by Sonia Mermagen | Dec 18, 2019 | Gardening News, Gardening Posts, Spring gardening
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
Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)
by Sonia Mermagen | Dec 3, 2019 | Gardening News, Gardening Posts
Alstromeria ‘Holiday Valley, Alstromeria ‘Spring Valley’ and Alstromeria ‘Times Valley’
Further ‘reveals’ from our new Spring Range
We’ve just released details and images of a number of new products that will feature in our Spring 2020 range.
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Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)
by Sonia Mermagen | Oct 24, 2019 | Gardening News, Gardening Posts, Vegetables
We are launching two intriguing new winter squash varieties. Intriguing because when cooked, they taste just like mashed and baked potatoes whilst offering fewer calories, along with lower carbohydrate and higher fibre content. With today’s trends towards healthy eating, plant-based diets and home-grown vegetables, we think the new squash varieties will go down a treat with home gardeners, allotment growers and plot-to-plate foodies alike.
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Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)
by Sonia Mermagen | Sep 24, 2019 | Gardening Posts
Begonia ‘MacaRouge’, Busy Lizzie ‘Wild Romance White’ and Busy Lizzie ‘Wild Romance Red’
New Spring Range Preview
Plant selection for our 2020 spring range is well under way. As always, full details are kept secret until the launch, but we can give you a sneak preview of a couple of plants that promise to be amongst the stars of the new range. Namely, Begonia ‘MacaRouge’, a fabulous bright red variety with striking golden yellow stamens, and to add to the hugely popular Busy Lizzie ‘Wild Romance’ range, a double-bloomed, red and a white version of this popular impatiens. The first in the range, Busy Lizzie ‘Wild Romance Blush Pink’ will be available again for the 2020 season; all three will be sold separately and as a trio collection.
Begonia ‘MacaRouge’ | Very floriferous from June to frosts | Fleuroselect Award Winner | Great for pots and borders | Sun or part shade | Height: 35cm | Spread: 25cm | Available as jumbo plug plants |
Busy Lizzie (Impatiens) ‘Wild Romance Red’ and ‘Wild Romance White’ | Long-flowering, impressive double rosebud blooms | Ideal for patio pots | Sun or part shade | Height & Spread: 40-50cm | Available as jumbo plug plants |
All three of the ‘Wild Romance’ Busy Lizzies and Begonia ‘MacaRouge’ are available for pre-order on Thompson & Morgan’s website now. Further new and exciting products will be revealed over the coming weeks.
Flower and Vegetable of the Year 2020
We’re pleased to announce our pretty Cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’ as Flower of the Year for 2020 and colourful Kale ‘Jardin Mixed’ as Vegetable of the Year. Both varieties are available from our 2020 seed catalogue, our retail seed stockists and online at https://www.thompson-morgan.com/ A full list of our 2020 seed range is available here
Cosmos ‘Apricot Lemonade’ and Kale ‘Jardin Mixed’
T&M’s Lance Russell – a ‘poster boy’ for post-GCSE practical training
T&M’s Lance Russell was interviewed at the end of the summer by both BBC Radio Suffolk and BBC One Look East as a successful example of someone who went on to practical training and qualifications after GCSEs.
Thompson & Morgan’s Lance Russell
Following publicity surrounding Lance’s involvement in two gold medal-winning gardens at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, BBC producers were keen to use his story as an up-and-coming horticulturalist to illustrate post-GCSE options for students not wishing to take the university route. At just 24 years old, Lance has worked in the gardening industry since graduating from Sparsholt College in Hampshire with a National Diploma in Horticulture and now works here at Thompson & Morgan. Employed as a trainee manager, Lance has worked in various areas of our business, and has recently been promoted to senior account manager. Lance can also be seen fronting some of our gardening ‘Clips with Tips’ videos.
Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)
by Sonia Mermagen | May 20, 2019 | Flowers, Gardening News, Gardening Posts
Agapanthus Fireworks
We’re so pleased to announce that its Plant of the Year entry Agapanthus ‘Fireworks’ has been placed third today at RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It was one of six plants that we heard this morning were on the final shortlist of 20 entrants.
Agapanthus ‘Fireworks’ is a world first in pendulous bicolour agapanthus. Developed by Quinton Bean and Andrew de Wet of De Wet plant breeders, not only does ‘Fireworks’ offer better colour, it has bigger blooms and more stems per plant than previous bicolour cultivars.
This striking agapanthus flowers for longer too – most agapanthus are finished in August, but ‘Fireworks’ carries on flowering through September, giving gardeners 3 months of colour!
The large umbels carry generous clusters of upright white buds that open into fluted flowers which show off clearly-defined rich blue bases and white flaring petal tips. Plants are tougher than other evergreen varieties – staying in green leaf through winter in temperatures down to -10℃.
Peter Freeman, our new product development manager commented:
“We’re over the moon to have our Agapanthus ‘Fireworks’ placed in the top three of this year’s Plant of the Year. It’s a really great plant! We think gardeners will love its contemporary elegance and the fact that it can be used in so many ways in the garden. It grows to about 90cm so it looks really dramatic planted in drifts in the border, and just as good in patio container displays.”
All the plants that we entered into the Plant of the Year competition are featured on the Behind the Genes garden that was created in partnership with Sparsholt College in Hampshire. The garden, which is in the Discovery area of the Great Pavilion (Stand GPA154), offers a visually inspiring insight into the processes of plant breeding and explains techniques used to bring about improvements in plant species.
Also on the garden are our winning plants from last year’s Plant of the Year – Hydrangea ‘Runaway Bride’ which was placed first in 2018, and Sunflower SunBelievable Brown Eyed Girl’, which took third place.
Sonia works at Thompson & Morgan in the role of press and communications officer. She is a self-proclaimed ‘reluctant’ gardener and is generally amazed if anything flourishes in her garden. Sonia has a ‘hands off’ approach to gardening and believes that this helps to encourage bees, butterflies and other wildlife. (That’s her excuse anyway!)
