve drainage: shrubby herbs like rosemary, sage and thyme hail from the poor, stony soils of the Mediterranean – and that's what they'll enjoy in your garden. If your soil is slow-draining clay, dig in bagged grit, available from our garden centre, before planting. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sun or shade? Most herbs like to bake and prefer a spot in full sun, but there are exceptions. Parsley bolts if it's too hot, and chervil too prefers shade. Other herbs for shady spots include lemon balm, sorrel and sweet woodruff. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sow annual herbs little and often: coriander, dill and chervil are quick-growing, leafy herbs, ready within a couple of months of sowing. Make sure you don't run out by sowing a new batch every month, ready to take over once your first harvest is finished. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Give flowering herbs a haircut: mint, marjoram and thyme flower profusely in early summer, and bees adore the blossoms. After the flowers are over, though, trim back the plants by about a quarter to encourage a new flush of leafy growth. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Repot mint every year: always grow mint in containers, as it's incredibly invasive (sink the pot among your other herbs for a more natural look). To keep it healthy, knock the plant out of the pot each spring, divide and replant in fresh compost. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Bring in frost-tender herbs: lemongrass, French tarragon and stevia don't tolerate temperatures below zero, so each year before the first frost dig them up and pot up in compost with added grit for drainage.&nbsp; Overwinter in a frost-free greenhouse or on a windowsill till late spring.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing herbs.

Keeping herbs happy

Leaving soil bare to the elements for any length of time is a recipe for disaster. Soil structure is a delicate thing, and if it's pounded into a hard cap by relentless rain, baked by the sun and then colonised by tough, hard-to-eradicate weeds it's no wonder you struggle to get anything to grow by spring.
There's an easy, economic way to protect your soil for long periods of time, while improving its structure and feeding it, too. Green manures are beneficial plants grown like crops on vacant land. All have some sort of good effect on soil, and they're so densely-sown they keep the worst of the weather at bay.
In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you'll find several varieties of green manure as large packets of seed, to broadcast and rake in as soon as the land falls empty. They germinate in next to no time, covering the ground rapidly with greenery so weeds don't get a look-in.
When you want to use that patch again, shear off the top growth and add it to the compost heap. Then roughly dig the roots of the green manure into the ground. Allow them a few weeks to rot back into the soil and they'll release nitrogen for your plants to use later in the season.
Here are five green manures to try in your garden:
<ul>
<li>Buckwheat: A delicate, graceful plant that's quick-growing, with lush, nitrogen-rich leaves. It's frost-tender, so only use it between April and August. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Phacelia: Pretty in flower and adored by bees, phacelia is grown as a summer green manure, though its frosted stems act like a blanket through winter. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Grazing rye: A useful all-rounder which looks like coarse grass and stands all winter. Deep-rooted so it'll break up claggy soils. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Winter tares: Another good choice for protecting soils over winter, this broad bean relative absorbs nitrogen from the air to release into the ground. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Clover: Choose your clover to match your soil: alsike clover (Trifolium hybridum) combats wet, acid soils while crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum) is good for light soils.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about using green manures.
&nbsp;

Green manures

The record for the biggest pumpkin in the world is a holy grail for giant vegetable growers: these days you need a forklift truck just to get your pumpkin to the showground for weighing.
Most of us can't manage pumpkins quite that big, but it's fun to see how big a monster you can manage. A pumpkin growing competition is also a great way to get the kids involved in gardening.
In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you'll find all you need for your crack at conquering the giant pumpkin world: just follow our easy steps to success.
<ul>
<li>Choose the right seed: 'Atlantic Giant' is a recognised monster pumpkin, but other varieties to try include 'Hundredweight' and 'Mammoth'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sow seed: in April sow one seed to a 10cm pot and keep in a frost-free greenhouse, heated propagator or on a sunny windowsill. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Keep the plants warm: cold will set back growth so bring your pumpkin indoors if nights are cold. Pot on into larger containers as it grows. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Dig a pumpkin pit: in late May, dig a hole in the garden about 1 metre wide and deep. Fill with a 50:50 mix of compost and well-rotted farmyard manure, and add slow-release fertiliser. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Plant out: Plant your young pumpkin plant into the pit once all threat of frost has passed, and cover with a lantern cloche until the plant grows too big. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Feed and water: Make sure your pumpkin never goes short of water, and feed weekly with liquid seaweed. When it starts flowering, switch to tomato food to encourage fruits. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pinch out surplus flowers: After three fruits have formed, pinch out others as they appear. Eventually, select the biggest one and remove the rest so the plant puts its energy into just one fruit. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Lift the fruit: raising your pumpkin off the ground onto a pallet or straw helps get the air underneath it, ripening the skin and avoiding rotting. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hire that forklift truck! Once your pumpkin has mellowed to a rich orange in around October, it's time to harvest.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing giant vegetables in your garden.

Giant pumpkins

When it comes to houseplants, there's no reason why you shouldn't put your garden design skills to good use in just the same way as you would any outdoor display.
Houseplants may look more exotic – among the choice in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you'll find lush green ferns, stately weeping figs, orchids and sumptuous velvety-leaved begonias. But the principles are still the same, and a carefully-chosen group will always have far more impact than one plant standing on its own.
Follow our top tips for how to show off your houseplants at their very best.
Match houseplants to your interior décor: picking up your colour scheme in the foliage of your plants is a sure way to add serious wow factor to interior style. Plum-coloured curtains or upholstery echoed in a purple-flowered streptocarpus, for example, brings out the colour in both material and plant. The same trick works with texture, like shiny, reflective leaves in a modern chrome-and-glass kitchen.
Repeat the same plant: several identical plants repeated along a hallway or up stairs invite your eye to follow them – a great way to highlight something in your home, whether it's a sculpture or a signature piece of furniture. Clipped green plants like ivy or privet can be made into elegant topiary that's stylish and bold.
Choose contrasts: when you're picking plants to group together, go for opposites. Tall, upright plants like dracaena work well with lower-growing, like philodendron, and small-leaved ivy contrasts with the broader leaves of the peace lily. Colours, too, can provide fabulous effects: try clover-like purple oxalis paired with yellow-flowered kalanchoe.
Plant a big specimen pot: several different houseplants can go in the same pot, as long as it's big enough and all the plants like the same conditions - shade-loving ferns, for example, go well with peace lilies which don't like full sun either. Then just choose your group so there's one taller plant to give the display height, then mid-height plants and low-growing or cascading plants to cover the soil for a pleasing, well-balanced display.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about grouping your houseplants together.

Displaying your houseplants

Compost is a finely-balanced thing, a complex blend of minerals, nutrients and organic matter judged so your plants perform at their best. It's no surprise, then, that there are nearly as many types of compost as there are varieties of plant.
We stock dozens of varieties in our garden centre in %locations%, each with their own particular use. Use our guide to help you pick the right one for your plants.
<ul>
<li>Peat-free: A more environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional peat-based compost, using substitutes like recycled green waste, coir or composted bark. Fine for all general garden uses, including containers. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Peat reduced: Similar to peat-free, but with a higher proportion of peat - up to 50% depending on the manufacturer – giving a more even structure. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pre-added feed and water granules: compost with a slow-release granular feed already added keeps plants growing vigorously without you having to do a thing; added water granules hold on to water, releasing it more gradually – great for hanging baskets. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Soil-based composts: Heavier soil-based blends are usually mixed to the John Innes formula in three grades from John Innes no. 1, for seedlings, to John Innes no. 3 for mature shrubs. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Seed compost: Fine-grade seed composts are sterilised to eliminate disease and low-nutrient so your seedlings don't get scorched. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Ericaceous compost: If you garden on neutral or alkaline soils and love acid-loving plants like rhododendrons or blueberries, choose this low-pH compost to give them just the conditions they need. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Rose, tree and shrub composts: often soil-based, these are designed to mix into planting holes to get newly-planted trees and shrubs off to a flying start. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Soil improvers: organic soil improvers like well-rotted farmyard manure or composted bark open up the soil's structure, breaking up heavy clay and helping free-draining soils hold on to moisture. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Specialist composts: certain types of plant have very special needs. Whether you're growing orchids, bonsai, citrus or aquatic plants you'll find a compost to cater for them in our garden centre.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing composts.

Choosing compost

It's almost as if bulbs were invented for containers: they grow happily despite the restricted environment, look fabulous and come back year after year.
Make the most of your container bulbs with our top display tips.
Masses of tulips: at their most striking planted en masse in a head-turning block of colour, tulips look wonderful as a single variety packed into a large container. Try scarlet 'Apeldoorn' or sumptuous 'Abu Hassan' for real wow factor.
Layer planting: planting bulbs in three layers so each flowers in succession gives a really long display. Plant late-flowering pale pink 'Baywatch' tulips on the bottom, with dwarf narcissus 'Tete a Tete' and then early-flowering Iris reticulata on top for flowers from late winter till May.
Trying things out: when you're considering growing a new type of bulb but aren't sure how it'll perform, get to know it first by popping it in a container for its first year. You can then watch it up close to see how it does: if you're smitten, plant into your borders after flowering.
Plunge planting: for temporary splashes of colour, keep showy bulbs like tulips, lilies or agapanthus in large containers. When they're on the point of flowering, plunge pot and all into the ground in the main garden for instant displays.
Specimen bulbs: very lovely, delicate bulbs like bulbocodium daffodils or tiny reticulata irises disappear in the rough and tumble of the open garden, so pot them up and display them on a table to appreciate them to the full.
Indoor forcing: hyacinths and fragrant paperwhite daffodils can be brought indoors for forcing, filling your house with colour and scent through the depths of winter. You can buy ready-forced bulbs from our garden centre from late autumn.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing bulbs in containers.

Bulbs in containers

Once the last daffodil has died down, don't let your bulb display stop. Dozens of bulbs flower spectacularly right through summer, keeping you in dazzling flowers until well into autumn.
Plant as you would spring bulbs, burying them to three times their depth in crumbly, moisture-retentive but free-draining soil. If yours isn't perfect, dig in organic matter first (we have well-rotted farmyard manure in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre) and add a handful of slow-release fertiliser like bonemeal.
Plant our top ten summer bulbs from the range in our garden centre for a summer that's spectacular from end to end.
<ul>
<li>Allium: ornamental onions make explosions of colour dotted through the border, with ramrod-straight spherical flowerheads. 
Recommended varieties: 'Globemaster', 'Purple Sensation' 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Agapanthus: the African lily is one of the truest blues you'll find, and their huge heads are a spectacular sight. 
Recommended varieties: 'Bressingham Blue', 'Back in Black' 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Dahlias: handsome plants with dozens of flower forms: whether you like spider, pompom or single-flowered, you'll find them in our garden centre. Recommended varieties: 'Bishop of Llandaff', 'David Howard' 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Lilies: heavily-scented oriental lilies have huge, heavily-perfumed blooms. Other types include hardy Asiatic lilies and pretty martagon types. 
Recommended varieties: Lilium regale, Lilium martagon. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Begonias: if it's waterfalls of flowers you want – look no further. Tuberous begonias tumble over container edges in a mass of bloom. 
Recommended varieties: 'Champagne', 'Angelique'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Gladioli: tall and sophisticated, gladioli are in fact easy to grow, with spires of huge, intensely-coloured flowers. 
Recommended varieties: 'Green Star', Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Acidanthera murielae: another showstopper in the border. Tall, scented and perfect for cutting, its graceful white flowers have purple hearts. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Iris: bearded irises are so aristocratic they have their own language of falls, standards and beards. Don't worry: they're all sumptuous. 
Recommended varieties: 'Jane Phillips', 'Superstition'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Cannas: hot and tropical brilliant orange, vermilion or yellow cannas have paddle-like leaves which can be as colourful as the flowers. 
Recommended varieties: 'Durban', 'Wyoming'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Galtonia candicans: stately pure-white spires of bell-like flowers erupt gracefully in mid-summer, reaching up to 1 metre tall.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing and growing summer bulbs.

Bulbs for summer colour

A garden humming with bees and shimmering with brilliantly-coloured butterflies is full of life and beauty, the insects adding another dimension to your planting and giving you yet another reason to enjoy your garden.
By encouraging bees and butterflies into your garden you're doing the planet a favour as well as your plants. Populations of both insects have been plummeting, a combination of disease, climate change and the lack of suitable pollen-rich flowers. It's important because their activities are responsible for around a third of the food we eat – so helping them out makes good sense all round.
You'll find all you need in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;to make your plot a haven for bees and butterflies: here are some of the features you can include for them when you're planning your garden.
Attracting bees:
<ul>
<li>Include water: Like all creatures, bees need to drink. In our garden centre you'll find all sorts of water features, from bird baths to bubble fountains and ponds.</li>
<li>Plant bee-friendly plants: Bees love plants with simple, open flowers so they can get at the nectar easily. Good choices include clematis, hollyhocks, geraniums, lavender and flowering herbs.</li>
</ul>
Attracting butterflies:
<ul>
<li>Make a sunbathing platform: Butterflies adore a warm sunny spot, so give them somewhere to sunbathe by placing a wide flat stone in a sunny spot in your garden to absorb heat for them to enjoy.</li>
<li>Leave caterpillar-friendly areas: Butterflies are only half the story: caterpillars need catering for, too. A patch of nettles is perfect caterpillar food, and other plants caterpillars enjoy include mallow (Malva moschata) and mullein (Verbascum bombyciferum).</li>
<li>Butterfly-friendly plants: The more nectar-rich your plants, the happier your butterflies. They'll flock to buddleja, sedum, red valerian, scabious, Michaelmas daisies and aubretia – so plant plenty in your garden.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about attracting bees and butterflies to your garden.

