Hanging basket habits revealed

Nurserymans Choice Hanging Basket Mixed Collection from T&M

A vibrant display of hanging baskets can make your garden in summer pop!
Image: Nurserymans Choice Hanging Basket Mixed Collection from T&M

A recent Thompson & Morgan survey has revealed some surprising habits, when it comes to summer hanging baskets.

Love them or loathe them, nothing sets up the garden for summer like a vibrant display of hanging baskets. Thompson & Morgan, the UK’s leading mail order supplier of seasonal hanging basket plants, asked the nation’s gardeners how they use hanging baskets to best effect. The findings were most interesting…

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Suffolk train stations back in bloom

Ipswich Station Thompson Morgan, ActivLives' gardeners and Jackie Station Manager at Ipswich

The T&M team, ActivLives’ gardeners and station manager Jackie at Ipswich Train Station

Colour has returned to Ipswich and Stowmarket train stations thanks to a partnership between train operator Abellio Greater Anglia, local seed and plant specialist Thompson & Morgan and Ipswich-based charity ActivLives.

In a repeat of last year’s amazing hanging basket displays, volunteers and young learners from ActivLives have been busy growing baskets of Thompson & Morgans’ best selling Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’. This year they’ve added Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’ to the mix, to provide scent as well as colour to the platforms.

Begonia 'Fragrant Falls' & Begonia 'Fragrant Falls' at Ipswich Station

Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’ & Begonia ‘Apricot Shades’ from T&M at Ipswich Station

Not only will the baskets brighten up the journeys of everyone who passes through the stations on the London to Norwich mainline, the project has provided local young people with valuable horticultural experience. Participants from a number of organisations, including WS Training, Talent Match and Seetec, took part in training programmes at ActivLives’ two garden projects in Ipswich to gain skills for work.

The ActivLives team planted up the baskets back in April. They have since tended the Begonia blooms at the glasshouses in the walled garden at Chantry Park, bringing them into peak condition for display at the train stations.

Ipswich Station Thompson Morgan with ActivLives' gardeners

Ipswich Train Station with Thompson & Morgan Blooms

Thompson & Morgan’s Horticultural Director, Paul Hansord said:

“We were pleased with last year’s baskets, but ActivLives has outperformed themselves this year, with bigger and better baskets for real impact. Planted in incredicompost® and fed with incredbloom® at planting time, these baskets look stunning and will continue to perform right through to autumn. Requiring minimal care from station staff – spent flowers simply fall off to be replaced by fresh new blooms. The addition of Begonia ‘Fragrant Falls’ should really lift the spirits of workers on their daily commute and provide a warm welcome for visitors and tourists passing through both stations.”

For help and information on growing and caring for your own begonias, visit our hub page for a wealth of resources.

6 Lawn Care Jobs To Do This Spring

Spring is an important time in the lawn care calendar.  In order to help your lawn recover from the stresses of winter you’ll need to give it a bit of TLC. If you get your lawn care jobs done in spring, it’ll look fantastic heading into the summer.

When to Start Spring Lawn Care

For most of us in the UK, spring starts in April. Every so often we might experience a mild February or March and the temptation might be to start early. However, it’s common for these mild breaks in the weather to be followed by cold, wintry snaps later on. March is still too early for most spring jobs. That said, you can often get a head start by giving the lawn a topping with the mower and applying a moss killer.

Here are 6 of the most important lawn care jobs to tackle this spring;

1) Start Mowing

Cutting the grass is the most important part of caring for your lawn. So mow regularly while the grass is growing, this means at least once a week and if growth is particularly strong, once every 5 days. Never cut off more than a third of the grass leaf each time you mow. If you remove too much at all once you’ll weaken the grass.

The first couple of times you mow, keep your lawn mower set quite high. Then if you like a shorter cut, gradually reduce the height each time you mow.

mowing lawn

©Thompson & Morgan – Cutting the grass is the most important part of caring for your lawn.

It’s also a good idea to tidy up the edges of your lawn. If they need re-cutting, use a half-moon edging iron. For Once established, edges can be maintained by trimming with a pair of lawn edging shears. For a professional looking finish, you can install a permanent lawn edging.

2) Kill & Remove Moss

Moss and weeds are a common problem in spring and will completely ruin the look of your lawn. Apply a dose of moss killer like Iron Sulphate and watch as the moss dies and turns black over the best week.

Once all the moss hast turned black, rake it out. You can use a springbok rake but a powered lawn rake will make the job much easier.

3) Kill Any Weeds

Weeds can be a real problem in spring. If your lawn is full of weeds, apply a weed killer to the whole area. Make sure it’s a ‘selective’ weed killer which is safe to spray on lawns, otherwise you’ll kill the grass too. Use a spot spray weed killer if you only have one or two weeds.

©Shutterstock - Spraying weeds in lawns

©Shutterstock – Use a ‘selective’ weed killer which is safe to spray on lawns, otherwise you’ll kill the grass too!

4) Aerate to Relieve Soil Compaction

Spring is the perfect time to aerate your lawn, either by spiking with a garden fork or hollow tining with a dedicated tool. This improves drainage and also allows air and nutrients to penetrate the soil. If the soil in your lawn is in fairly good condition, spiking with a fork or aerator sandals will be perfect.

However, if the soil is compacted, aerate with a hollow tiner. This will remove cores of turf from the sward and create hundreds of holes.

This will give the soil particles in your lawn room to ‘relax’ into, improving drainage and the penetration of oxygen and nutrients.

5) Overseed to Fill in Any Bare Patches

The removal of moss can leave your lawn looking quite sparse as the grass will have thinned out. If the problem was particularly bad you could have bald patches where there is no grass at all.

