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Christmas at Swarkestone

There&#39;s nothing to put you in the mood for Christmas quite like going to the garden centre on a snowy day to pick out a living Christmas tree, then bringing it home to fill the house with the scent of pinewoods in December.

 
There are lots of trees to choose from in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, so make sure you get the one that&#39;s right for you. Here are some of the varieties to look out for: 
 
Norway spruce: the traditional Christmas tree: lovely perfume and good conical shape

Blue spruce:&nbsp;very stiff, long needles in shades from green to powdery blue 
 
Nordmann Fir: one of the best for holding onto its soft, rounded needles 
 
Fraser Fir: really neat pyramid shape; holds onto its dark green, flattened needles well

&nbsp;

Fresh-cut Christmas trees are available from 25th November.

 
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about choosing your Christmas tree.

Christmas trees

This year we have slashed our prices on Christmas Lights!

Christmas wouldn&#39;t be Christmas without the magic of sparkling lights. Hang them on the tree, festoon the living room with them, or fling them in great ropes over the house or trees in the garden to twinkle merrily at passers-by. 
 
As a rule of thumb, buy 100 lights for every 45cm of tree &ndash; so a string of 400 lights is perfect for an average 1.8m tree. Here are some of your options: 
 
Mini-lights: for use indoors on Christmas trees and threaded through the bannisters, these are the traditional choice and come in multiple colours or clear, silvery white. 
 
LED lights: coloured or brilliant white, they&#39;re very energy-efficient so even though they cost a little more to start with, you&#39;ll save it in the electricity bills. 
 
Novelty lights: special covers come in all sorts of shapes from lanterns to snowflakes. You can also get flashing lights which you can programme to do a variety of sequences &ndash; try a different one every day! 
 
Outdoor lights: choose from battery-powered, solar-powered and mains powered lights, though for mains-powered make sure you have an outdoor electric socket fitted by a registered electrician. 
 
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing your Christmas lights.

LED Christmas Lights

Xmas Lights

Christmas Lights

Your choice of decorations is the finishing touch that makes Christmas absolutely perfect. 
 
We&#39;ve got the decorations for you in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, from baubles and tinsel to candles and ornaments. Think carefully about the look you&#39;re trying to create, though: are you a pared-down, minimalist type? Or a throw-it-on, anything goes kind of person? 
 
Here are some different styles you could try this Christmas: 
 
White Christmas: Pure white decorations look magical. Limit yourself to silver and white tinsel, pure white baubles and perhaps white poinsettias too. 
 
Red and green: Stick to red and green for instant festive atmosphere. Hang green wreaths from red ribbons and use red and green candles to light corners. 
 
Green and natural: pick greenery from the garden for wreaths studded with pinecones and berries, or fill vases with seed heads sprayed silver and gold. 
 
Classic abundance: It&#39;s Christmas, so overdoing it is absolutely compulsory! Look out for glass baubles, beaded silver or gold strings, and twinkly lights to create a sparkling wonderland. 
 
Themed: Pick a theme, like stars, and repeat throughout your decorations with star-printed baubles and tinsel with stars set among the strands. 
 
Please ask the staff in our in %locations% garden centre for more information and advice about choosing the Christmas decorations right for you.

&nbsp;

Christmas decorations

Xmas Decs

Christmas Decorations

Imagine a Christmas without agonising over which tree to buy. A Christmas when you don&#39;t have to hoover up a single needle, and at the end, you just pack up your tree in the cupboard till next year. With traditional dark green branches these reusable trees are ideal for an authentic, traditional look in your living room year after year. 
 
These days artificial Christmas trees are so good it&#39;s hard to tell the difference between an artificial tree and the real thing. Here are some of the great features to look out for: 
 
Frosted trees: the ultimate tree to finish off your snowy festive scene. Flocked trees bring that real touch of winter into your home.

Fibre optic trees: Using fibre optic technology , these wonderful trees create a unique shimmering effect that is sure to add a warm, festive glow to any room. Plus with no fairy lights to contend with, taking down your tree in January will be a stroll in the park!