Bee and butterfly gardening

Filling your house with the colour and fragrance of fresh flowers cut from the garden is one of the great pleasures of gardening. The trouble is, though, if you take all the flowers from the garden, there's nothing left to look at outside.
The answer is to create yourself a cutting garden – an area of your garden dedicated to raising flowers to enjoy indoors. The whole purpose of such a garden is to be harvested regularly, rather like a vegetable garden, so you don't mind if it's sometimes got a few bare patches.
You'll find all you need to create your cutting garden in our garden centre in %locations%. Here's how to go about it:
<ol>
<li>Find the right spot: you'll need somewhere in full sun, as your plants will only flower to their full potential with plenty of light. Planting densely also demands a lot from your soil, so choose the best-quality patch you've got.</li>
<li>
Get ready: before you start, dig over the area, removing weeds and large stones, and work in plenty of well-rotted farmyard manure. Then put in hedging and edging: you'll find plants for low hedging in our garden centre, and materials to lay a smart path.
</li>
<li>Choose your plants: select 'hardy annual' seeds from the range in our garden centre. Great choices are white, frothy Ammi majus, Cosmos bipinnatus with lovely daisy-like flowers and of course sweetpeas to train up a wigwam in the centre.</li>
<li>
Start sowing: Sow your flowers from March onwards just like vegetables, in straight lines to make picking them easier. Make shallow drills and sprinkle the seed sparingly along the bottom. Cover with a little soil, label and leave.
</li>
<li>Keep the display going: sow little and often so you've got some plants to pick, some coming up to flowering and some just sown. Support taller varieties like larkspur by sticking canes in each corner of the row and threading round string at intervals up the height of the plants.</li>
</ol>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planting an annual cutting garden.

Annual cutting gardens

Feeds plants for four months 
50% more root development essential for ericaceous, acid loving plants 
Lime-free, improved water retention 
Healthier, longer lasting plants

West+ Ericaceous Compost

Nutrient rich for growing vegetables 
Stronger, healthier root establishment 
Rich source of organic matter 
Perfect for growing all sizes of vegetables

Organic Vegetable Growing Compost, 50L

Enriches tired soil and builds fertility&nbsp; 
A natural source of organic matter&nbsp; 
Produces higher crop yields 
Abundant healthy blooms 
An ideal soil conditioner 
&euro;5.99 each

Offer - Organic Farmyard Manure, 50L

Peat Free 
Feeds plants for four months 
Super lightweight &ndash; easy to carry 
Perfect for flower, fruit &amp; vegetable growing

NEW West+ Light and Easy Peat Free Compost

Improves germination by up to 25% 
Perfect nutrient balance for swift establishment 
Improved aeration and drainage 
Unique formulation to release nutrients when required

Surestart Seed & Cutting Compost, 10L Pouch

Gives young plants the best start in life 
Feeds for four weeks 
Encourages healthy growth 
Develops stronger roots

John Innes Young Plants – No 1, 10L Pouch

Feeds and establishes for a healthier plant life 
Feeds for five weeks 
Develops stronger roots and abundant blooms 
Well drained compost

John Innes Potting On – No 2, 10L Pouch

Nurtures and sustains a longer plant life 
Feeds for five weeks 
Rich in nutrients for hungry plants 
Encourages new growth

John Innes Mature Plants – No 3

Sterilised and graded Top Soil 
Perfect for adding nutrients 
Ideal for lawn preparation and levelling lawns 
Good for planting Buxus in pots

Offer - Top Soil Value Bag 35L

Adds organic matter to poor soils 
Aids moisture and nutrient retention 
Improves drainage 
Improves sandy &amp; heavy soil

Offer - Soil Conditioner 50L

Good for moisture retention &amp; weed prevention 
Small even chips, good decorative finish 
Ideal for small borders and containers 
&euro;8.99 each

Offer - Decorative Minichip – Mulch

Soil and fertilisers

Gifts for people who love their garden are everywhere in our&nbsp;%locations%&nbsp;garden centre and you&#39;re sure to find inspiration&nbsp;from our range of products to enhance your home and garden.

Garden ornaments you&#39;ll find in our garden centre include sundials and clocks, statues and sculptures,&nbsp;windchimes, wall art and topiary.

Keen veg growers will enjoy our windowsill kits and beautifully presented pre-packed sets of seeds and&nbsp;pots. We&#39;ve also got a range of seed boxes, ornamental plant labels and planters to get them growing fresh&nbsp;fruit and veg year-round.

Plants are always a delight to gardeners. You&#39;ll find seasonal plants including pots of forced hyacinths and&nbsp;spring bulbs, fragrant winter shrubs or poinsettias for Christmas in our garden centre: another great gift idea&nbsp;is a rose named for an anniversary.

For gardeners who like to choose for themselves we have gift vouchers in attractive presentation cards,&nbsp;suitable for every occasion.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about gifts for gardeners.

Going home-grown for Christmas makes the holiday a real celebration of your garden's abundance. And one of the nicest things you can do with all those delicious and beautiful things you can pick from your garden is to hang them in your home as very special decorations.
In our garden centre you'll find plants for pickable Christmas decorations, as well as&nbsp; pinecones, seasonal ornaments, silver and gold spray paint, tinsel and baubles – in short, everything you need to put the finishing touches on your fresh-from-the-garden Christmas. You're only limited by your imagination - so here are a few suggestions to get you started.
<ul>
<li>Home-grown baubles: The spherical flowerheads on the ornamental onion Allium christophii dry to starburst seedheads that look fantastic sprayed silver and hung from ribbons.</li>
<li>.</li>
<li>Tussie-mussies: pick spicily fragrant sprigs of witch hazel, viburnum or Christmas box and tie together with herbs into a little Victorian-style bouquet to hang from the ceiling.</li>
<li>
Wreaths: for this you'll need berrying holly, ivy and a wreath frame, all available from our garden centre. Weave the greenery onto the frame along with pinecones, brilliant red chillies and perhaps some dried orange Chinese lanterns (Physalis alkekengi) and hang on your door to welcome Christmas visitors.
</li>
<li>Banister garlands: just like wreaths, but this time wound around your banisters and bound in place with florists' wire. Add pine branches, berries, dried flowers and rosehips to complete the picture.</li>
<li>
Golden bells: take three pinecones and spray them gold, then wire the stems together in threes to make a little bundle that looks just like bells to hang in corners or from the ceiling.
</li>
<li>Floating flowers: choose a shallow glass bowl from the range in our garden centre, fill it with water and float Christmas hellebore flowers and candles on it for a uniquely beautiful centrepiece for your Christmas table.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about using plants from the garden to decorate your home at Christmas.

Grow your own Christmas decorations

Gifts

Pick the right tool for the right job, and you'll find things magically become easier. Specialist garden tools&nbsp;have been designed for every gardening task, and if you invest in the tool that's made for the activity you&nbsp;have planned, work becomes a pleasure.
Here are just some of the specialist gardening tools you can find in our garden centre:
Bulb planter: slice through the ground to remove a perfect cone of earth for planting your spring bulbs
Dibber: use the tip for making indentations in compost for seeds, or go deeper for transplanting seedlings
Edging knife: neaten up the tricky bits between flower border and lawn with an easy-to-use half moon edger
Draw hoe: pull up earth around potatoes to protect from frost and encourage lots of tasty tubers
Garden line: sowing in a straight line is a doddle when you mark out your drill with a simple garden line
Pruning knife: sharp, efficient, and small enough to slip into your back pocket: essential kit at cuttings time
Shears: specialist topiary shears clip tight corners, while general-purpose types keep hedges in good shape.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information about which gardening tools to choose.

Special tools for the specialist gardener

There&#39;s a huge range of gardening tools nowadays &ndash; you&#39;ll find most of them on display in our garden centre.&nbsp;Though they&#39;re all great to have, there are some you&#39;ll use every time you go in the garden. All these are&nbsp;available in our garden centre.

Digging spade: makes heavy-duty soil turning jobs easy. Lightweight, easy-clean stainless steel blades are&nbsp;best.

Garden fork: great for digging stony soils, mixing in a layer of compost, or weeding larger areas.

Hand trowel: essential for transplanting seedlings and planting bulbs: blades marked with measurements&nbsp;make judging planting distances easy

Weeding fork: careful weeding among established plants needs an easy-to-manoeuvre hand fork.

Secateurs: back-pocket essentials for all gardeners at pruning time, but also for dead-heading and taking&nbsp;cuttings

Dutch hoe: hoe off weed seedlings once a week and you&#39;ll always have a pristine plot

Rake: use for raking spring seedbeds, levelling soil in summer, or gathering autumn leaves to make leaf&nbsp;mould soil conditioner.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information about choosing the tools which are right for&nbsp;you.

Must-have gardening tools

The centrepiece of every well-kept garden, an emerald green lawn sets off your plants to perfection and&nbsp;gives you a beautiful, soft space to sit and soak up the atmosphere.

Keeping your lawn in tip-top condition is easy when you&#39;ve got the right tools, and luckily we&#39;ve got just what&nbsp;you need right here in our garden centre. Here are a few essentials to get you started:

Half-moon edger: straightforward and comfortable to use, the half-moon blade slices those hairy, overgrown&nbsp;edges into a crisp, pleasing finish

Wire rake: rake up autumn leaves to make leafmould, then give your lawn (and yourself!) a workout by&nbsp;scarifying &ndash; raking out the old thatch to let the grass breathe

Garden fork: perfect for aerating lawns, punching drainage holes through the surface to let water flow away&nbsp;from the surface and down to the roots where it&#39;s needed.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information about which tools to choose and how to use&nbsp;them.

Look after your lawn

Pruning is one of the most enjoyable jobs in the garden, whether you&#39;re sorting out tangled climbing roses,&nbsp;thinning blackcurrants or removing damaged tree branches.

Using the right tools for each cut helps you work more efficiently and the plant stays healthy - ragged cuts&nbsp;invite infection to set in.

We have a wide range of pruning tools to choose from in our garden centre. Here&#39;s what you need to get&nbsp;started:

Secateurs: used for branches up to 2cm diameter. Bypass secateur blades cut like scissors and are handy&nbsp;in tight corners; anvil secateurs are useful for hard, woody stems.

Loppers: for thicker branches, up to 5cm across. They&#39;re like giant secateurs, some with extendable&nbsp;handles and ratchet actions for extra cutting power.

Bow saws: for large tree work. Lightweight &#39;D&#39; shaped saws with a hacksaw-type blade for tricky corners.

Overhead pruners: when a branch is out of reach, this telescopic handle with both a lopper blade and&nbsp;pruning saw on the end is perfect.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information about choosing pruning tools for the job you&nbsp;need them for.

Cutting edge tools

Tools are a gardener&#39;s best friend &ndash; and top of the list come your trusty hand tools, pressed into daily service&nbsp;for everything from pruning to digging to sowing to weeding.

In our garden centre you&#39;ll find the basic kit for starting out: border spades and forks to turn your soil, hand&nbsp;tools for close-up weeding and secateurs for pruning, trimming and dead-heading.

Pruning tools are an essential part of a gardener&#39;s armoury: in our garden centre you&#39;ll find loppers for&nbsp;thicker branches or if you&#39;re really getting stuck in, pruning saws and bowsaws for the big jobs. Plus we have&nbsp;specialist weeding tools for winkling weeds out of the toughest corners; garden knives for everything from&nbsp;cutting string to taking cuttings; and everything you could need by way of dibbers, brooms and bulb planters.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about the range of hand tools we&nbsp;have in stock.

Holes in the lawn can be caused for all sorts of reasons. Too much traffic, especially at times of drought or extreme wet, can wear the grass out; an over-enthusiastic session with the lawnmower can 'scalp' the grass; or you might have recently dealt with a weed or moss outbreak, leaving weed-free but bare patches behind.
You'll find all you need in our garden centre to put things right again, including complete lawn patching kits containing ready-mixed lawn seed mix to use straight out of the bag. Here's how to mend that hole so it looks like it was never there.
<ul>
<li>Cut an even square or rectangle around the bare area with a sharp spade, removing remaining turf and topsoil to about 5cm deep.</li>
<li>
Using a garden fork, loosen the area to about 15cm down, wiggling the fork back and forth to break up compacted soil.
</li>
<li>Fill the hole with topsoil (available bagged from our garden centre) till it's level with the surrounding lawn and mix in general purpose fertiliser such as Growmore. Water lightly.</li>
<li>
If oversowing with seed: simply broadcast the seed over the top of the patch (for larger areas, mix the seed with silver sand so it flows more easily) and rake in.
</li>
<li>If patching with turf: remove a little more soil to begin with so your topsoil sits a couple of centimetres lower than the surrounding grass, then cut a turf to fit the area.</li>
<li>
Press the new turf into the area so it's in good contact with the underlying topsoil and tamp in the edges until they sit snugly up against the surrounding grass. Fill gaps with more topsoil.
</li>
<li>For either method, water at least once a day for two weeks, to make sure your new grass doesn't suffer a setback to growth.</li>
<li>
Cover with clear polythene if the weather is cool, as this will help seeds to germinate and turf to establish more quickly.
</li>
<li>Your new patch will be ready to walk on and mow in another four weeks.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about patching your lawn.

