Plantconnection Poinsettias Featured in National Newspaper

On Tuesday, the Daily Telegraph featured a photograph of our own Despatch Supervisor Lina Veliuoniene standing among our crop of Poinsettias. The photograph was in relation to an article the Telegraph was running on how businesses have been affected by the credit crunch. Roundstone is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of Poinsettias, and despite fears that demand for these seasonal plants would be lower than in previous years, sales have so far been on a par with 2007.

You can buy the Poinsettias shown in the photograph directly from the Plantconnection website for £9.99, which includes a hand selected plant supplied in a decorative 13cm gold ceramic pot, delivered direct to your door within a few days! Poinsettias make great gifts, and no home is complete without one at this time of year!

You can also be sure that the Poinsettia you receive will arrive with you in great condition thanks to our specially designed packaging. Although the Poinsettias you can buy from your local supermarket have been grown in the same way, plants that have been sitting in store for more than a couple of days start to suffer from the lack of humidity. This is one of the reasons Poinsettias have a reputation for not lasting well. By ordering from us, your plant is shipped direct from our nursery on an overnight delivery by courier, so will be with you the very next day.

November Tips

Autumn is now well and truly upon us, with leaves falling regularly and carpeting the ground, so there's plenty of tidying up to do in the garden. Don't let your garden slip as we approach the winter months - November can still be a great time to plant hardy plants as long as your soil isn't too wet or cold.

Borders

• Conditions on mild days are still ideal for planting hardy shrubs, trees, hedges and herbaceous perennials as well as autumn and winter flowering annuals such as pansies and polyanthus.
• Prune back Roses and tidy up deciduous shrubs.
• Protect newly planted evergreen shrubs with fleece windbreaks.
• Firm in the roots of trees and shrubs that are lifted by frost.
• Plant bare rooted trees, shrubs and roses.
• Continue to tidy beds and borders, then mulch with compost, well-rotted manure or bark and apply a slow release fertiliser such as bonemeal.
• Provide autumn and winter interest by leaving attractive stems or seed heads for wildlife. Cut back old, unsightly perennials to ground level though.
• Protect tender plants which cannot be moved by insulating them with straw, bracken or fleece.

Bedding Plants

• Keep Autumn flowering plants looking their best by removing dead heads and ensuring they're not being covered with fallen leaves.
• Remember to think ahead! Now's the time to start ordering plants you'd like to plant next spring.
Containers
• Containers are just as likely to dry out at this time of year, so remember to check regularly that they have enough water.
• As the weather turns increasingly wet, raise your containers off the ground slightly using small pieces of wood to allow them to drain more freely.
• Prune any shrubby plants to keep them tidy and in top shape.

Lawns

• Be sure to rake up leaves regularly to prevent them from smothering your grass. Either add them in small amounts to your compost heap or seal them in large plastic bags to rot.
• Spike badly drained lawns to improve drainage and if not carried out previously scarify to remove dead grass.
• Sweep away worm casts.
• Complete any turf laying.
• Mow if necessary, but pick a dry day and make sure the grass isn't wet.

Fruit

• Harvest and store late varieties of apples and pears.
• Plant new fruit trees and bushes once the ground has been dug over and well-rotted compost or manure added.
• If not already done, blackberry, raspberry and loganberry canes that have finished cropping should be cut out and new canes can be tied in to support framework.
• Start to prune apple and pear trees.
• Once all leaves have dropped apply a "winter wash" to control pests.

The Vegetable Garden

• Dig over vacant ground and dig in well-rotted manure or compost.
• Protect cauliflower curds by bending a few leaves over the centre.
• If storing vegetables make sure that they are well spaced and dry, and if any are rotting throw them away.
• Leeks and parsnips may be left in the ground until required for use.

The Greenhouse

• Make sure heating system is working efficiently as it will be required more and more as winter continues.
• Water in the morning only, so that the foliage does not remain wet at night and try to avoid leaf splash.
• Sow winter lettuce in the greenhouse border soil.
• Ventilate the greenhouse with care in order to keep up air movement and alleviate dampness without letting temperatures fall too low.

Ponds

• Continue to feed pond fish.Generally clean up your pond taking care not to disturb hibernating wildlife.
• Take out any pumps and clean and store them in a dry place.
• Put a net over the pond if not already done to prevent leaves falling in to it.
General Tasks
• Provide food and water for garden birds.
• Drain stone fountains etc. so that freezing conditions are less likely to damage them, and service electrical pumps.

Pansies, Pansies, Everywhere!

It’s that time of year again when we can’t move in the nursery without tripping over a Pansy or a Cyclamen! Unfortunately this usually means that summer’s drawing to a close, although this year I hadn’t realised it had arrived yet! Still, I do like autumn, and I’m looking forward to morning walks on the South Downs as the leaves are turning gold and nature prepares itself for the long nights of winter.

September is a busy time in the garden, with plenty of jobs to keep us occupied. The summer annuals are reaching the end of their term, and it’s time to prepare the borders for the new batch of autumn and winter plants. The sight of all these plants on the nursery makes me realise that the colder months aren’t all doom and gloom! In fact, we’re starting to despatch the small and standard plug plants from the autumn range this week, so it’s time to get everything ready for potting up!

Of course, it’s not all about bedding plants at this time of year. There’s plenty to keep you occupied in the vegetable garden too! There’s no shortage of things to harvest, and we’ll soon be buried under piles of squash, pumpkins, and runner beans! Why is it that no matter how well we plan, we always end up with too much? Of course, once the autumn veg is harvested, it’s time to start planting out the late season vegetables, with cabbages, kale, swiss chard, broad beans and peas all suitable for planting between now and the end of the year.