Modern, stylized trees: It&#39;s no longer necessary to wrestle with Christmas lights every year: some&nbsp;of our trees come pre-lit. 
 
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing your artificial Christmas tree.

Artificial Christmas Trees

Artificial Xmas Tree

Artificial Christmas trees

Christmas in the garden centre 
 
We&#39;ve got a magical Christmas planned for you this year, so drop by to enjoy the fantastic festive displays and events we&#39;re planning in the run-up to the big day. 
 
We&#39;re a one-stop shop in Swarkestone&nbsp;&nbsp;for all you need, whether you&#39;re decorating your home or buying gifts for friends and family. You&#39;ll find freshly cut&nbsp;Christmas trees, ornaments, lit decorations, stylish silk flowers and&nbsp;ribbons &ndash; in fact everything to make your Christmas magical. 
 
Oh yes &ndash; and don&#39;t forget to drop in on Father Christmas while you&#39;re here! Remember, Santa&#39;s free at Swarkestone Nursery. Check out our Events page to see when he&#39;s here. 
 
Here are just a few highlights among the wonderful things you can expect to find in our winter wonderland: 
 
Christmas lights: stock up on glittering lights to decorate trees and hang outdoors in the garden, too 
 
Stylish decorations: our breathtaking range of ribbons, baubles and tinsel perfects your festive display 
 
Novelties: toys and beautifully-made figurines to hang in your tree 
 
Gift ideas: from books to gardening tools, handmade craft items and pretty candles, there&#39;s something for everyone on your list. 
 
Please ask the staff in our Swarkestone&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about our range of Christmas goodies.

Christmas

Going home-grown for Christmas makes the holiday a real celebration of your garden&#39;s abundance. And one of the nicest things you can do with all those delicious and beautiful things you can pick from your garden is to hang them in your home as very special decorations.

In our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you&#39;ll find plants for pickable Christmas decorations, as well as&nbsp; pinecones, seasonal ornaments, silver and gold spray paint, tinsel and baubles &ndash; in short, everything you need to put the finishing touches on your fresh-from-the-garden Christmas. You&#39;re only limited by your imagination - so here are a few suggestions to get you started.

<ul>
	<li>Home-grown baubles: The spherical flowerheads on the ornamental onion Allium christophii dry to starburst seedheads that look fantastic sprayed silver and hung from ribbons.</li>
	<li>
	Christmas tree chains: a packet of red popcorn seed, available from our garden centre, grows just like sweetcorn: string the pretty pink kernels into long tinsel-like decorations.
	</li>
	<li>Tussie-mussies: pick spicily fragrant sprigs of witch hazel, viburnum or Christmas box and tie together with herbs into a little Victorian-style bouquet to hang from the ceiling.</li>
	<li>
	Wreaths: for this you&#39;ll need berrying holly, ivy and a wreath frame, all available from our garden centre. Weave the greenery onto the frame along with pinecones, brilliant red chillies and perhaps some dried orange Chinese lanterns (Physalis alkekengi) and hang on your door to welcome Christmas visitors.
	</li>
	<li>Banister garlands: just like wreaths, but this time wound around your banisters and bound in place with florists&#39; wire. Add pine branches, berries, dried flowers and rosehips to complete the picture.</li>
	<li>
	Golden bells: take three pinecones and spray them gold, then wire the stems together in threes to make a little bundle that looks just like bells to hang in corners or from the ceiling.
	</li>
	<li>Floating flowers: choose a shallow glass bowl from the range in our garden centre, fill it with water and float Christmas hellebore flowers and candles on it for a uniquely beautiful centrepiece for your Christmas table.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about using plants from the garden to decorate your home at Christmas.

Grow your own Christmas decorations

Before you reach for the spray bottle, try flower power for tackling pests and diseases. Many common ailments from aphids to carrot fly can be kept at bay by planting annual flowers and herbs, readily available in our garden centre, alongside your veg in your %locations% garden. Here are a few to try:

Carrots and spring onions: carrot fly find their prey by smell, detecting carrot foliage a mile off. Plant pungent spring onions alongside, though, and their smell confuses the flies completely.