Patching a lawn

When you&#39;re planning the hard landscaping in your garden, don&#39;t be afraid to get imaginative. You don&#39;t have to stick to just one material, and you don&#39;t have to use stone or brick: there are dozens of ways to make your paving unique to you, and your garden will be far more personal as a result.

In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you&#39;ll find all sorts of materials to mix and match your paths for that hand-finished effect, from regular paviours and stone slabs to cobbles, pebbles, setts and tiles for mosaics. Get creative and try a few of these more unconventional approaches to paving:

<ul>
	<li>Grow plants between your paving slabs: Instead of filling with mortar, use compost and plant ribbons of low-growing thyme, chamomile or cushiony mind-your-own-business (Soleirolia soleirolii) between your paving slabs. The wider the ribbon, the more marked the effect: at its most extreme you end up with stepping stones in a sea of green. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Insert contrasting circles: you can buy easy-to-install circular mini-patios in our garden centre which slot together in ever-widening rings. Sit one of these within a conventional square patio, preferably in a contrasting colour, for an eyecatching focal point. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Cut a ribbon of water through: rills are an elegant way to bring water into the garden when you don&#39;t have space for a pond: running through a channel cut into a stone patio really brings your paving to life. If you&#39;re feeling really ambitious, try twin rills or a spiral rill leading into a central pool or bubble fountain. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Design a mosaic picture: Leave an area of your patio empty so you can create a picture out of coloured pebbles. It can be as simple as a star or a flower; or as complicated as the one at Great Dixter in East Sussex, which depicts owner Christopher Lloyd&#39;s pet dogs. Lay out your design before you do it, then put down a screed of mortar and press the stones into it, making sure they&#39;re level.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about making paving unique to you.

Making paving special

Your tools are your best friends in the garden. They&#39;ll stand by you through thick and thin: they&#39;re the first things you reach for at times of trouble, and your companions through your greatest triumphs.

Well-made, good-quality tools like those you&#39;ll find in our garden centre can last you a lifetime if you take good care of them. So make it a part of your annual routine to spend an hour or two at the end of the season getting them in good shape before storing them away for the winter. Here&#39;s how:

<ul>
	<li>Give them a clean: let your stainless steel spades and forks dry for a few days so the mud is easier to brush off with a stiff-bristled hand brush. Get every last bit off including the mud wedged in to the neck of the tool head.</li>
	<li>
	Repair any breakages: bent fork tines can be straightened with a piece of hollow metal piping: just slot it over the end of the tine and pull. Replacement wooden handles are available in our garden centre, and you&#39;ll also find spare watering can roses to replace the one you lost, and new blades for pruning saws.
	</li>
	<li>Oil non-steel tools to prevent them rusting in damp weather. This can be as easy as wiping them over with a rag soaked in paraffin, or alternatively fill a bucket with sand and mix in some oil; then dig your tools into the sand to clean and oil them at the same time.</li>
	<li>
	Hang everything up out of the way so they won&#39;t fall over into a hopeless tangle which you&#39;ll have to sort out before you can use them.. Hang spades, hoes, forks and rakes blade-upwards, on double nails banged into the wall, and add some single nails to hold hand trowels, forks, and shears.
	</li>
	<li>Get powered tools serviced at a reputable garden machine company once a year, to change the oil, sharpen blades and generally give them the once over before they&#39;re back in regular use again.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about looking after your garden tools.

Looking after garden tools

A handsome path is a striking finishing touch to your garden in %locations%. It plays an active role in your design, leading a visitor through from one feature to the next and inviting you to explore. It&#39;s also practical, giving you access to borders for weeding and planting. Match the materials you use with others in the garden and you&#39;ll pull your design together so it&#39;s pleasing to look at and delightful to use.

Paths are one of the easiest garden landscaping projects, and you&#39;ll find everything you need in our garden centre from edging to stone slabs, setts and paviours. It&#39;s a project for a free weekend &ndash; here&#39;s how you do it:

<ul>
	<li>Decide what kind of path you want to build, whether it&#39;s a simple barkchip path for a veg patch or a smarter one made of brick paviours. Other options include stone flags, gravel or cobbles.</li>
	<li>
	Mark out your path and dig out the soil to a depth of 10cm (gravel or bark) to 15cm (paviours or stone flags). Make sure the base is level and even along its length.
	</li>
	<li>Install your edging: good edging materials include wooden boarding, brick paviours laid on edge, or granite setts. Fix wood in place with pegs, or lay stone edgings into a bed of mortar and allow to set.</li>
	<li>
	Put in a sub-base 75mm thick to act as a foundation. Scalpings, a by-product of quarrying, are ideal. Compact the base thoroughly, using a plate compactor or hand tamper, till it&#39;s level and even.
	</li>
	<li>For a gravel path, simply top with 50mm of peashingle &ndash; job done!</li>
	<li>
	For paved paths, add a layer of grit sand 40mm thick and compact into a smooth base. You can add cement, one part cement to 10 parts sand, for a more solid base.
	</li>
	<li>Lay paving on top, checking and re-checking that you&#39;ve got it level. Then brush a dry mix of one part cement to four parts sand into the joins: the first shower of rain will make it set hard.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about laying paths.

Laying a path

Gardeners demand a lot of pruning tools, especially in winter when there are roses, clematis, apple trees and fruit bushes to do. There are other cutting tools in regular use, too: hedging and topiary shears, and blades you might not think of as blades like hoes and border spades, both of which need sharp edges to cut&nbsp; through the earth.
Keeping your tools razor-sharp is key to efficient working. Blunt tools take more effort to use, and worse, they can tear at branches rather than cutting them cleanly, causing snags and ragged edges that invite rots and other infections to set in. Hoes and spades, too, are far more effective if they're sharp enough to cut through obstacles rather than bludgeoning them with brute force.
You'll find all you need to keep your tools honed to perfection in our garden centre&nbsp;%locations%, from sharpening stones to specialist sharpening tools for curved blades such as secateurs. To use them well and get your tools cutting cleanly, follow our top tips:
<ul>
<li>Work out which side has the flat cutting surface: for bypass secateurs, this is the curving blade that scissors past the 'anvil' one. This is the edge you need to keep sharp. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Work at an angle of about 30° to the blade and run the sharpening stone along the angled side – if you look at the blade sideways on you'll find out which that is. Work from hinge to tip, always moving the stone away from you to avoid hurting yourself. Keep doing this for a few minutes and you'll find you have a rough edge forming on the underside as tiny shards of metal shear off. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Use a circular motion to gently remove this burr from the other side of the blade, though working flat to the blade this time as you don't want to take the edge off again. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Consider a professional tool-sharpening service for larger-bladed items like hedging shears or petrol-driven hedge trimmers. These only need doing around once a year and it's easier to get the professionals in.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about sharpening gardening tools.

Keeping tools sharp

Weeds, so the saying goes, are just plants in the wrong place. The trouble is, there are so many of them. However much you might think dandelions are pretty, or ground elder has elegant leaves, if you stop to admire them too long you (and your plants) will quickly be overrun.
You'll probably never be completely free of weeds, but it's quite possible to keep them well under control. In our garden centre you'll find all you need from weedkillers for persistent thugs, to hoes to deal with tiny annual weed seedlings before they get their heads too far above ground.
For a really effective anti-weed strategy, tailor your approach to the weed you're tackling: here's how.
<ul>
<li>Annual weeds: the easiest to tackle as long as you have a routine. Every week without fail, whether it looks like it needs it or not, use a Dutch hoe to slice through emerging seedlings just below the surface. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Deep-rooted dandelions and docks: these can regenerate from the tip of the root left in the ground, so dig down deep enough to get the whole thing out, or spot-treat with a glyphosate-based weedkiller. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Smothering bindweed: The twining stems of bindweed are a menace in the garden, strangling your plants and smothering everything, Hand-weeding rarely controls it properly: in our garden centre you'll find hand-held glyphosate gel weedkiller treatments to paint on the leaves without endangering nearby plants. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Persistent ground elder and couch grass: These won't kill your plants but they do compete with them for water and nutrients. Their long, brittle roots mean they often survive digging out by hand. Spray with glyphosate-based weedkiller, or keep them out with thick weed-control fabric, available in our garden centre. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Thuggish brambles:&nbsp; Often a problem on neglected ground, brambles colonise large areas by arching stems which root where they touch the ground. Don a thick pair of gauntlets and wade in with loppers to cut them back, then dig out rootstocks one by one, or paint the stumps with a brushkiller treatment like SBK.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about dealing with weeds in your garden.

Keeping down weeds

When space is really limited, gardening needs ingenuity. With a few clever tricks and some innovative gadgets, though, you can turn even a balcony into a productive garden overflowing with fruit, vegetables and herbs.
You'll find plenty of useful gear to help you build your balcony garden in our garden centre in %locations%, from planters to dwarf apple trees specially bred to grow in restricted spaces. Here are our top tips for balcony success.
<ul>
<li>Use large planters wherever possible, so they act more like raised beds than containers and give your veg a longer root run. Generally, the larger the container you give your veg, the happier they'll be: if your balcony is high-rise, though, get a structural engineer in first to check it can take the weight of containers full of damp compost and plants. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Use successional sowing to keep your pots working hard all year. As soon as you harvest a crop, re-sow the container or replant with vegetable plug plants for a really quick replacement. That way you'll always have new crops growing up as you eat your way through the ones you sowed earlier. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Grow container veg varieties which are better suited to growing with their roots restricted. Good choices are Courgette 'Patio Star', Aubergine 'Ophelia', Broad Bean 'The Sutton' and Pea 'Bingo' – all grow small but have bumper crops for their size. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Don't forget the fruit as there are plenty of long-cropping varieties which grow quite happily in containers including gooseberries, blueberries and blackcurrants. Strawberries do better in pots, as they're off the ground away from slugs; and you can even grow 'Minarette' apple and pear trees, trained on a single stem. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Take care over feeding and watering as your plants depend entirely on you for their every need. Automatic watering systems share the load: you'll find timers, hoses and dripper systems in our garden centre. Add a weekly liquid feed when you water: liquid seaweed acts as a general-purpose tonic, but when plants are flowering a high-potash tomato feed encourages plenty of fruit.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing fruit and vegetables on a balcony.

Growing fruit and veg on balconies

Hand tools

Growing your houseplants in something as beautiful as they are is the perfect finishing touch to your display&nbsp;and shows them off at their very best.

Containers are often an afterthought but they can make or break a good display, and you&#39;ll find pots to set off&nbsp;colourful foliage or emphasise an architectural shape in our garden centre.

Themed or matching containers right through the house give a sense of continuity. Warm textured terracotta&nbsp;gives a rustic look, while coloured ceramic tones in easily with your home decor. Metallic finishes lend&nbsp;modernist style while bamboo or wooden containers are suitably jungly for ferns, palms and bananas. If it&#39;s&nbsp;shabby-chic you like, paint wooden containers or salvage items from bric-a-brac stores.

The shape of your container should also complement the plant growing in it. Low growing, trailing plants like&nbsp;ivy look lovely cascading over a tall container; fountain-shaped plants are complemented by vase-shaped&nbsp;pots. For real wow factor pick out the colours of a plant&#39;s leaves or flowers in the colours of the container or&nbsp;choose complementary colours: white, for example, sets off darker greens and purples beautifully.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about choosing the right containers&nbsp;for your plants.

Cracking good containers

There&#39;s nothing that gladdens the heart in the chilly depths of January quite as much as cheery spring bulbs,&nbsp;forced to flower ahead of time. Super-early hyacinths on a kitchen windowsill fill the house with winter scent,&nbsp;while paperwhite daffodils bring a delicate beauty to a Christmas scene.

Pots of forced bulbs make wonderful Christmas presents - you can buy prepared pre-chilled bulbs in our&nbsp;garden centre from autumn. Don&#39;t forget to treat yourself too!

Start in September, planting into bowls of bulb fibre or multipurpose compost, available in our garden centre.&nbsp;Place the bulbs on compost in the bottom of the bowl so they&#39;re close, but not touching. Fill with more&nbsp;compost so that the tops of the bulbs are just showing.

Place your pot of bulbs in a dark, cool place - ideally, about 9&deg;C. Keep watered, and when shoots reach&nbsp;5cm long bring them out into a cool room to let the leaves green up. Finally, move to a warm windowsill&nbsp;to continue growing. Then all you have to do is clear a space among your Christmas decorations for their&nbsp;moment in the festive spotlight.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information about forcing bulbs for early spring colour.

