by Thompson & Morgan | Jan 23, 2019 | Gardening Posts
Are you looking for some garden inspiration? Or just curious about which plants were gardeners’ favourites last year? Here are our ten best-selling plants of 2018. The majority are flowers – including two of our own prize-winning hybrids – but there are a couple of fruits in there too – can you guess which they are?
Copyright: Visions BV, Netherlands
Hydrangea Runaway Bride®
Awarded the prestigious title of Plant of the Year for 2018 at Chelsea Flower Show, our Hydrangea hybrid Runaway Bride® ‘Snow White’ is one of the most floriferous and vigorous hydrangeas you’ve ever seen. It’s the only hydrangea to produce flowers from every leaf joint – producing up to 6 large, beautiful blooms per branch and a spectacular showy display. We’re so proud of this beautiful hydrangea with its pure white lace-cap flowers, flushed with pale pink. It makes an elegant border shrub and is equally stunning in hanging baskets and containers. The Runaway Bride® has stolen many hearts this year, has it stolen yours?
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‘Sunbelievable Brown Eyed Girl’ took third prize in Chelsea Flower Show’s Plant of the Year 2018
Sunflower SunBelievable™ Brown Eyed Girl
Our ‘Sunbelievable™ Brown Eyed Girl’ sunflower won third place in Chelsea’s Plant of the Year 2018 category. This stunning new hybrid sunflower doesn’t waste time setting seed but puts all its energy into flowering. This pretty sunflower is perfect for pots and borders. It produces masses of beautiful, dainty blooms all the way through to November. Our head breeder Charles says: “I’ve crossed the very best with the very best to really boost its flower power.”
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Copyright: Verdegaal
Tree Lily Pretty Woman
Tree lilies create a striking display in the garden. These impressive plants are giants of the flower world, their stunning blooms towering at up to 8ft (2.4m) tall by their third year. Sturdy and prolific, each tree lily plant produces around 30 trumpet-shaped flowers. But with a relatively narrow spread (45cm or 18”), they fit nicely into even narrow borders. The Pretty Woman Tree Lily comes in red, yellow and white varieties, all of which offer a deliciously sweet fragrance.
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This spiky clematis might be a real show off but it’s very easy to look after
Clematis Taiga
When clematis ’Taiga’ was launched at Chelsea Flower Show in 2017, it caused quite a stir. Its hand-sized blooms with multi-layered purple petals tipped with lime/cream unfurl into stunning spikey rosettes. This Japanese-bred cultivar loves to climb, producing countless blooms through the summer. But don’t let its show-off credentials fool you – clematis ‘Taiga’ may look exotic but it’s completely hardy, easy to prune and undemanding.
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Our giant fuchsia collection makes a stunning display of hanging baskets
Fuchsia Giant-Flowered Collection
With masses of pretty pendant flowers that bloom all summer long, fuchsias are a firm favourite for beds, borders and hanging baskets. Our giant-flowered collection features the ‘Deep Purple’, ‘Swingtime’, ‘Seventh Heaven’, ‘Holly’s Beauty’ and ‘Peachy’ varieties. The huge blooms measure up to 10cm (4”) across and combine purples, reds and pinks in frosted, marbled and striped petals. This collection of fuchsias produces a beautiful show of colour from June to September.
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These easy-to-care-for begonias produce gorgeous apricot blooms all summer long
Begonia Apricot Shades Improved F1 Hybrid
Begonias are easy to care for and produce continuous colour throughout the summer and well into autumn. This Begonia ‘Apricot Shades Improved’ variety produces gorgeous apricot and orange large double blooms that will cascade from your containers and hanging baskets, bringing colour and impact to your garden. And for the culinarily adventurous among you, their brightly coloured petals bring a lemony hint and crisp texture to salads and sandwiches.