Speaking of vegetable plots, Dave (our nursery manager) is planning to turn a neglected corner of his garden at Pebble Cottage into a vegetable patch this autumn and has promised to keep a diary of his progress here on the blog. If you’re thinking of starting a vegetable patch of your own, it will be worth reading Dave’s articles to see how (or how not!) to do it. To make sure you don’t miss anything, sign up to our blog feed!

Happy gardening!
Sam.

Winter Pansies

When it comes to sheer resilience, nothing much matches the staying power of winter pansies! Having been engrossed in plants and horticulture since a small child, it never ceases to amaze, how this plant can recover from almost anything Mother Nature throws at it. Even though winters are less severe than of old, not many plants, especially bedding plants have the ability to flower and provide colour upon emergence from a blanket of snow! As a child I always marvelled at how the bright coloured flowers, often with the characteristic dark blotches (or faces) exploded into colour when life seemed to have all but abandoned the garden.

As I discussed in my last article, I am currently preparing the autumn season production of young plants. Although as I write we are at the end of July and the summer bedding season is now reaching a crescendo, within the next month, garden centres will be heavily promoting autumn bedding. As you will be aware however, nature always seems to have its own plans regarding the timing of when autumn arrives, and with it, the first frosts. As a result, the summer bedding season often tends to go on a lot longer than expected.

What better way to fit into nature’s plan, than to grow your own winter pansies from plugs? This month I am growing Pansy Merit, which is a commercial variety produced for its wide colour range, reliability, and most importantly, low cost! These pansies will be ready for despatching at the start of September and are perfect for fitting into your autumn planting scheme.

Winter pansies are a hardy product and are just as at home when grown outside as they are in the greenhouse. On arrival, plug plants should be unpacked and set down, and given a little water if needed. Potting should take place as soon as possible to avoid the closely growing plants from becoming stretched, which affects the final quality and weather tolerance.

Pot so that the top of the plug is level with the compost in the destination pot / tray – the plug size we are looking at here would commercially go into modular trays, or an 8-9cm (3”) pot but not bigger. Any multipurpose compost will do, and I would whole-heartedly recommend one of the many peat free alternatives now on the market. Water, and set down somewhere cool and light.

When neighbouring plants start to touch, space the pots or trays if possible so air can get around the crop. This prevents disease due to humid air in the crown of the plant encouraging fungal pathogens. It is advisable for the first couple of weeks not to allow the compost to get too wet, especially in warm conditions as this can lead to root disorders such as Theviolopsis basicola or black root rot, as well as Downy Mildew and Grey Mould (Botrytis) . If under glass, give maximum ventilation where possible to keep the air dry.

After 4-6 weeks, knock out the plants and check the root development, you should by now have plenty of white root around the pot and your crop will be ready to plant. There are many uses for your pansies, and they will do well in tubs and containers, hanging baskets and bedded out in borders en masse.

Winter pansies are not that fussy about planting location although they do best in full sun or part shade as they will have chance to dry out in the short winter days. Be sure to prepare the ground before planting, forking over the soil and adding peat free organic matter to the soil to improve structure and remove compaction.

Slugs are one of the worst enemies of winter pansies but can be controlled using slug bait, picking off by hand or using nematodes. To avoid grey mould, remember to pick of dead flowers, this will also help to promote continued flowering!! Enjoy the display…

David.

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Hardy Cyclamen

It’s hard to believe it’s the time to start thinking about the autumn and winter in the garden when it feels as if summer hasn’t even arrived yet. However, now is the time to start planning ahead to ensure that as summer fades the garden stays alive with colour for the darker months ahead. There are few better ways to do this than with the exciting range of mini, winter tolerant cyclamen, which when given the right conditions will flower right through to welcome in the following spring.

There are many mini cyclamen now in the market place, many of which boast unusual flower colours and attractive foliage. The best in my opinion is Cyclamen Silverado. This is a long established variety and as such, has been improved to give excellent weather tolerance and a long flowering season. Its best feature however is the highly decorative foliage, which is strongly marbled in greens and greys and shot through with silver.

Mini cyclamen are quite tricky from seed as to get a uniform batch of plants, they need specific conditions at the point of germination, so I would whole-heartedly recommend letting a specialist nursery do the seed bit, and start with young plants such as being offered here.

Cyclamen are easy to grow as long as some basic rules are followed, and now’s the time to get started! Firstly plan ahead and get your orders in early, as that way you will guarantee to get your plants. On arrival make sure the plants are unpacked and set down somewhere outside and out of direct sunlight. Cyclamen are naturally woodland plants from the Eastern Mediterranean and therefore prefer a light shade and lower humidity. Keeping them humid will encourage the leaves to stretch up and spoil the plant habit.

Cyclamen Silverado does best in planters, tubs and baskets in free draining compost where the raised height will bring them closer to the eye so the attractive foliage can be seen. When planting ensure the corm at the base of the plant is sitting on the compost surface and is not buried, as deep planting can lead to humidity in the base of the plant resulting in grey mould (Botrytis) infecting and killing the plant. They look good either planted en masse on their own or in mixed plantings with bulbs such as Narcissus ‘Tête-à-Tête’, snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis), small shrubs including Skimmia japonica ‘Rubella’ and grasses such as Carex ‘Comans Bronze’, Carex ‘Frosted Curls and Festuca glauca ‘Azurit’ or ‘Blue Fox’ as the foliage texture and colour provides a good backdrop.

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