Forcing the issue

Green, leafy houseplants bring the outdoors indoors - and that means healthy living, too. The palms,&nbsp;dracaenas and ferns you&#39;ll find in our garden centre are proven to reduce stress, remove pollutants from the&nbsp;air and increase oxygen levels.

Help them carry on the good work by creating the conditions they need to thrive. Most green houseplants&nbsp;prefer somewhere bright but out of direct sunlight, with steady temperatures and humid air.

Avoid putting houseplants by radiators or on windowsills where temperatures fall sharply on frosty nights. Try&nbsp;standing them on tables or stands, available in our garden centre, in a bright spot near a window.

Water sparingly, letting compost dry out between times, and mist leaves with a hand spray or stand plants in&nbsp;trays of damp gravel to raise humidity.

Add liquid feed every couple of weeks and wipe leaves with cotton wool soaked in tepid water to keep dust&nbsp;from blocking their pores. While you&#39;re at it, check for pests: fuzzy white tufts are a sign of mealybug, while&nbsp;red spider mite cause yellow mottling and fine webs. Spray with insecticidal soap to put things right again.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about looking after your green&nbsp;houseplants.

Indoor greenery

Despite their exotic appearance, orchids are easy-going houseplants. They are quite happy in indoor&nbsp;conditions and require little care for their spectacular displays.

You&#39;ll find popular moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) as well as Cymbidium and showy Odontoglossum in our&nbsp;garden centre. All have beautiful, long-lasting flowers in colours from white to butterscotch to magenta.

That first flush of flowers isn&#39;t the end of the story: given good conditions a second flowering should follow&nbsp;hot on the heels of the first.

In the wild, orchids grow halfway up rainforest trees, so reproduce their ideal warm, humid conditions in&nbsp;bright but not direct light. Too dry, or too hot, and they&#39;ll refuse to flower.

Water weekly, letting it drain completely and adding specialist orchid fertiliser, also available in our garden&nbsp;centre, once a fortnight.

Phalaenopsis reflower from nodes on the flowering stem, so once the first flowers fade cut back to the&nbsp;topmost node, and keep doing this until you reach the bottom node when you can remove it altogether. Cut&nbsp;out Cymbidium and Odontoglossum flower spikes completely as soon as the flower dies back to encourage&nbsp;more flower spikes.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre&nbsp;in %locations% for more information about how to grow orchids and keep them at&nbsp;their best.

Year-round orchids

Create a garden inside your house with the lush greenery and flowers of houseplants, and you'll not only&nbsp;make your house look beautiful, you'll improve your quality of life. Research has shown that in an average&nbsp;room, just two or three houseplants picked from the range in our garden centre improve air quality, pump&nbsp;feel-good oxygen back into the air and reduce stress.
<div>In our garden centre you'll find handsome architectural palms and ferns for a modern, minimalist look; or&nbsp;pretty African violets, delicate paperwhite daffodils and fragrant stephanotis if shabby chic is more your&nbsp;style.</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>Pick out a good-looking container for your houseplants from the range in our garden centre to really show&nbsp;off their beauty: in the right setting, the impossibly exotic flowers of orchids or the strange, waxy bloom of an&nbsp;anthurium can stop you in your tracks.</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>Houseplants like a bright spot out of direct sunlight and away from radiators. Mist regularly with water to keep&nbsp;humidity high - you'll find hand misters in our garden centre, along with liquid feed to keep them at their best&nbsp;all season long.</div>
<div>&nbsp;</div>
<div>Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about our range of houseplants.</div>

Give your home a touch of truly exotic beauty with some of the dozens of orchids on offer in our garden centre. They're easier to grow than you'd think, especially the Phalaenopsis (moth) orchids, and come in a dazzling array of colours: everything from white to palest yellow to magenta.
Their habit of absorbing moisture and nutrients from the air – in the wild they grow halfway up trees, with no soil at all – means you don't have to stick to containers on the windowsill to display them. In fact, it's far better for them if you create a backdrop that's as close to what they'd find in their native rainforests as you can. Here are a few suggestions:
<ul>
<li>Mounted on wood: imitate their natural habitat in a tree by picking a piece of driftwood or interesting branch with rough bark and a v-shaped nook. Tuck some moss in the nook, then mount your orchid snugly on top and tie it on gently with string or finishing line. Eventually they'll hold on by themselves, using their aerial roots: at this point, you can cut the ties and leave them to scramble over their supports naturally.</li>
<li>
Hanging baskets: traditional orchid baskets are made out of wooden slats, but you can use any type of basket from our garden centre. Fill the basket about three-quarter full with coarse bark, then place the orchid on top and hold it in place with more bark. Thread the roots gently through the holes in the sides, taking care not to break them, so they can start to grow around the basket by themselves.
</li>
<li>In vertical planting displays: orchids adore the conditions found on walls and look sensational as a vibrant touch of exotica among ferns, ivies, heucheras and tradescantias. Fill planting pockets with bark instead of soil, and plant the orchids in ribbons of colour through the greenery. You'll find vertical planting systems available in our garden centre to create your own living work of art.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about different ways to display your orchids.

Displaying orchids

Some combinations of plants just work well together. Tomatoes and basil, for example: not only do they look good, they make a perfect partnership in the cooking pot too.
But there are some combinations that go beyond looking (or tasting) good. Companion planting uses features of one plant to protect or benefit another, so you get pest-free, happier and healthier plants.
Look out for companion plants to put with your flowers, fruit and vegetables in our&nbsp;%locations%&nbsp;garden centre: you'll also find seed of annual companion plants to sow each year. They work together in several different ways - here are some of the many combinations to try.
Smelly combinations: 
Insect pests often rely on a sense of smell to find their prey, so if you disguise that smell with another even stronger-smelling plant, you'll put off the insects, too. 
 
Good partnerships:
<ul>
<li>French marigolds (Tagetes) and tomatoes to keep away whitefly</li>
<li>Onions planted around carrots to confuse carrot fly</li>
<li>Garlic at the feet of roses making them taste nasty to aphids</li>
</ul>
Decoy planting: 
Often pests will abandon one plant if something more delicious comes along. It's a little hard on the decoy plant, but it's very effective.
Good partnerships:
<ul>
<li>Nasturtiums planted at the feet of broad beans to attract blackfly away</li>
</ul>
Complementary plants: 
Some plants just help each other out. Tall, sturdy plants support climbers; broad-leaved plants act like a living mulch, holding in water and suppressing weeds. 
 
Good partnerships:
<ul>
<li>Sweetcorn with its feet kept cool by broad-leaved squash</li>
<li>Clematis allowed to scramble up into apple trees (it'll attract pollinators for the fruit, too)</li>
<li>Strawberries and borage, said to improve their flavour</li>
</ul>
Pollinating partnerships: 
Plants that attract pollinating insects are beneficial for anything that's fruiting nearby, as while hoverflies, bees and lacewings are in your garden they'll also stop by to pollinate your beans and munch on a few aphids, too.
Good partnerships:
<ul>
<li>Sweetpeas scrambling up the fence behind courgettes</li>
<li>Lavender planted round the trunks of pear trees</li>
<li>Herb fennel (allowed to flower) and runner beans</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about using companion plants to keep pests at bay.

Companion planting

Houseplants

Cats are among the most persistent of garden pests. Even if you love your pet cat to bits, it&#39;s no fun&nbsp;discovering they&#39;ve been using your garden as a toilet. If it&#39;s your neighbour&#39;s cat it&#39;s downright infuriating.

Luckily cats are fastidious creatures and it&#39;s relatively easy to make your garden into a no-go zone they&#39;ll&nbsp;prefer to avoid. Here&#39;s how.

Get a dog: perhaps not always practical, but cats will avoid your garden like the plague.

Avoid patches of bare, dry soil: these have &#39;cat litter tray&#39; written all over them. After sowing seeds, poke&nbsp;prickly rose, holly or hawthorn prunings into the ground every 15cm or so to keep cats clear.

Use large-grade gravel: small chippings on pathways and drives are inviting to cats, so use larger stones&nbsp;instead.

Hang citrus peel among your plants: cats hate oranges and lemons, so hang fresh peel among vulnerable&nbsp;plants.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about keeping cats off your&nbsp;garden.

Averting cat-astrophes

Four-legged friends can be wonderful companions in the garden: there&#39;s something comforting about having&nbsp;a friendly dog snuffling nearby while you weed.

But let&#39;s face it - sometimes they can be one of the worst of all garden pests. It is possible to have both a dog&nbsp;and a nice garden, as long as you take precautions.

Choose plants wisely: more robust plants easily withstand doggy rough and tumble, and there&#39;s a wide&nbsp;range in our garden centre. They include lavender, potentilla, and sturdy geraniums and Astrantia.

Follow your dog: watch your dog&#39;s route through the garden: they&#39;re creatures of habit and usually follow&nbsp;the same path. Avoid planting where he runs, and consider converting his routes into your paths.

Protect plants: Sturdy metal supports placed strategically around more delicate plants steer the dog clear of&nbsp;accidents - there&#39;s a good range to choose from in our garden centre.

Provide a digging spot: Dogs who love to dig can be persuaded to use a dedicated earth box: try burying&nbsp;his favourite toys for him to find so he&#39;s encouraged to use it instead of your borders.

&nbsp;

Dog-friendly gardening

After you&#39;ve taken the trouble to stock your pond with fish, or encourage lots of frogs, toads, newts and&nbsp;dragonflies, the arrival of a voracious predator to gobble them all up again is both upsetting and infuriating.

<div>Grey herons are among the worst offenders: once a heron finds your pond you can lose your fish, and your&nbsp;frogs, in a single night. Cats looking for a quick snack, foxes and even dogs wanting a swim can also be&nbsp;devastating to the life in your pond.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Netting is a quick and easy way to protect your pondlife - sturdy pond netting is available on the roll or in&nbsp;handy packs in our garden centre. However it&#39;s sometimes not practical, especially if you have mature pond&nbsp;plants.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>In this case a fence of canes strung with netting or fishing line around the edge keeps most things away.&nbsp;Herons are also put off by tinfoil plates hung off canes to flash and clatter in the wind.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

Pond predators

Early in the year, wasps are welcome visitors: they gobble up aphids and caterpillars by the dozen to feed to&nbsp;their young, leaving your plants pest-free.

By summer, though, they become a nuisance, eating holes in ripening fruit and swarming over picnics,&nbsp;making outdoor life almost impossible and occasionally downright painful.

You don&#39;t have to destroy wasp nests unless it&#39;s posing a risk to you or your family. But it&#39;s wise to keep the&nbsp;insects at bay using a combination of deterrents and traps.

Wasp traps can be as simple as a jar with some sugary water in the bottom to lure them in, or a device which&nbsp;fits into the top of a plastic drinks bottle, allowing them to crawl in but not escape again.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Wasps wasted

In the battle against all the creepy crawlies which would like to enjoy your plants as much as you do, it&#39;s a&nbsp;good idea to be well-armed. You&#39;ll find everything you need to fight the good fight in our&nbsp;%locations%garden centre: keep&nbsp;these essentials in the garden shed and you&#39;ll be prepared at all times.

Sprays: &nbsp;We stock tree washes for getting rid of overwintering larvae and&nbsp;eggs on fruit trees and bushes.

Barriers: keep pests at bay without having to kill them: a screen of horticultural fleece around carrots keeps&nbsp;carrot fly away, while&nbsp;grit and copper rings deter slugs. Insect-proof mesh available off the&nbsp;roll or as a ready-to-use cloche keeps caterpillars and other pests off crops.

Organic deterrents: in our garden centre you&#39;ll find a range of organic methods for tackling pests, from&nbsp;super-effective wildlife friendly slug pellets to biological controls. We also stock a range of pheromone traps&nbsp;to hang among your plants for catching codling moth and other flying pests.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about dealing with garden pests.

Birds are often a mixed blessing in the garden: they'll swipe your berries, but while they're at it they'll also strip aphids from your roses, eat small slugs and hoover up caterpillars too. On the whole, they do far more good than harm: and besides, they're lovely to watch as they flit around your plants, bringing your garden to life with song and colour.
In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you'll find all you need to encourage a thriving population of garden birds to visit, from sparrows to woodpeckers. Follow our top five tips to make your garden into a haven for your feathery friends.
<ul>
<li>Install a pond: birds appreciate a water feature more than anything. They'll go down to the pond to take a drink and have a little bath, and have a snack on the insects it attracts, too! We have both rigid preformed liners or butyl liner to make your own shape in our garden centre.</li>
<li>
Put up bird feeders: a range of different feeders on a stand, available in our garden centre, lets you provide everything from peanuts, in wider wire mesh feeders, to seed, dispensed through a plastic tube. A table catches waste and holds raisins, chopped apples and grated cheese. Don't forget to fit a squirrel guard to keep the long-tailed thieves away!
</li>
<li>Provide the right food: in winter, garden birds need more fat to help them keep on weight in the cold – you'll find fat balls and cakes in our garden centre. But in summer, it's better to eed a good-quality seed mix. Good year-round feeds include black sunflower seeds, nyger, peanuts and mealworms.</li>
<li>
Grow berrying shrubs: this is the most natural food for birds and one that will draw them in in their hundreds. Red-berrying shrubs like cotoneaster, pyracantha and spindle berry are most popular, followed by the orange berries of berberis and rowans: they seem to like white berries least.
</li>
<li>Leave seedheads on: don't be too quick to tidy up once annuals and perennials have died back in autumn, as birds really appreciate the contents of their dried seedheads. Sunflowers, globe thistles, teasels, mullein and evening primrose are all much appreciated.</li>
</ul>

Looking after garden birds

Garden pests

Look at the back of any seed packet from the range in our garden centre and you&#39;ll find a lot of very useful&nbsp;information - not only what the plant looks like, but also how to sow and grow it.