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This decorative strawberry plant produces pretty pink flowers and sweet fruit
Strawberry Just Add CreamTM
These decorative strawberries look beautiful tumbling from a hanging basket, with masses of pretty pink flowers and delicate fruit. But they don’t just look great, they also taste delicious – combining the sweetness of home-grown strawberries with the distinctive flavour of wild woodland varieties. Just Add Cream™ strawberries have an intense flavour and aroma that will take you right back to childhood and your first memory of tasting this fruit. These generous plants fruit early and will keep on cropping from early May through to the first frosts.
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These cheerful begonias will flower non-stop throughout the summer
Begonia Non-Stop Mixed
If you’re looking for a riot of colour throughout the summer months and well into autumn, look no further than non-stop mixed begonias. These compact, vigorous double flowers grow to up to 7cm across and come in a glorious range of shades. Deadhead them throughout the growing season and they’ll continue to flower into October. Non-stop begonias are perfect for containers, beds and borders and their blooms are long lasting and weather resistant.
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These pretty, robust plants quickly spread to fill containers and borders
Busy Lizzie Divine Mixed
Busy Lizzie ‘Divine’ is every gardener’s friend. Flowering endlessly from June to November in a beautiful bright colour mix, these flowers are self cleaning and require virtually no deadheading. What’s more, they’re robust and downy-mildew resistant. Spreading willingly, these busy lizzies quickly fill up pots and baskets and cover beds and borders. And giant blossoms, in a range of vivid colours, contrast pleasingly with their attractive bronze-green foliage.
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Tomato ‘Sweet Aperitif’ will produce up to 500 sweet, red fruits!
Tomato Sweet Aperitif
The ‘Sweet Aperitif’ tomato produces up to 500 red-skinned, bite-sized fruits – that’s about 6kg (300lb)! These cherry tomatoes might be the sweetest you’ll ever eat, but their flavour delicately balances a high sugar content with a pleasingly refreshing tang. This is a cordon variety of tomato, which grows up to 200cm (79”) in a greenhouse or sheltered, sunny spot in the garden.
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From the delicate and understated to the showy and opulent, there’s something for everyone in our 2018’s top-selling plants list. We hope you’ve found one or two (or ten) that you’d like to add to your own garden.
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Oct 8, 2016 | Gardening Posts
Twins reclaim throne as Pumpkin Kings with 2,252lb record breaker
Ian and Stuart Paton UK record holders with Paul Hansord, Thompson & Morgan
Hampshire brothers smash the British record and set their sights on the world record in 2017
Ian and Stuart Paton have broken the British record for a giant pumpkin for an incredible 7th time at the annual Autumn Pumpkin Festival in Southampton. The event draws pumpkin growers from across the UK, all hoping to take home the prize for the UK’s largest pumpkin. This year, the Paton’s gargantuan gourd measured more than 19ft in circumference and during its peak period of growth, it piled on a staggering 57lb each day for 2 weeks. To match its rate of growth, the vigilant horticultural siblings, who run Pine Tops Nursery in Hants, lovingly supplied over 100 gallons of water a day, plus a nutrient-rich fertiliser. As the all-important weigh-in date approached, Ian and Stuart were spending 5 hours a day nurturing the 3 giant pumpkins that they entered into the competition. The final weight of the winning entry is just 71lb off the world record.
The new UK heaviest pumpkin record holder
Each time a record is broken at the annual Jubilee Sailing Trust Autumn Pumpkin Festival, show sponsor – seed and plant mail order specialist Thompson & Morgan – takes the winning specimen back to its Ipswich HQ. The seeds are harvested, tested for viability and prepared for sale, so for any budding giant pumpkin growers inspired by this weekend’s jumbo entries, Thompson & Morgan sell the seeds under the aptly named variety, Pumpkin ‘Paton Twins Giant’. It’s a popular line with amateur growers at just £9.99 for two huge seeds with the genetics to become a record breaker with the right care. It’s the seed of choice for serious competitors too – the majority of entries to this year’s official weigh-in at the Southampton pumpkin event were grown from seeds supplied by the Patons.