Roses and garlic: a forest of garlic planted with roses produces essential oils the rose draws up into its system, making it taste revolting to aphids.

Broad beans and nasturtiums: blackflies enjoy nasturtiums even more than broad bean shoots &ndash; so plant these annual flowers with beans and the flies abandon your veg for them.

Tomatoes and French marigolds (Tagetes): Another strongly-scented plant, whitefly hate the smell of French marigolds, so plant with tomatoes to keep them whitefly-free.

Lettuce and chervil: you&#39;ll have lettuce minus the aphids if you grow them alongside a generous row of leafy chervil: some say slugs dislike it, too. Both make great salad ingredients.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about using herbs and annuals as companion plants.

Good companions

Just imagine a meadow full of flowers outside your back door. It&#39;s a dream many gardeners share: and it can&nbsp;come true if you plant one of the popular annual meadow mixes, available in our garden centre. Here&#39;s how:

Preparing the ground: annual meadows need good garden soil, unlike traditional hay meadows (wild&nbsp;meadows grow best on poor land, which is why they&#39;re so hard to establish in gardens). So weed the site,&nbsp;add organic matter and rake it into a fine tilth just like you would for sowing any seed.

Choosing your mix: Cornfield annual mixes include poppies, corn marigolds and corncockle; or choose a&nbsp;blend for short stems (around 40cm tall) or perhaps combining particular colours: red flax, black-eyed Susan&nbsp;and Californian poppies, for example, for a hot-coloured meadow.

Sowing and aftercare: mix seed with silver sand so it&#39;s easier to distribute evenly, then broadcast at about&nbsp;3g &ndash; a small-ish handful &ndash; per square metre. Rake in afterwards and water, then watch it grow. After you&#39;ve&nbsp;enjoyed the display, clear the ground in autumn: some will re-seed but to get your special mix back again re-sow next spring.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planting annual meadows.

Annual meadows

Annual flowers are among the easiest plants you can grow. They&#39;re ideal for filling gaps, or simply producing&nbsp;a dazzling display of colour from summer to the first frosts. There&#39;s a great choice of annuals in our garden&nbsp;centre in %locations%: here&#39;s how to get perfect results every time.

Under cover: half-hardy annuals can&#39;t cope with frost: sow into pots in spring to plant out later 
1: Fill trays with seed compost: you&#39;ll find the equipment you need in our garden centre 
2: Place in a shallow bowl of water to soak up moisture from the bottom 
3: Sow seeds sparingly, and cover lightly with vermiculite or more compost 
4: Pot on seedlings as they grow, then plant out after the last frost.

Direct outside: hardy annuals can be sown straight into the garden from March or when the frosts have finished 
1: Weed the bed and rake the whole site level. Water if necessary. 
2: Mark areas for each type of seed, dividing the bed into irregular sections 
3: Make drills 1/2cm deep within each section to identify your seedlings as they come up in lines 
4: Sow sparingly into each drill, cover lightly with soil and water

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing annuals from seed.

Sowing annuals

One of the great luxuries of gardening is collecting armfuls of cheerful flowers for filling vases to overflowing&nbsp;with colour and scent for the house. Some of the best flowers for picking are easy-going annuals, and we&#39;ve&nbsp;picked our top ten from the wide range available in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre.

Cosmos: graceful daisy-like flowers on 90cm tall stems: &#39;Purity&#39; is exquisite white, and &#39;Dazzler&#39; is vivid pink

Ammi majus: frothing umbels of pure white flowers, like an elegant cowparsley

Tobacco plant (Nicotiana): tall, airy flowers in colours from white to pink to lime green

Snapdragons (Antirrhinum): pretty cottage-garden flowers with generous blooms

Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus): blue is the classic colour, but they come in white, pink or darkest purple

Sweetpeas (Lathyrus odoratus): choose Spencer types for scent, and Grandifloras for big, blowsy flowers

Love-in-a-mist (Nigella): exquisite starry blue or white flowers are followed by architectural seedheads

Larkspur (Consolida): a rich royal blue flower with tall spikes produced till the first frosts

Bells of Ireland (Molucella laevis): curious curving spikes of vivid green bell-like flowers veined with cream

Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about annual flowers you can pick&nbsp;for the house.