But some of the terms used can be baffling if you&#39;re just starting out in gardening. So here&#39;s our jargon buster&nbsp;to help you translate:

F1 Hybrid: a variety produced by crossing two pure strains to produce a completely reliable new plant

Under glass: the seed is sown with some protection, usually in a greenhouse or coldframe

Drill: shallow V-shaped groove in the ground to sow the seed into. Use the corner of a rake or the tip of a&nbsp;trowel to make the drill.

Flat-bottomed drill: flat-bottomed trench, U-shaped and often used for peas and broad beans

Prick out: lift young plants out of the seed tray and replant them into pots of compost

Transplant: transfer the plant from pot to its final growing position, usually outdoors in the garden

Harden off: acclimatise young plants gradually to outdoor conditions, usually over a couple of weeks

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about the terminology used on&nbsp;seed packets.

Seedy sayings

It&#39;s all too easy to get carried away when you see rack upon rack of tempting packets like those in our&nbsp;garden centre: you just want them all. Here&#39;s how to make those tough decisions:

Make a desert-island list of flowers, veg and herbs you wouldn&#39;t want to be without. This is your initial&nbsp;shopping list: at this stage, it&#39;ll probably be too long.

Draw up a plan of your garden to scale, sketching in the areas where you want to sow flowers or&nbsp;vegetables. This gives you a realistic idea of how much space you&#39;ve got.

Prune your shopping list to fit your plan. This involves some agonising choices &ndash; but think how you&#39;d feel if&nbsp;those extra seeds went to waste. And there&#39;s always next year...

Decide how much you need: a few annual cosmos scattered through your border won&#39;t require many&nbsp;seeds, but if you&#39;re planning a big bed of mixed varieties you&#39;ll need more.

Strengthen your willpower and armed with your list, come to the garden centre and fill your basket. Add&nbsp;plant labels, seed trays and seed compost, and you&#39;re ready to sow. 
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about how to choose which seeds&nbsp;to sow.

Seedy strategies

You&#39;ll find hundreds of different types of seed in our garden centre, from annual and biennial flowers to herbs&nbsp;and vegetables. It&#39;s like being let loose in a gardener&#39;s sweetshop. But once you&#39;ve got your seeds home,&nbsp;how do you store them? Here are our top tips:

Use seed as fresh as possible: seeds like parsnips and carrots don&#39;t live long in storage so buy fresh each&nbsp;year. Other seed can be kept up to two years before it starts deteriorating.

Keep seeds in their original packets: that way you&#39;ll know what you&#39;ve got, and you&#39;ll also have sowing&nbsp;instructions ready to hand next time you need them.

Close the packet properly: squeeze out as much air as you can, fold down the top and seal with a&nbsp;paperclip or elastic band.

Choose somewhere dark and cool: seeds store best somewhere unheated, reasonably dry, free of mice&nbsp;and at a more-or-less constant temperature. The fridge is ideal.

&nbsp;

Storing seeds

Watching a seed germinate and grow is a hugely exciting part of your gardening year: you hardly dare&nbsp;believe it's going to work, yet invariably that tiny kernel sends up a sturdy green sprout. The plants you raise&nbsp;from seed are always a bit special, so this year try raising something new from the hundreds of varieties from&nbsp;our garden centre.
Annuals: hardy annuals like love-in-a-mist, marigolds and nasturtiums are easiest of all and provide&nbsp;incredibly long seasons of colour from a few seeds scattered direct into the ground in spring.
Half-hardy annuals include all the bedding plants: in our garden centre you'll find seed to sow under cover&nbsp;in spring for colourful containers all summer long including pelargoniums, petunias, surfinias and nemesia.
Perennials: several perennials are very easy from seed, flowering in their first year and coming back again&nbsp;and again. Try echinacea, rudbeckia, grasses like deschampsia and hardy geraniums from our range.
Vegetable seeds: our largest selection of seeds is reserved for the grow-your-own enthusiast, with every&nbsp;veg from cucumbers to swede. Our heritage ranges boast superb flavour, or for something completely&nbsp;different try exotic veg like tamarilloes.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about the seeds in our range.

Most vegetables are raised from seed, making them fantastic value – for the price of a single lettuce bought in the shops, you can buy a packet of seed to grow 1000. That's reason enough to grow your own: but you'll find sowing seed is also hugely satisfying as the first tiny sprouts appear, with their promise of bumper crops to come.
Growing from seed is straightforward but there are a few things to remember as you crack open that first packet and get sowing. Here are our top tips for seed-sowing success:
<ul>
<li>Use good-quality seed compost: you'll find sterilised (so disease-free) and finely-textured John Innes formula seed composts in our garden centre.</li>
<li>Prepare seedbeds well if you're sowing direct outside: remove weeds and large stones and rake soil thoroughly so it's the texture of breadcrumbs.</li>
<li>Don't sow too thickly: overcrowded seedlings are more prone to fungal disease and struggle to compete for water and nutrients, so space seed well apart.</li>
<li>Sow at the right depth: as a rule, bury seeds to twice their diameter – for small seeds, that's a light sprinkling of compost.</li>
<li>Follow the instructions on the seed packet: they're mines of information, with handy tips and guidance on spacing, sowing depth and germination temperatures.</li>
<li>Cover pots and trays after sowing so the seeds never dry out: clear polythene secured with an elastic band or a clear propagator cover does nicely.</li>
<li>Water drills before sowing: if the weather is dry, really drench the drill before you sow, so seeds are sitting on damp soil from the start.</li>
<li>Wait till it's warm enough as seeds have specific temperature ranges within which they germinate. Most need at least 10°C though carrots and lettuce come up a little cooler, at 7°C</li>
<li>Use tap water for seedlings under cover, as saved rainwater often carries water-borne fungal diseases.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre i %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about tips for sowing vegetables.

Top tips for sowing vegetables

GROWING FROM CUTTINGS 
 
Cuttings fall into three main groups, but whichever method you use it is essential that cuttings are taken from healthy plants:
<ul>
<li>&nbsp;hardwood</li>
<li>&nbsp;softwood</li>
<li>&nbsp;semi-ripe</li>
</ul>
HARDWOOD CUTTINGS
<ul>
<li>Taking hardwood cuttings is one of the easiest ways to produce new plants of Salix (willow),</li>
<li>Deutzia and many other woody shrubs, and only needs secateurs.</li>
<li>From autumn to early spring, select shoots produced the pre-vious spring and summer. Only select strong growth and remove near its base or point of origin.</li>
<li>These shoots – about the thick-ness of a pencil and 23–25cm long – should be cut square below a bud to form a base, at an angle of 35 degrees.</li>
</ul>
Rooting:
<ul>
<li>Treat the bottom 3cm of each cutting with rooting hormone.</li>
<li>Insert the prepared cuttings into a 12–15cm trench made in well dug garden soil with a 5cm layer of sharp sand for drainage.</li>
<li>Alternatively plant three or four cuttings in a pot of multi-purpose or cutting compost and place in a cold frame or sheltered part of the garden. The following autumn the rooted cuttings can be carefully planted out in their final growing positions.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
SOFTWOOD CUTTINGS
<ul>
<li>These are taken in early to late spring to grow many semi-ten-der plants such as pelargoniums and fuchsias, herbaceous plants and some alpines. Young growth on shrubs such as Rosmarinus (rosemary), Artemisia (worm-wood) and Lavandula (lavender) may also respond well.</li>
<li>In spring, remove shoots from the parent plant once they are firm enough to handle and not too soft to lose their rigidity.</li>
<li>Using a sharp knife or secateurs, prepare the cutting by making a cut at an angle of 35 degrees at the base of the chosen shoot.</li>
<li>Cuttings should be 5–10cm long according to plant variety. If the leaves are alternate on the shoot, make the upper cut four leaf joints above the first cut.</li>
<li>If the leaves are opposite, make the cut above the second pair of leaves. In both cases make cuts from the buds in the leaf joint.</li>
<li>Gently remove the lower leaves.&nbsp;If the remaining leaves are more than 3cm long, halve them with a knife, to cut down moisture loss during the pre-rooting period.</li>
</ul>
Rooting:
<ul>
<li>Dip the bottom 3cm of the pre-pared cutting into water. Shake&nbsp;off the surplus then roll the bottom 2.5cm in rooting hormone.</li>
<li>Insert cuttings into seed trays or pots containing sharp sand.</li>
<li>Place the tray or pot into a propagator – preferably one with a heating control.</li>
<li>Close all vents and shade the cover with a newspaper. After 7–10 days, open the vents and remove the shading.</li>
<li>Once the cuttings make new shoots at the leaf joints, this is a good indication that rooting has taken place. Remove the tray or pot from the propagator.</li>
<li>When new growth on the rooted cuttings reaches more than 3cm long, pot them into individual pots of general potting compost.</li>
<li>In four to six weeks they should be large enough to plant in their final growing positions, provided all risk of frost has passed.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
SEMI-RIPE CUTTINGS
<ul>
<li>Semi-ripe cuttings of many shrubs and climbers can be taken in late spring to midsummer. Success is not guaranteed but it’s worth a try.</li>
<li>The method or preparation is the same as for softwood cuttings, but use shoots from the current season’s growth that have begun to firm.</li>
<li>The use of a propagator is more important and the availability of controllable heat will enhance the success rate. Rooting is slower than softwood cuttings but once new growth has reached 3cm the cuttings can be potted on into individual pots.</li>
<li>Grow young plants on in a frost free light-protected environment such as a greenhouse or garden frame with no additional heat. Plant out in the garden or into larger pots the following spring or autumn.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<a href="http://www.the-hta.org.uk/page.php?pageid=248" target="_blank">Thanks to the HTA</a>

Seeds & Cuttings

Seeds

All the beauty products in your bathroom cabinet, from soaps to moisturiser, have their origins in plants, and&nbsp;many are easy to reproduce at home using herbs you can find in our garden centre. Here are just some of&nbsp;the ways you can garden yourself beautiful:

Lavender bath water: put one part lavender flowers with two parts bay leaves, four parts fine oatmeal and four parts bran in a saucepan with water and simmer for an hour. Strain and add a cupful to your bath to&nbsp;guarantee a good night&#39;s sleep.

Marigold moisturiser: you&#39;ll find easy-to-grow pot marigold seed in our garden centre. Melt 150g&nbsp;emulsifying cream over a pan of boiling water, then add 70g glycerol and 80ml water and stir. Stir in 30g&nbsp;dried marigold petals, and simmer for three hours: strain and store in the fridge.

Herbal foot bath: pick a large handful of mixed fresh herbs: sage, thyme and bay work&nbsp;wonders. Put in a large bowl of boiling water with a tablespoon of salt and when it&#39;s cooled a little, sink your&nbsp;feet in. The ultimate reviver after a tiring day.

&nbsp;

Herbs for beauty

Bouquet garni is a traditional French method for using herbs in bunches to infuse a dish with flavour. The&nbsp;combinations help solve the problem of which herbs to grow for flavouring your cooking: simply divide your&nbsp;herb garden into separate areas for meat, fish and poultry, choose the right herbs from the selection in our&nbsp;garden centre, and you&#39;ll have a perfect selection for every dish.

Poultry dishes: lemony flavours contrast well with chicken, turkey or duck, so grow lemon thyme or lemon&nbsp;grass mixed with hyssop, thyme, tarragon and parsley.

Fish dishes: Aniseed-flavoured herbs produce classic fish dishes. Fennel and tarragon taste gorgeous with&nbsp;plaice; try lovage, dill, and bay with other fish such as bass, perch and salmon.

Meat dishes: rich meat casseroles come alive infused with flavoursome Mediterranean herbs. Oregano,&nbsp;thyme, sage, rosemary and bay can cope with slow cooking and taste wonderful together.

Make the bouquet garni by picking a sprig of each herb, with stalk attached, and tie together securely with&nbsp;string. Tie the whole bunch to the casserole handle and allow to drop into the dish during cooking. Remove&nbsp;just before serving.

Please ask the staff in our garden centrein %locations%&nbsp; for more information and advice about herbs you can grow for&nbsp;cooking.

Grow your own bouquet garni

Herbs are really successful in containers, as most come from shallow, stony Mediterranean soils and relish&nbsp;drier conditions in pots. Group several together for a fragrant herb patch outside your door. Here&#39;s how to&nbsp;grow five of our favourite herbs in containers:

Rosemary: give this hefty shrub plenty of room and a soil-based compost such as John Innes no. 3&nbsp;(available in our garden centre) to provide it with nutrients for longer.

Mint: mint is best in containers as it can be invasive outdoors. There are dozens of varieties in our garden&nbsp;centre: apple mint has fuzzy leaves while purple-stemmed chocolate peppermint looks sumptuous.