The brothers will be using seeds from this year’s crop next year – which they say will bear the best seeds in the country thanks to careful hand pollination of their plants to cross two of their best ever performing plants. And with the world record now held closer to home (Swiss gardener, Ben Meier, took the title in 2014 with a 2,323lb monster) they say they are even more set on achieving the accolade themselves.
Stuart said: “We’ve always been confident of winning the world title eventually, and our new greenhouse has made a big difference with its better soil and light levels, an improved watering system and a larger growing area with a more consistent temperature. We’re well prepared to take on not only the Swiss, but the Americans too.”
T&M Horticultural Director, Paul Hansord said: “It used to be said that the world record would never leave the US, but if the Swiss can do it, so can we. Our seed quality just keeps getting better, thanks to the Patons’ selective pollination, and UK growers are upping the game every year. I’ve every confidence the Paton boys can bring the world title to UK shores in the near future.”
Having just handed over the £1,000 prize cheque and with a promise to pay £10,000 for a British world beater, he could be regretting that confidence in coming years!
Want to try and grow a record breaker? Try Dill’s Atlantic Giant, with fruits weighing in at up to 800k!
For further information, images and reader offers/competitions on Paton Twin Giant seeds, please email Julie Rush jrush@thompson-morgan.com or call 01473 695227
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Sep 26, 2016 | Expert Update, Gardening News, Gardening Posts
Thompson & Morgan, which offers one of the UK’s widest ranges of garden seeds, plants, gardening equipment and outdoor living furniture, was recently selected to join the Google Certified Shops program. To help shoppers identify online merchants that offer a great shopping experience, the Google Certified Shops badge is awarded to ecommerce sites that demonstrate a track record of on time shipping and excellent customer service.
When visiting the Thompson & Morgan website (www.thompson-morgan.com), shoppers will see a Google Certified Shops badge and can click on it for more information.
Taking your order & checking your plants
Marketing Services Manager, Clare Dixey said ‘independent reviews from our customers are extremely important both to us and to reassure our online customers. We are delighted to have won this accolade from Google which measures for the very best in customer services, online experience, reliable delivery and product quality’.
As an added benefit, when a shopper makes a purchase at Google Certified Shops, they have the option to select free purchase protection from Google. Then in the unlikely event of an issue with their purchase, they can request Google’s help, and Google will work with Thompson & Morgan and the customer to address the issue. As part of this, Google offers up to £1,000 lifetime purchase protection for eligible purchases.
Google Certified Shops is entirely free, both for shoppers and for online stores. The program helps online stores like Thompson & Morgan attract new customers, increase sales and differentiate themselves by showing off their excellent service via the badge on their websites.
Supplying gardeners since 1855, Thompson & Morgan has a longstanding reputation for its extensive range and seeds and young plants. Following two years of growth and product expansion, the mail order specialist now has everything a gardener could possibly need to get their outdoor space exactly as they want it, all with the convenience of delivery direct to the door. Alongside its award-winning range of flower and vegetable seeds, young plants, fruit trees, bushes and bulbs, customers can now add everything from plant labels, propagators, fertilisers and composts to hand tools, power tools, mowers, sheds and greenhouses, along with a comprehensive range of over 1,200 mature perennials, trees and shrubs.
For more information about Thompson & Morgan, reader offers or image requests please contact Julie Rush on 01473 695227 or email jrush@thompson-morgan.com
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Dec 29, 2015 | Expert Update, Gardening News, Gardening Posts
Independent trials carried out by consumer group Which? Gardening have named incredicompost® as the best compost on the market. It was given an overall test score of 95 per cent, setting it well ahead of the next best performer, Verve multipurpose compost (B&Q) at 80 per cent. It came miles ahead of the worst performer – GroSure Peat-Free All-Purpose Compost with 4 Month Feed, labelled a ‘Don’t Buy’ product by Which? Gardening, having scored just 33 per cent in the trials.