Annuals for picking

One of the best things about having a garden packed with annual flowers is that it&#39;s also full of wildlife.&nbsp;Butterflies, bees and other pollinating insects like hoverflies adore open annual flowers: birds will be hot on&nbsp;their heels after the big, generous seedheads.

Here&#39;s our pick of the five best varieties from the range in our garden centre to attract insects into your %locations% garden.

For butterflies:

Marigolds (Calendula officinalis): cheery orange flowers which are adored by butterflies 
Honesty (Lunaria annua): lots of simple, open pink or white flowers butterflies can reach easily 
Stocks (Matthiola): the scent of these cottage-garden favourites attracts butterflies in from miles around

For bees:

Phacelia tanacetifolia: fuzzy smoke-blue flowers on dense foliage which bees find irresistible 
Cornflowers (Centaurea cyanus): choose native blue types and they&#39;ll be smothered in bees 
Forget-me-not (Myosotis): these late-spring arrivals provide much-needed early nectar for emerging bees

For birds:

Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus): leave old sunflower heads in place for upside-down bluetits to feast on 
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena): architectural seedheads provide valuable food for birds 
Teasels (Dipsacus fullonum): biennial, flowering in its second year, goldfinches adore spiky teasel heads

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing annuals to attract&nbsp;wildlife.

Annuals for wildlife

Bedding plants are annuals.&nbsp;They may have just one season in the sun, but what a season: they flower for an incredibly long time and are invariably so spectacularly beautiful you&#39;ll lose your heart to them.

We stock two kinds of annual in our garden centre in %locations%: hardy annuals to sow direct from March onwards, and half-hardies to sow under cover as they don&#39;t like frost. Here are just some you&#39;ll find in our garden centre.

Hardy annuals: 
Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena): starry blue or white flowers followed by architectural seedpods 
Ladybird poppies (Papaver communtatum &#39;Ladybird&#39;): scarlet papery petals each with a black blotch 
Nasturtiums: abundant red, orange or creamy flowers over rounded leaves

Half-hardy annuals: 
Cosmos: clear white daisies with yellow centres on long stems 
Zinnias: pompom flowers in brilliant scarlets, yellows and purples 
Brachyscome (or swan river daisies): profuse mauve daisies tumbling over pots and baskets 
Nemesia: another perfect container plant with pretty, delicate blooms 
Tobacco plant (Nicotiana): charming open flowers in pink, cream and green over big leafy rosettes

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing and growing bedding plants.

Bedding Plants (Annuals)

Seeds

Herbaeous Perennials

Vegetables

Watching a seed germinate and grow is a hugely exciting part of your gardening year: you hardly dare&nbsp;believe it's going to work, yet invariably that tiny kernel sends up a sturdy green sprout. The plants you raise&nbsp;from seed are always a bit special, so this year try raising something new from the hundreds of varieties from&nbsp;our garden centre.
Annuals: hardy annuals like love-in-a-mist, marigolds and nasturtiums are easiest of all and provide&nbsp;incredibly long seasons of colour from a few seeds scattered direct into the ground in spring.
Half-hardy annuals include all the bedding plants: in our garden centre you'll find seed to sow under cover&nbsp;in spring for colourful containers all summer long including pelargoniums, petunias, surfinias and nemesia.
Perennials: several perennials are very easy from seed, flowering in their first year and coming back again&nbsp;and again. Try echinacea, rudbeckia, grasses like deschampsia and hardy geraniums from our range.
Vegetable seeds: our largest selection of seeds is reserved for the grow-your-own enthusiast, with every&nbsp;veg from cucumbers to swede. Our heritage ranges boast superb flavour, or for something completely&nbsp;different try exotic veg like tamarilloes.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about the seeds in our range.

The real heart-stopping, breathtaking beauty of a garden comes from that most easy-going of all the plant&nbsp;groups: the herbaceous perennials, generous, free-flowering plants which die down each winter only to bubble up again&nbsp;from spring, peaking in midsummer with a fireworks display of flowers.