Coriander: sow fresh into generous troughs every month for a constant supply of fragrant flavour: as you&nbsp;use up one trough, the next is ready to pick.

Chives: generous potfuls of chives are perfect for snipping with scissors to add an oniony tang to salads.&nbsp;Their pretty pink pompom flowers are edible, too.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing herbs in containers.

Herbs for containers

Set aside a corner of your garden for a traditional herb patch and you&#39;ll be hooked on these gorgeous little&nbsp;plants forever. Whether it&#39;s leafy parsley or fragrant thyme for cooking, or pot marigolds and echinacea for&nbsp;cosmetics or home-grown medicine, herb gardens are productive, useful and beautiful.

Formal herb gardens: traditionally, herb gardens were laid out in formal geometrical patterns, easy to&nbsp;recreate at home. Mark out a circle or square, then divide into symmetrical beds: L-shapes or diamonds work&nbsp;well. Add a central focal point, like an elegant container, and paved paths for a neat, satisfying design.

Herb spirals: another great way to grow herbs is to build a rising spiral of stones, bricks or vertical wooden&nbsp;boards to about 80cm high, then back-fill with soil. Herbs love the sunny, well-drained conditions and create&nbsp;a lovely cascade effect as they grow over the edges.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about making a herb garden.

Making a herb garden

Herbs have been grown in gardens for hundreds of years: most have a long history, handed down from&nbsp;generation to generation, with uses from medicine to cosmetics and beauty products to flavouring cooking.

They&#39;re easy-going plants which can be tucked into almost any corner of the garden, but to plunge yourself&nbsp;into their fascinating world dedicate a sunny spot to a herb garden. You&#39;ll find it&#39;s full of fragrance and flowers&nbsp;all summer: and best of all, it&#39;ll quickly become part of your daily routine to pick peppermint for your tea,&nbsp;marigolds to brew up some face cream, or a bay leaf or two for the evening meal.

To start you off, here are some essential herbs for your herb garden from the wide selection in our garden&nbsp;centre

Culinary: Mediterranean herbs to give your cooking flavour and colour, these include rosemary, bay, thyme, chives&nbsp;and parsley.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing herbs.

Big pots of leafy, flavoursome and generous annual herbs sat just outside the back door where you can reach out and pick them for your cooking are one of the delights of the kitchen garden. When you grow your own, you can have as big a bunch of parsley as you want: and even better, you can try more unusual herbs like caraway, summer savory, dill and chervil.
Here's how to make sure you have pots and pots of flavour from one end of the year to the next:
<ul>
<li>Sow little and often so you've always got a new tray of seedlings ready in the wings to take over once the previous crop finishes. Plant half a row, or a new container once a month from March to September for year-round flavour.</li>
<li>Keep parsley in the shade, as if you let it get too hot and dry it'll quickly flower and run to seed. Pretty aniseed-flavoured chervil, looking a little like cowparsley, is another plant that likes cool, shady conditions.</li>
<li>Pick leaves frequently as it encourages fresh growth. Basil, parsley, and coriander all flower if left to grow unchecked, which turns the leaves bitter. Keep the sweet, fragrant young foliage coming by nipping out the tips for cooking every few days.</li>
<li>Sow coriander where it's to grow as it hates being transplanted. If you haven't got a spot in the garden, just sow the large, round seeds directly into a trough or generous container to grow into a fountain of lush, spicily scented greenery for flavouring Asian cookery and salads.</li>
<li>Make a late sowing to bring indoors in around September, and you'll have fresh herbs to pick from the kitchen windowsill all through winter. Parsley and basil are perfect for this: pick them sparingly and they should keep going till spring.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about sowing and growing annual herbs.

Sowing and growing annual herbs

Once you've started making your own herbal teas, you'll be spoilt for tasteless teabags forever. Fresh herbal tea doesn't take any longer to make than a bag in a cup: just pick yourself a generous sprig from the herbs growing just outside the back door, dunk in a mug of boiling water and leave there for five minutes. And that's it: instant, delicious, refreshing and health-giving tea.
There are dozens of herbal teas and tisanes you can make from herbs you'll find in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, with beneficial effects from helping digestion to aiding memory. Here are the best of the home-grown teas we love to drink:
<ul>
<li>Peppermint: The herb of choice for an invigorating, refreshing tea that also helps soothe indigestion and clear colds. There are several different mints so try a few for their different flavours: spearmint is the one to go for if you like your tea really minty.</li>
<li>
Rosemary: There are those who swear that the secret to their good memory is a cup of rosemary tea every morning for breakfast. Whether or not you believe them, rosemary tea is also great for relieving headaches and kick-starting your day.
</li>
<li>Lemon verbena: This beautiful and fragrant herb makes a fragrant yellow-green tea with a wonderful flavour like lemon sherbet. Soak three leaves in a mug and drink just before bedtime to send you off to sleep relaxed and soothed.</li>
<li>
Chamomile: You'll need flowers for this one (dry some for winter use). About a tablespoon of flowers steeped in a cup of boiling water gives you a green tea that's both anti-inflammatory, so great if you've got a sore back, and also mildly sedative, helping you get to sleep.
</li>
<li>Fennel: A great winter tea, the seeds of tall, stately fennel taste like aniseed. Pop a teaspoonful in your mug and then strain them off like tealeaves for a really refreshing drink that will freshen your breath. It's also said to relieve hunger pangs – great if you're on a diet.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about using herbs in teas and tisanes.

Herbs for tea

Grow bags are incredibly useful throughout the garden: just pop them anywhere you want to grow plants but don't have soil, like the edge of a patio or outside the back door. They give you an instant growing space for sweet peas, annual climbers like morning glory, or productive herbs, vegetables or even fruit.
We stock grow bags in our garden centre all year round, as well as useful accessories like frames that clip over them to support your plants as they grow and covers to help them blend more easily into the garden. Here are some top tips to make sure you get the best from your grow bags throughout the year.
<ul>
<li>Fluff up before planting: When you get your grow bags home, plump them up like a pillow before you use them. This breaks up the compost inside where it's become compacted in the stack, letting in air and making it easier for your plants' roots to penetrate.</li>
<li>
Stack several together: If you're growing big plants like tomatoes, consider stacking two or even three grow bags on top of each other to give your plants a better root run. Cut out a long rectangle from the first grow bag, then put another on the top, cutting squares from the underside to let the roots through.
</li>
<li>Feed regularly: Plants in grow bags rely on you for feed and water, so make sure your plants never go short. A weekly general-purpose liquid seaweed feed keeps most plants going; switch to high-phosphate tomato feed once they start flowering. You'll find both in our garden centre.</li>
<li>
Use a second time for salads: Once your peppers and cucumbers have finished, don't throw out your grow bag. Top up with compost if necessary (you may need to cut a longer rectangle from the top) and re-sow with baby-leaf salads to see you through autumn.
</li>
<li>Recycle the compost: When you've finally finished with your grow bag, empty the spent compost on your compost heap or just straight onto your flower beds as a soil-improving mulch.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our&nbsp;%locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing in grow bags.

Greenhouse grow bags

Hanging baskets make a bright splash of colour against a wall or fence, filled with brilliant scarlet pelargoniums or tumbling begonias. But don&#39;t just stick to bedding plants this year: try planting baskets which are productive as well as beautiful.

Edible hanging baskets are a great way to squeeze a little more produce out of your garden. Several types of fruit and veg do better raised off the ground: strawberries, for example, are kept well away from slugs, so you get to pick your crop unmunched and perfect.

Mix several different types of edible in the same basket to create a vibrant display of contrasting foliage and fruits: you can even create an &#39;instant dish&#39; by planting complementary veg together, like tomato and basil for all the ingredients you need to make a flavoursome Mediterranean sauce.

You&#39;ll find everything you need to create an edible hanging basket in our garden centre in %locations%, from the baskets themselves to liners, compost, water-retaining gel to cut down on the watering workload, and of course plants and seeds. Here are some great varieties to try growing up in the air this year:

<ul>
	<li>Tumbling tomatoes cascade fetchingly in jewels of red and yellow. Choose a container variety like &#39;Gartenperle&#39; or &#39;Hundreds and Thousands&#39;. Keep well-watered and feed with liquid fertiliser once a week.</li>
	<li>
	Chillies are Mexican firecrackers which love a hot, dry spot and don&#39;t mind restricted roots. Try multicoloured &#39;Numex Twilight&#39; or tumbling &#39;Basket of Fire&#39;.
	</li>
	<li>Peas: mangetout peas (&#39;Shiraz&#39; is a purple-podded variety) and dwarf types like &#39;Bingo&#39; or &#39;Little Marvel&#39; do exceptionally well in hanging baskets and don&#39;t need any support. Choose a larger basket and water well.</li>
	<li>
	Strawberries: fill a hanging basket with two or three strawberry plants and they&#39;ll froth joyously over the edge. Prolific varieties include &#39;Cambridge Favourite&#39; or intensely-flavoured alpine &#39;Mara des Bois&#39;.
	</li>
	<li>Herbs: Mediterranean herbs love conditions in hanging baskets. Hang your basket right by the back door for easy picking. Herbs that do well in hanging baskets include thyme, marjoram, basil and summer savory.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about creating edible hanging baskets.

Edible hanging baskets

Herbs

Keeping a display going from May to September is usually a tricky juggling act involving careful choice of&nbsp;plants to flower one after the other, and luck.

You can make things easier by simply controlling when your perennials flower, using a trick known as&nbsp;the &#39;Chelsea chop&#39; &ndash; because you do it when the Chelsea Flower Show is on, around the end of May.

This works well with lots of perennials, and you&#39;ll find most of them in our garden centre. They include&nbsp;daisies: dyer&#39;s chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria), echinacea and helenium; and many cottage garden&nbsp;favourites like Phlox paniculata, sedums and goldenrod (Solidago).

At the end of May, use secateurs (found in our garden centre) to cut back every stem by a third to a half. It&nbsp;seems brutal, but all you&#39;re doing is delaying flowering for a while. Cut back some clumps and not others,&nbsp;and some flower at the normal time with a second display arriving a few weeks later.

You&#39;ll find plants grow sturdier and less leggy &ndash; so you don&#39;t need to stake them: you get double the flower&nbsp;power, too. So get chopping!

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about using the Chelsea chop to&nbsp;delay flowering.

The Chelsea Chop

If a garden were a picture, trees and shrubs would make the frame, but the paint would be perennials,&nbsp;bringing the whole thing to life with colour and movement.

Here are our top tips for picking combinations from the fantastic choice of perennials in our garden centre to&nbsp;make your garden a work of art.

Design in triangles to avoid a &#39;blobby&#39; effect. Combine tall verticals &ndash; say, foxgloves - with hummocky&nbsp;shapes like geraniums and low-growing horizontal ground cover.

Contrast shapes to bring out the best in your plants. Look for opposites: strappy-leaved daylilies with broad-&nbsp;leaved heucheras, or upright, airy grasses with daisy flowered rudbeckia.

Use repetition to pull your design together. Several bold clumps of the same variety of helenium at strategic&nbsp;points, for example, make the garden feel whole.

Manage colour to create the mood you want. Zingy reds and oranges with clashing blues and purples are&nbsp;exciting, whereas similar shades together calm things down.

Plant in groups or drifts for real impact. Odd numbers work best: three is a minimum but you can go up to&nbsp;nine, eleven or fifteen plants at a time for real wow factor.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about designing with perennials.

&nbsp;

Designing with perennials

There&#39;s a spell in late August when the garden can hit the doldrums. Late summer is a tricky time, when the&nbsp;main razzmatazz is over and plants start to tire.

Get the show going again with some of the many perennials you&#39;ll find in our garden centre which are at their&nbsp;best in late summer. Here are our top ten, subject to availability:

Helenium &#39;Moorheim Beauty&#39; starts in July: its coppery-red daisy like flowers go on for months

Phlox paniculata froths with fragrant&nbsp; flowers into autumn

Aconitum &#39;Sparks Variety&#39; flowers till late September with spires of midnight blue

Aster &#39;Little Carlow&#39; is one of many Michaelmas daisies, with cheerful lilac flowers

Anemone x hybrida &#39;Honorine Jobert&#39; carries pure white flowers on dancing stems till autumn

Penstemon &#39;Garnet&#39; has deep wine red foxglove-like spires till October

Sedum &#39;Ruby Glow&#39; tops succulent purple leaves with flat ruby-red flowerheads

Crocosmia &#39;Lucifer&#39; produces fiery red sprays of tubular flowers from August

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about perennials that look good in&nbsp;late summer.

Late summer perennials

Perennials play an exuberant starring role in vibrant summer displays &ndash; but you may be surprised to know&nbsp;there are many which perform well into winter.

In our garden centre we&#39;ve got plenty of perennials to bring colour to the garden through even the coldest&nbsp;months: here are five of our favourites.

Bergenia are also known as elephants&#39; ears: big, broad, leathery leaves turn shades of red and purple in&nbsp;autumn and stay evergreen all winter. Fat flower spires top the display in spring.