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The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
by Thompson & Morgan | Dec 18, 2015 | Gardening Posts
Seed and plant specialist Thompson & Morgan is predicting the best ever year for grow your own following a sharp rise in vegetable seeds sales for the 2016 season.
The Thompson & Morgan seed retailing year runs September to September. The Ipswich based mail order expert has reported an impressive 24 per cent rise in seed sales through September to end of November 2015, compared to the same period in 2014. While flower seed sales remain strong it is vegetable seed that has driven the increase.
Interest in grow your own hit an all time high in 2009, when industry wide sales of vegetable seeds peaked at an historic £60million for the year. Some said the bubble would soon burst but Thompson & Morgan customers are showing no sign of giving up on the good life. Thompson & Morgan Horticultural Director Paul Hansord says if vegetable seed sales continue to perform at current levels then the firm will be reporting its best ever year for the category.
Tomato seeds sales have jumped 51 per cent in the three month period. Much of this growth has been generated by sales of Thompson & Morgan’s Vegetable of the Year for 2016 – Tomato Mountain Magic, a fully blight resistant variety ideal for a trouble-free late season outdoor crop. Akron and Sweet Aperitif join with blight buster to form T&Ms top three tomatoes.
Onion ‘Bunton’s Showstopper’
Brassica seed sales have risen 52 per cent, while onion seeds have seen an impressive growth of 67 per cent. T&M says the loss of show bench favourite Onion Kelsae from other retailer’s 2016 catalogues (the Italian seed crop was destroyed by a hail storm and will not be available again until at least 2017) has driven growers towards other large varieties including Onion Bunton’s Showstopper, an exclusive show bench variety developed by one of Thompson & Morgan’s customers. Pea and Bean sales have risen 82 per cent, with Runner Bean Firestorm – the 2016 Thompson and Morgan Seed Catalogue cover star – alone seeing a 75 per cent rise in sales.
Thompson & Morgan’s Chilli and Pepper range has seen the biggest growth, with sales rising a staggering 111 per cent. This has been driven by a complete overhaul of the category for 2016. Paul said: “Much of our product development focus has been on making growing from seed as easy as possible. Our redesigned sweet and hot pepper range does away with the complicated Scoville Heat scale. Each variety has been given a 1-10 heat rating, from cool & sweet to explosive, allowing gardeners to make a quick informed decision on which varieties are right for them.
Leek ‘All season’ Collection
Thompson & Morgan is also helping veg growers to take the guesswork out of crop timings in 2016 with All Season Vegetable Collections. Each packet contains at least three top- performing varieties of the same vegetable that can all be sown in one hit but will crop at different stages to give the longest harvest window from a single sowing. The All Season Mange Tout Pea collection for example contains Oregon Sugar Pod, Sweet Horizon and Kennedy for a 16 week harvest from June through to October, while the All Season Leeks collection provides a massive 36 week crop window from August through to the following April.
Thompson & Morgan has a long history as market leader in the mail order supply of seed and young plants, direct to gardener’s doors since 1855. Its award winning website and seasonal catalogues have undergone a massive product expansion through 2015, now listing 10,000+ items covering most areas of garden supply, from sheds, greenhouses and mature plants to garden machinery, composts, fertilisers and hand tools.
Despite this, Paul says Thompson & Morgan remains committed to offering the best selection of garden seeds on the market. He says: “Seed sowing is economy-proof, remaining core to our customers’ garden experience in both good and bad years. Nothing beats the satisfaction of nurturing a seasonal crop from plot to plate, especially when you can make a huge saving against supermarket produce and slash your weekly spend.”
The Thompson & Morgan horticultural team produces a wealth of content around gardening and food production. Since the first seed catalogue was published in 1855, Thompson & Morgan has grown to become one of the UK’s largest Mail Order Seed and Plant companies. Through the publication of our catalogues and the operation of our award-winning website, Thompson & Morgan is able to provide home gardeners with the very best quality products money can buy.
