by Rebecca Tute | Jul 3, 2013 | Customer Trial Panel
Customer trials – update from Caroline Broome
Caroline has been sending us regular updates with photos of her trial products, but as we’re a little late adding them to the blog, please note that references to planting out times may be a bit out of date. We do apologise and will add updates more promptly from now on!
May/June 2013
Cornus Winter Flame is small, but showing good colour, now in the border. We shall see!
Anemone The Governor has enormous flowers only one or two were in flower, but these have survived being in bud during the snow.
Anemone The Governor
Daffodil Carnation Flowered Collection – the strong upright blooms are self-supporting.
Daffodil Carnation Flowered
Petunia Balcon Mixed – lovely strong plants.
And the Summer 2013 digitalis Illumination plugs are far stronger and healthier than their predecessors from last Autumn 2012.
The plastic tomato collars caused a stir at our NGS Open Day, because of the amazing results they produced deterring slugs & snails from our ligularia. And the good old tree lilies from trials 4 yrs ago are over 6ft tall!
Tomato auto-waterers used as a slug deterrent
We were on the BBC1 The One Show Tuesday 18th June 7pm as part of their NGS Festival Weekend feature.
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jul 3, 2013 | Customer Trial Panel
We recently introduced you to some of the members of our customer trials team, who are busy working away in their gardens growing the seeds and plants we sent them earlier in the year. We’ve had a few updates and thought it was high time we shared them with you.
Joy Gough – 11th June 2013
Well, the summer finally got here. There are tomato Gardener’s Delight and cucumber Zeina (a mini one) in the greenhouse, which all look healthy, but have not put on the growth they normally do – it’s been too cold. I sowed 8 seeds of Zeina and all of them came up – I know have 3″ cucumbers growing. My tomato Alicante plants are 18″ tall and flowering.
Tomatoes doing well
Mini cucumber Zeina
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Lettuces on the other hand were grown in the greenhouse and waited and waited to be planted out, so instead we have been eating them straight from the greenhouse. Little Gem was the first of the season and what a difference in taste – I will put some outside in the veg plot. They’re slug resistant too!
Slug-free lettuce
Spring onions, beetroot, sweetcorn, carrots and parsnips are all starting to move. In fact, all the sweetcorn Butterscotch seeds I planted came up – I’ve grown these before and friends always ask for some. I plant these in a block, rather than rows, as it helps pollination.
Sweetcorn Butterscotch
The sprouts that were started off in the greenhouse will be planted out, but they need to be netted away from pigeons and cabbage white butterflies.
The plants from T&M are now either all planted in the garden or in hanging baskets… or any other container I can reuse! Geraniums have been flowering for two weeks now all on their own, waiting for the other plants to flower. The geranium Best Red are last year’s plants that I overwintered in the greenhouse and were the first to flower.
Geranium ‘Best Red’
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jul 1, 2013 | Gardening News
Back row l to r: Anne Wooden, Erin Geaves, Michael Perry, Paul Hansord, John May
Front row l to r: Sue Adams, Chloe Farmer, Kim Parker, Marilyn Keen
Employees clock up 165 years – long-service awards for dedicated Thompson & Morgan staff
A group of employees from Thompson & Morgan is this year celebrating a combined total of over 165 years of service to the company.
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Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jun 25, 2013 | Gardening News
Read our snippets of gardening news here…
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Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
by Rebecca Tute | Jun 19, 2013 | Wildlife
How to encourage bees into your garden
Sedum
Bees play a key role in pollinating many fruits and vegetables. 35 per cent of our diet depends on pollination of crops by bees! Bees are active between February and October and it is crucial they have enough food during this time to help them through the winter and early spring. By introducing a few spring, summer and autumn-flowering plants to your garden you will help to extend the foraging period.
To attract bees, you needn’t leave your garden to go wild – many cultivated garden plants are just as valuable to bees for food and shelter. If you only have a small garden or balcony why not try planting up a container with some bee-friendly plants? Lavender, skimmia, heliotrope, herbs, hardy geraniums, agastache, buddleja ‘Buzz’, single-flowered dahlias, single-flowered fuchsias, sedum and dwarf sunflowers are all suitable for a container and provide nectar and pollen for bees. Site your container or border in the sunniest position possible to make it more attractive to bees.
Hardy geranium ‘Rozanne’
Try making a ‘bee hotel’ for solitary bees to over-winter in, using hollow plant stems (such as bamboo canes) cut into piece about 10-20cm long. Tie 15-20 pieces of hollow stem together in a bundle and hang in a sunny but sheltered area such as the side of a shed or trellis.
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Top tips to encourage bees into your garden:
- Choose single-flowered varieties of plants. Bees and can’t access double flowers for pollen and nectar. Flowers with petals that form long tunnels are also inaccessible to bees.
- Leave some of your culinary herbs to flower – they are a rich food source for bees and will leave your garden buzzing on warm days!
- Try not to spray your plants with insecticides as these will kill beneficial insects too. Be patient and the pests will often be eaten naturally by ladybirds, lacewings, spiders, small mammals and birds.
Cornflower
Other flowers to include in your bee garden:
Crocus
Muscari
Bergenia
Echinacea
Scabious
Cornflowers
Teasel
Eryngium
Rebecca works in the Marketing department as part of the busy web team, focusing on updating the UK news and blog pages and Thompson & Morgan’s international website. Rebecca enjoys gardening and learning about flowers and growing vegetables with her young daughter.