Heuchera foliage comes in every colour from lime green to deep purple: they have pretty flower spires in&nbsp;summer but in winter make bright splash of welcome colour.

Hellebores are among our best-loved winter flowers: Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) flowers in December&nbsp;while H. orientalis starts in early spring. The handsome leaves are evergreen, too.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about perennials that look good in&nbsp;winter.

&nbsp;

Winter perennials

The real heart-stopping, breathtaking beauty of a garden comes from that most easy-going of all the plant&nbsp;groups: the perennials, generous, free-flowering plants which die down each winter only to bubble up again&nbsp;from spring, peaking in midsummer with a fireworks display of flowers.

Pack your garden with perennials from the huge selection in our garden centre and you&#39;ll have something in&nbsp;flower for every week of the year. Here are a few tips to help you choose:

Visit the garden centre often as we have different perennials in stock according to the season. Choose whatever takes your fancy each month for really long-lasting display.

Cut perennials back after flowering and they&#39;ll often give you a second flush of flowers. You&#39;ll find&nbsp;secateurs for the job in our garden centre.

Plant the right plant in the right place: there are perennials for every spot in your garden, whether it&#39;s&nbsp;shady, sunny, dry or damp. Ask our garden centre staff for help if you&#39;re not sure which to choose.

Plant in threes or fives for greatest impact: drifts or groups of the same plant really catch your eye and&nbsp;demand to be noticed.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing perennials.

Perennials

A froth of roses scrambling over an arbour or smothering a wall, filling the air with a heavenly rich scent, turn&nbsp;a garden into a romantic paradise. Among the many climbing rose varieties in our garden centre, though,&nbsp;you'll find both climbers and ramblers – so what's the difference?
<ul>
<li>rambling roses usually flower just the once, in a huge and spectacular display, with clusters of&nbsp;smaller flowers</li>
<li>climbers are a little more restrained, but they'll flower throughout summer producing larger individual&nbsp;flowers</li>
<li>ramblers tend to produce lots of whippy young growth from the base: they're generally&nbsp;more 'tangled' looking.</li>
<li>climbers are more sculptural, with stiff main</li>
<li>branches – often forming brown bark, like trunks - and&nbsp;secondary younger green branches</li>
<li>ramblers are pruned by cutting out around a third of the oldest stems each year after flowering right&nbsp;to the base, to encourage plenty of healthy young growth: train horizontally for more flowers</li>
<li>climbers are pruned into an arching horizontal framework of permanent mature branches in winter,cutting back sideshoots to two or three buds to encourage plenty of blossoms next year.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about climbing and rambling roses.
&nbsp;

Climber or rambler?

The freshest, purest roses you can grow are those which are closest to nature. Their delicate, natural flowers&nbsp;disguise a tough constitution: they grow almost anywhere and shrug off pests and diseases. And it doesn't&nbsp;stop there: spectacularly beautiful brilliant red hips carry on the display well into autumn and winter.
Here are some of our favourite wild roses from the range in our garden centre:
Winged thorn rose (Rosa pteracantha): famous for its blood-red sharks' fin thorns glowing like stained&nbsp;glass in sunshine. The flowers are delicate white, appearing in late spring.
Sweetbriar (Rosa eglanteria): possibly the most romantic name in the rose world, sweetbriar is an English&nbsp;native hedgerow rose with cheery pale-pink flowers followed by orange hips.
Rosa moschata: very late to flower, beginning its display of simple white flowers in September and at its&nbsp;best in mid-October when most other plants are going to sleep.
Geraniuim rose (Rosa moyesii): brilliant scarlet single flowers followed by extraordinary hips like elongated&nbsp;goblets in sealing wax red
Burnet rose (Rosa spinosissima): a low-growing rose smothered in simple white flowers all summer,&nbsp;followed by marble-sized gleaming round near-black hips through autumn.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing wild 'species' roses.

Wild roses

A rose in full bloom stops you in your tracks. It steals your heart with its paper-delicate petals and lures you&nbsp;in with its heady, romantic scent. Once you&#39;re truly captivated it&#39;s hard to resist filling your garden with the&nbsp;sumptuous butter yellows, sugar-spun pink, graceful white and blood red petals of this queen of flowers.

We&#39;re in love with roses too, so we&#39;ve got a variety in our garden centre to grace every spot in your garden.

Climbers and ramblers&nbsp;scramble boisterously up trellises and&nbsp;wire supports to clothe walls in swathes of colour.

Shrub roses make striking centrepieces to a border: free-flowering and highly perfumed, they&#39;ll bloom from&nbsp;June till September.&nbsp;

Ground cover roses spread out in low, graceful arches to cover the ground in dense foliage and flowers.&nbsp;The &#39;Flower Carpet&#39; series come in gold, pink, white and scarlet.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing roses.

Britain's best-loved flower, roses are found in almost every garden in the country. And it's little wonder: they're elegant, stately plants that just take your breath away as soon as they flower, with those heartbreakingly beautiful petals and perfume to fill the garden and beyond.
They're also amazingly versatile. Among the roses you'll find in our garden centre are tiny patio roses for pots and ground-cover roses to scramble at the feet of your other shrubs. There are climbers and ramblers to smother fences, and species roses with sculptural autumn hips.
The way you grow your roses is limited only by your imagination. Here are a few ideas:
<ul>
<li>Over pergolas: Tie a rambling rose in to each upright of a pergola and it'll quickly scramble up and over the top, meeting the rose on the other side and forming a bower of flowers you'll love to wander through. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Trained round an obelisk: Choose a moderate-vigour climber like the scarlet 'Dublin Bay' and tie it in at a 45° angle so it winds round the obelisk in a spiral to the top, clothing it in colour. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>In sinks and troughs: Patio roses like buttery 'Sweet Memories' are very happy in containers: plant two or three in a sink or trough, and they'll froth over the top in a riot of colour and perfume. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>On swags: Drill holes through tall, sturdy posts and thread with rope at least 24mm thick to make swags to hold climbing or rambling roses. Tie them in as they grow and they'll knit together into elegantly romantic garden dividers. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>As a hedge: Rose hedges are great for security, as the prickles keep would-be intruders well away, and they look wonderful in full flower. Hedging roses include the dog rose and Rosa rugosa 'Hansa', with fat reddish-orange hips. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Scrambling up into a tree: If you've got plenty of space, there's nothing more beautiful than a big tree exploding with the colour and scent of summer roses. Large ramblers like 'Rambling Rector' and 'Kiftsgate' are spectacular grown like this.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about ways to grow roses.

Ways with roses

Roses

When space is limited, you need ingenuity to get the most from your plot. Growing veg in containers is a&nbsp;lifeline for patio gardeners, and helps beef up the harvest from handkerchief-sized gardens, too. Follow our&nbsp;five rules for bumper container harvests every year:

Go large: bigger pots are definitely better, as the more your veg can spread their roots out, the happier&nbsp;they&#39;ll be. There&#39;s a range of roomy pots in our garden centre.

Mix and match: don&#39;t be afraid to grow several types of veg in the same pot. Plant quick-growing carrots&nbsp;around tall spinach, for example, to double your harvest.

Water, water, water: never let containers go dry: it&#39;s a recipe for bolting lettuces, drooping spinach and poor&nbsp;fruiting. Water daily in summer, adding liquid feed once a week.

Use your walls: troughs alongside fences and walls hold climbing beans and give you twice the space to&nbsp;play with. Nail trellis to the wall for support.

Choose the right varieties: veg with shallower roots, like beetroot, do best; or try varieties bred specially for&nbsp;pots. Look for &#39;patio&#39;, &#39;dwarf&#39; or &#39;container&#39; on seed packets in our garden centre.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing vegetables in&nbsp;containers.

Veg for containers

Harvesting vegetables from your garden is hugely satisfying, and you&#39;ll revolutionise your tastebuds:&nbsp;food picked just minutes before it&#39;s on your plate has a colour, flavour and crunchiness that have to be&nbsp;experienced to be believed.

We have everything in our garden centre to turn your garden into a haven of productivity: here&#39;s a selection&nbsp;to get you started.

Seeds: most veg are grown from seeds, from tomatoes to carrots and lettuces. Take your pick from the huge&nbsp;range in our garden centre.

Sets and seed potatoes: from early spring we stock seed potatoes, plus onions, shallots and garlic from&nbsp;sets &ndash; easy-to-handle baby bulbs to plant straight into the ground.

Plug plants: for the ultimate in convenience we also stock plug plants -baby veg plants ready to go straight&nbsp;into containers or out into the garden.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing vegetables.

When you're starting out with your new veg garden and trying to decide what to grow first, the sheer variety of vegetables that opens up to you when you grow your own can be bewildering. You'll find so many different types in our garden centre in %locations%, from artichokes to zucchini, not to mention the mouthwatering selection of varieties of each, that it's hard to know where to begin.
But there are some veg you shouldn't be without: the tried-and- tested, easy-to-grow kitchen essentials. Plant these first, and you won't go far wrong.
Potatoes 
Grow your own spuds, and you'll transform your opinion of this 'humble' vegetable forever. Try deliciously-flavoured heritage varieties, or savour melt-in-the-mouth new potatoes within minutes of harvest.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Duke of York', 'Mayan Gold', 'Sarpo Mira'
Peas 
If your idea of a pea comes from the freezer, fresh peas are a revelation. Sow on windowsills for microgreens, enjoy young pods as mangetout, and sprinkle curly shoot tips in salads. Or just enjoy the mature peas. It's up to you.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Douce de Provence', Mangetout 'Shiraz', 'Ambassador'
French climbing beans 
The connoisseur's alternative to runner beans, tailor your French climbing beans according to taste. Choose from slender pencil beans, flat-podded types, purple or yellow varieties, or shelling beans for white haricots.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Cobra', 'Blauhilde', 'Blue Lake'
Garlic 
Breaking a fat head of garlic into cloves to plant in chilly November starts your gardening year with a smile.&nbsp;As well as dried cloves, try green scapes (flower spikes) and mild-flavoured green garlic.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: 'Chesnok Red', 'Solent Wight', Elephant Garlic
Chard 
Generous crops of leafy greens, with a side order of crisp midrib, chard is just like spinach but miles easier to grow. It comes in a rainbow of differently-coloured stems - sometimes on the same plant.&nbsp;Recommended varieties: Swiss chard, Ruby chard, Chard 'Bright Lights'
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about five easy veg.

Five easy veg

Sometimes in veg-growing, as in life, the golden oldies are the best.
Older 'heritage' veg varieties aren't often found in the shops, as they aren't uniformly shaped, sometimes don't store or travel well, and are difficult to harvest mechanically. That means the only way to enjoy their sumptuous flavours, colours and textures is if you grow your own.
Here are five of the best old-style veg to look out for in your favourite garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;&nbsp;and try in your own garden: we promise you won't be disappointed.
<ul>
<li>Runner bean 'Painted Lady' has been grown since at least the 1850s. It's prized for its bicoloured red and white blooms, pretty enough to be grown in the ornamental garden. The flowers are followed by a heavy crop of delicious long, flattened green beans.</li>
<li>Broad bean 'Crimson Flowered' was rescued from extinction in 1978 thanks to an elderly gardener from Kent. The rest is history: its gorgeous deep red flowers are now seen, and admired, in gardens all over the country.</li>
<li>Kale 'Cavolo Nero', also known as Black Tuscan kale, came to our shores in 1860 on board Thomas Cook's ship. It was originally grown as an ornamental for its extraordinary long, puckered black foliage, but we know different: pick the full-flavoured leaves young and cook like cabbage.</li>
<li>Tomato 'Marmande' is a sumptuously flavoured beefsteak variety from France, making huge fist-sized fruits. They're lumpy and bumpy, and prone to splitting - but it's worth it for one taste of that superb, rich flavour, the perfect balance of sweet and sharp.</li>
<li>Squash 'Turks Turban' was brought to the UK from America in 1869 and gets its name from its extraordinary shape – a doughnut-like lower layer with a 'hat' on top. It's orange, but striped cream and green: like nothing you've ever grown before (it has a great flavour, too!)</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a taste of history.

A taste of history

When you're just starting out, full of enthusiasm and keen to get going, it can seem an age to wait before you pick the first fruits of all your hard work. And it's true that some crops, like purple-sprouting broccoli or parsnips, can take all year to mature to harvesting stage – mind you, it's well worth the wait.
Luckily there are loads of fantastic quick-crop vegetables to grow and eat while the slowcoaches are getting going, so sow these and you'll have plenty to harvest in the meantime. This is fast food with flavour, freshly-harvested produce which arrives on your table within as little as a fortnight after sowing.
<ul>
<li>Beetroot: young beetroot leaves have beautiful colouring and a richly earthy flavour just like the roots. Pick them from about four weeks after sowing, then after eight weeks pull the tender baby roots at golfball size.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Kestrel', 'Red Hawk'</li>
<li>Radish: The quickest results on the plot, with seedlings showing in days and perfect, spherical roots in three weeks. Pick young and re-sow half a row every few weeks for a constant supply.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Cherry Belle', 'French Breakfast'.</li>
<li>Rocket: The name gives it away – scatter seeds and you'll have peppery baby leaves for your plate within a fortnight. Sow when it's cool or it'll bolt (mind you, the flowers taste lovely, too).&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Sky Rocket', 'Voyager'.</li>
<li>Spinach: Treat spinach as baby leaves for salads and you can harvest them within around three weeks from sowing. They last ages – you can expect to pick over each plant five or six times.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Galaxy', 'Nagano'.</li>
<li>Turnips: The best-kept secret on the veg patch, turnips give you a double harvest. Pick leafy green tops from three weeks after sowing, or pull the delicately-flavoured roots at golfball size at just five weeks old.&nbsp;Fastest-growing varieties: 'Tokyo Cross', 'Snowball'.</li>
</ul>
​Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about speedy veg.