In order to fill those patches in you’ll need to overseed your lawn with new grass seed. As the new grass germinates you’ll see you lawn become thicker and denser. By the time summer arrives, your lawn will have fully recovered.

©Shutterstock - Sowing grass seed

©Shutterstock – Fill bare patches by overseeding your lawn with new grass seed.

6) Apply a Spring Lawn Feed

After a long winter, your lawn can come into the spring lacking in nutrients. It’s important to replace them in order to support new growth and healthy root development. After applying a spring feed you’ll see growth quicken and the grass grow greener.

We hope this article has helped you with tips on sprucing up your lawn. For more advice, visit our helpful lawn care hub – full of additional maintenance tips & gardening guides.

December News Update

New Spring Catalogues are on their way!

Thompson & Morgan’s new spring catalogues are in and will soon be winging their way to gardeners up and down the UK. The full spring range is now available online at www.thompson-morgan.com and offers the horticultural mail order company’s customers a huge choice of plants and gardening equipment.

Vicky Ager, T&M’s head of direct sales said:

“We’re really pleased with the fabulous range of plants that we’re offering gardeners for 2020. Our horticultural team have excelled themselves in searching out the very best plant varieties for our customers to grow next year.”

Catalogues will be coming through customers’ letterboxes in the New Year. Anyone who does not receive our catalogues can request them via our website.

Website Refresh – Take a look!

We’ve been refreshing our website with an updated colour scheme and improved functionality to create a seamless customer experience across the brand.

Holly Taylor, T&M’s online manager commented:

“With over 17 million recorded customer visits this year, our website plays a huge part in our business. We think the new look website will appeal to our customers – and we’ll be adding some more features in the new year.”

Chempak Rebrand

The website isn’t the only area that has had a makeover. Well-known stalwart of the potting shed and gardeners’ favourite, Chempak, has been rebranded.

“The Chempak plant food range is highly respected by many gardeners and has a long-standing reputation for quality and successful results; we thought it only good and proper to bring its branding up to date.”

said Joseph Cordy, Thompson & Morgan’s head of B2B.

Look out for the new packs in garden centres and here on our website. Gardeners can find out which Chempak product is best for their plants’ needs in this article https://www.thompson-morgan.com/chempak-fertiliser-guide

Geoff Stonebanks Driftwood Garden Update

I saw this posted on social media recently!

“Gardening is an art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas”.

It was credited to Elizabeth Murray. It really tugged at my own perception of how I garden myself. As someone who has no formal background in gardening of any sort, and one who, to be totally honest, struggles to find the patience to grow from seed, this description best fits how I tackle my own garden, Driftwood, and prepare it for the 2,000 odd visitors that come to see it every year! I’ve always said I’m a bit of an instant gardener, as I want the area I’m creating or changing to look like the image I have in my head, instantly.

This description of being a painter and using the plants as paint is something many have said to me over the years. Interestingly, many of the plants I’ve used to paint since 2012 have come from Thompson & Morgan. Looking back to 2013, two of the trial plants I was sent were Dahlia ‘Fire and Ice’ and Tulip ‘Silver Parrot’. The former was the most impressive flower to set the borders alight with some dazzling colour, easy to imagine my brushstrokes creating this dazzling bloom. Likewise with the amazing tulip too.

Dahlia ‘Ice and Fire’ and Parrot Tulips. ©Geoff Stonebanks

In 2014 the standout bit of art for me was the stunning Gazania ‘Tikal Sunbather’, whose dramatic pointed petals really set the garden canvas alive on either side of the tranquil pond. By 2015 we took delivery of the outstanding Fuchsia arborescens. This was a much talked about work of art by many garden visitors, lots of whom had never heard of it. All were captivated by its elegance and its twofold purpose in the garden, producing amazing delicate flowers to paint the borders or containers and then to turn into delicious berries that could be eaten.

Fuchsia arborescens and Gazania ‘Tikal Sunbather’. ©Geoff Stonebanks

2016 saw the stunning Petunia ‘Night Sky’ delivered to Driftwood. These were certainly one of the most talked about pieces of flower art in the garden that year, I had lots of them tumbling out of my 200 or more containers and you could just imagine them painted on a night sky canvas.

2017 saw another gorgeous petunia take the crown for the most commented on plant in the garden. Like the night sky, you could just imaging an artist’s brush delicately painting the heart shapes across the flowers petals. Petunia ‘Amore™ Queen of Hearts’ was a great hit.

Petunia ‘Night Sky’ and Petunia ‘Amore™ Queen of Hearts’. ©Geoff Stonebanks

Moving swiftly on to 2018, the outright winner in the stand out colour and longevity category, without doubt, was the Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’ that arrived and was planted into a large container. They started to flower very early on in the season and never seemed to stop until the garden gate was closed in September and beyond. So, what artistic contributions to the garden will 2019 bring? Well I’ve got 13 different plants being delivered by Thompson & Morgan this Spring, 2 are here already, Acanthus mollis and Alstroemeria ‘Summer Red’. But I reckon the stand out plant for me on the artist’s palette this season will be the Salvia ‘Amethyst Lips’. You’ll have to watch this space over the summer months to see how it turns out on my garden canvas!

Alstroemeria ‘Indian Summer’ and Salvia ‘Amethyst Lips’. ©Geoff Stonebanks

Interestingly, back in 2017, a visitor to the garden posted this review on Trip Advisor after seeing the garden.

“The garden was a picture created by an artist – a delight of colours, secret glades of surprise, intricacies of fronds and leaves, inspiring and challenging, completely enjoyable”.

Read more of Geoff’s garden at www.driftwoodbysea.co.uk

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