Speedy veg

One of the real skills of good vegetable growing is the ability to time the cycle of sowing, growing and harvesting so you always have a steady stream of goodies to pick fresh from your garden in %locations%.
It takes good planning and a few canny tricks to make sure you always have just the right amount to pick, ready when you want it, every month of the year. Here are our top tips to help you keep the crops coming.
<ul>
<li>Sow often: sow everything at once and you'll have loads to pick in a few weeks' time – but once you've finished, your veg-growing year is over.</li>
<li>You can sow seed successfully from March until July, so make the most of it and stagger your sowings, putting in a new batch every three to four weeks right across the season. That way you always have some crops ready to pick, some growing on and some just sown, and you'll extend your harvest right into autumn.</li>
<li>Don't sow too much: sow a whole row of lettuces, and they'll all be ready at the same time – and that's a lot of lettuce. Plant six lettuces every three weeks, though, and you'll have two lettuces to eat every week for as long as you want them, as your next crop is ready just as you finish eating the first.</li>
<li>And there's no rule that says you have to sow a whole row, either: half a row of carrots, beetroot or salad leaves, sown direct every three or four weeks, gives you a much more manageable quantity.</li>
<li>Sow different varieties: many vegetables come in early, mid-season and late varieties, meaning they mature at different rates. That's a gift for you when you're trying to spread your harvest over a long time. Early carrots like 'Nantes 2', for example, crop in about eight weeks. Plant one row of these plus one row of a maincrop variety like 'Autumn King' – ready in 10 weeks – and you'll be picking carrots for an extra fortnight. The same technique works for potatoes, beetroot, potatoes, calabrese and sprouts.</li>
<li>Grow long-cropping vegetables: choose your veg types carefully, making the most of veg which give you pickings over a long period.</li>
<li>Cut-and-come-again lettuces, like 'Salad Bowl', are invaluable: you pick them leaf by leaf and they just keep giving for months on end. Calabrese, too, is a great long-cropping vegetable: once you've cut the main central head, the stem keeps producing smaller sideshoots giving you a second and third harvest.</li>
<li>Use your spare spots: when a spot comes free in the garden, plant it up right away. Plug plants are ideal for this: either grow your own or buy them ready-to-plant from your favourite garden centre.</li>
<li>You can make the most of the space underneath larger, slower-growing plants like big, hefty Brussels sprouts, too. Sow a row of baby-leaf salads between your newly-planted sprouts plants and you can pick and eat them long before the Brussels get big, doubling the harvest from the same space.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about keep the crops coming.

Keeping the crops coming

You may be short of outdoor space, but that doesn't mean you have to do without home-grown vegetables. There are lots of veg which do brilliantly in containers, whether windowboxes, grow bags, pretty terracotta pots or just tin cans nailed to a fence.
Growing in containers has many advantages: perfect soil, easy planting and your crops are kept well out of reach of slugs. These days, there are lots of innovative new ideas around to help you get started: look out for wall-hung vertical planters, automatic watering systems and even special varieties of veg bred for growing in pots, all available from your favourite garden centre in&nbsp;%locations%.
There's a huge range of veg you can try in containers, from herbs and salad leaves to tomatoes, chard, beetroot and even climbing French beans trained up against a wall. Just follow our five golden rules for a summer of plenty from your patio.
1.Use the largest containers you can 
The more room veg roots have, the happier they'll be (you can pack more veg in to larger pots, too!) So always buy the biggest containers you have room for.
2.Water, water, water 
Plants in pots are completely reliant on you for water supplies. Water container-grown veg every day – twice a day in hot spells.
3.Feed, feed, feed 
After the first six to eight weeks compost runs out of nutrients, so add weekly liquid feeds to your watering routine.
4.Re-sow fast-growing crops every month 
Keep picking continuously by sowing new containers of fast-growing salads, herbs, and quick crops like beetroot and turnips once a month.
5.Choose the right varieties 
Look for the words 'container veg' or 'patio veg' on seed packets: special varieties like Courgette 'Patio Star' and Aubergine 'Ophelia' will crop brilliantly in pots.&nbsp;
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a container vegetable garden.

A container vegetable garden

Canny vegetable gardeners start thinking about what to grow next winter as soon as the last one is finished. Take time out from the spring rush to think about what you'll grow in the coldest months of the year and you'll reap the rewards in fat cabbages, nutty Brussels sprouts and kale when there's little else around to pick.
The range of veg you can enjoy in winter is extraordinary, and from late spring onwards you'll find a huge variety on sale as plug plants and seeds in your favourite garden centre. Look out for delicacies like long-cropping 'Dwarf Green Curled' kale, burgundy 'Rubine' sprouts, pretty red 'Rhubarb' chard or knobbly gourmet root vegetable Celeriac 'Prinz'.
Winter veg plants often take a long time to grow, so get winter brassicas, leeks, parsnips, swede and celeriac in the ground from late spring. Faster growing chard, winter spinach and salads can wait till August: sow to follow on from potatoes or onions to keep your veg garden productive year-round.
A time-honoured way of keeping slow-growing brassicas out of the way while you enjoy earlier crops is a nursery bed. This is a separate area – often a raised bed or cold frame – for sowing rows of brassicas direct. Thin seedlings as they grow, then in June dig them up and transplant into beds just vacated by early broad beans, peas or lettuces.
If you haven't room for a nursery bed, you can still grow early crops in between generously-spaced brassicas like Brussels sprouts plants, usually sown around 60cm apart. While they're still small, use the space between the seedlings for an extra crop of carrots, salads, spinach or beetroot. The faster crop will be out of the ground well before the brassicas are big enough to overshadow them, giving you twice the crop from the same amount of space.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planning a winter vegetable garden.

Planning the Winter Vegetable Garden

Growing your own food is one of life's great pleasures, and like most good things, it's worth doing well. A great way of measuring your progress is to pit yourself against the old-timers - producers of football-sized onions and metre-long carrots.
It takes courage to exhibit your produce, but it's a lot of fun. Once you take the plunge and enter your first show, you'll be warmly welcomed in, with lots of advice and if you're lucky, hints on how to grow bigger and better next year.
Your local gardening club is likely to hold annual competitions, and many allotment sites have much-anticipated shows for plot holders, too. Or try your hand at the amateur growers' competition at the RHS Malvern Autumn Show, now including the National Giant Vegetable Championships.
So here are a few tips to help kick off your glittering career as a champion veg-grower.
Choose the right variety: For competition veg, it's all in the genes. You'll find plenty of veg seeds with a big reputation in your favourite garden centre: try 'Ailsa Craig' onions, or 'St Valery' carrots.
Start early: Champion growers traditionally sow their onion seeds on Boxing Day – giving them the maximum possible time to swell into those ginormous bulbs.
Use crowbars: Not to sabotage the competition, but to make long, deep holes where you're going to grow your giant parsnips or carrots. Fill with compost and sow on top for super-straight roots.
Grow in containers: The legendary Medwyn Williams, winner of multiple Chelsea gold medals, grew all his parsnips in drainpipes. Use a sandy compost mix and just tip out at competition time.
Feed, feed, feed: Whether it's giant pumpkins, marrows or runner beans, all that growth requires a lot of fuel. Plenty of manure before you start, plus regular liquid feeds pump up the volume to the max.
Please ask the staff in our %locations% garden centre for more information and advice about a container vegetable garden.

Growing for show

Short of space in the garden? Then this is the technique for you. All you need is a single raised bed to enjoy a wide variety of fruit and veg all year round. Here's how:
Build your raised bed:&nbsp;a raised bed:&nbsp;1.2m x 1.2m gives you 16 squares – and with one type of veg in each, that's quite a range of home-grown produce to pick. Ready-made raised beds, available from your favourite garden centre, click together in moments for instant results.
Find the right spot:&nbsp;choose your sunniest corner for your square-foot veg garden. Place it on bare soil, or turf: you can even put your raised bed on concrete, though drill drainage holes to let excess water run off.
Fill your bed with compost:&nbsp;a 50:50 mix of multipurpose compost and a soil-based mix like John Innes no. 3 is ideal for growing veg: you'll find both in your favourite garden centre. Fill the bed level with the top and then firm down gently.
Mark out the squares:&nbsp;you can do this with string attached to nails in the sides of your raised bed, or by tying together a grid of canes. Either way, your squares should measure 30cm x 30cm each.
Plant your veg:&nbsp;sow one type of veg into each square, at slightly closer spacings. One square foot holds four 'Cos' type lettuces; a tomato plant; 16 leeks; four dwarf French beans or 16 carrots. Taller plants grow better at the back; smaller ones get more light at the front.
Keep the harvest coming:&nbsp;as soon as you harvest from one of your squares, replace the crop with fresh plug plants bought ready-grown from your favourite garden centre, or raised from seed. You should be&nbsp;picking a dazzling array of veg from your square-foot garden from early summer through till spring.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a square foot vegetable garden.

Square foot vegetable gardening

Vegetables

Just imagine a meadow full of flowers outside your back door. It's a dream many gardeners share: and it can&nbsp;come true if you plant one of the popular annual meadow mixes, available in our garden centre. Here's how:
Preparing the ground: annual meadows need good garden soil, unlike traditional hay meadows (wild&nbsp;meadows grow best on poor land, which is why they're so hard to establish in gardens). So weed the site,&nbsp;add organic matter and rake it into a fine tilth just like you would for sowing any seed.
Choosing your mix: Cornfield annual mixes include poppies, corn marigolds and corncockle; or choose a&nbsp;blend for short stems (around 40cm tall) or perhaps combining particular colours: red flax, black-eyed Susan&nbsp;and Californian poppies, for example, for a hot-coloured meadow.
Sowing and aftercare: mix seed with silver sand so it's easier to distribute evenly, then broadcast at about&nbsp;3g – a small-ish handful – per square metre. Rake in afterwards and water, then watch it grow. After you've&nbsp;enjoyed the display, clear the ground in autumn: some will re-seed but to get your special mix back again re-sow next spring.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in&nbsp;%locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about planting annual meadows.

Annual meadows

One of the great luxuries of gardening is collecting armfuls of cheerful flowers for filling vases to overflowing&nbsp;with colour and scent for the house. Some of the best flowers for picking are easy-going annuals, and we&#39;ve&nbsp;picked our top ten from the wide range available in our garden centre.

Cosmos: graceful daisy-like flowers on 90cm tall stems: &#39;Purity&#39; is exquisite white, and &#39;Dazzler&#39; is vivid pink

Tobacco plant (Nicotiana): tall, airy flowers in colours from white to pink to lime green

Snapdragons (Antirrhinum): pretty cottage-garden flowers with generous blooms

Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus): blue is the classic colour, but they come in white, pink or darkest purple

Sweetpeas (Lathyrus odoratus): choose Spencer types for scent, and Grandifloras for big, blowsy flowers

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella): exquisite starry blue or white flowers are followed by architectural seedheads

Larkspur (Consolida): a rich royal blue flower with tall spikes produced till the first frosts

Bells of Ireland (Molucella laevis): curious curving spikes of vivid green bell-like flowers veined with cream

Please ask the staff in our garden centre&nbsp;in&nbsp;%locations% for more information and advice about annual flowers you can pick&nbsp;for the house.

Annuals for picking

Annual plants are here-today, gone-tomorrow party girls. They may have just one season in the sun, but what a season: they flower for an incredibly long time and are invariably so spectacularly beautiful you&#39;ll lose your heart to them.

We stock two kinds of annual in our garden centre: hardy annuals to sow direct from March onwards, and half-hardies to sow under cover as they don&#39;t like frost. Here are just some you&#39;ll find in our garden centre in&nbsp;%locations%.

Hardy annuals: 
Poached egg plant (Limnanthes douglasii): cheery yellow-and-white flowers 
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena): starry blue or white flowers followed by architectural seedpods 
Ladybird poppies (Papaver communtatum &#39;Ladybird&#39;): scarlet papery petals each with a black blotch 
Nasturtiums: abundant red, orange or creamy flowers over rounded leaves

Half-hardy annuals: 
Cosmos&nbsp; clear white daisies with yellow centres on long stems 
Zinnias: pompom flowers in brilliant scarlets, yellows and purples 
Swan river daisy: profuse mauve daisies tumbling over pots and baskets 
Nemesia: another perfect container plant with pretty, delicate blooms 
Tobacco plant (Nicotiana): charming open flowers in pink, cream and green over big leafy rosettes

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in&nbsp;%locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about choosing and growing annuals.

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Climbers

Container plants

Containers