Pack your garden in %locations%&nbsp;with perennials from the huge selection in our garden centre and you&#39;ll have something in&nbsp;flower for every week of the year. Here are a few tips to help you choose:

Visit the garden centre often as we have different perennials in stock according to the season. Choose whatever takes your fancy each month for really long-lasting display.

Cut perennials back after flowering and they&#39;ll often give you a second flush of flowers. You&#39;ll find&nbsp;secateurs for the job in our garden centre.

Plant the right plant in the right place: there are perennials for every spot in your garden, whether it&#39;s&nbsp;shady, sunny, dry or damp. Ask our garden centre staff for help if you&#39;re not sure which to choose.

Plant in threes or fives for greatest impact: drifts or groups of the same plant really catch your eye and&nbsp;demand to be noticed.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing herbaceous perennials.

Harvesting vegetables from your garden is hugely satisfying, and you&#39;ll revolutionise your tastebuds:&nbsp;food picked just minutes before it&#39;s on your plate has a colour, flavour and crunchiness that have to be&nbsp;experienced to be believed.

We have everything in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre to turn your garden into a haven of productivity: here&#39;s a selection&nbsp;to get you started.

Seeds: most veg are grown from seeds, from tomatoes to carrots and lettuces. Take your pick from the huge&nbsp;range in our garden centre; we&#39;ve also got ready-spaced seed tapes and delicious heritage vegetables for&nbsp;you to try.

Sets and seed potatoes: from early spring we stock seed potatoes, plus onions, shallots and garlic from&nbsp;sets &ndash; easy-to-handle baby bulbs to plant straight into the ground.

Seedlings: for the ultimate in convenience we also grow a range of vegetable seedlings which we sell in packs - ready to go straight&nbsp;into containers or out into the garden.

Perennial vegetables: great value for money, these include some real delicacies: in our garden centre you&#39;ll&nbsp;find asparagus crowns, able to crop for 20 years, and stately globe artichokes looking as good as they taste.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%for more information and advice about growing vegetables.

Filling your house with the colour and fragrance of fresh flowers cut from the garden is one of the great pleasures of gardening. The trouble is, though, if you take all the flowers from the garden, there's nothing left to look at outside.
The answer is to create yourself a cutting garden – an area of your garden dedicated to raising flowers to enjoy indoors. The whole purpose of such a garden is to be harvested regularly, rather like a vegetable garden, so you don't mind if it's sometimes got a few bare patches.
You'll find all you need to create your cutting garden in our garden centre in %locations%. Here's how to go about it:
<ol>
<li>Find the right spot: you'll need somewhere in full sun, as your plants will only flower to their full potential with plenty of light. Planting densely also demands a lot from your soil, so choose the best-quality patch you've got.</li>
<li>
Get ready: before you start, dig over the area, removing weeds and large stones, and work in plenty of well-rotted farmyard manure. Then put in hedging and edging: you'll find plants for low hedging in our garden centre, and materials to lay a smart path.
</li>
<li>Choose your plants: select 'hardy annual' seeds from the range in our garden centre. Great choices are white, frothy Ammi majus, Cosmos bipinnatus with lovely daisy-like flowers and of course sweetpeas to train up a wigwam in the centre.</li>
<li>
Start sowing: Sow your flowers from March onwards just like vegetables, in straight lines to make picking them easier. Make shallow drills and sprinkle the seed sparingly along the bottom. Cover with a little soil, label and leave.
</li>
<li>Keep the display going: sow little and often so you've got some plants to pick, some coming up to flowering and some just sown. Support taller varieties like larkspur by sticking canes in each corner of the row and threading round string at intervals up the height of the plants.</li>
</ol>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about planting an annual cutting garden.

Annual cutting gardens

Trees and shrubs

Climbers

Every garden should have a tree: they're not only beautiful plants in their own right, they also cast soothing&nbsp;shade, provide valuable privacy and often give you flowers, fruit and spectacular autumn leaf colour too.
Choose trees and shrubs from the range in our garden centre to build the architectural backbone of your&nbsp;garden. In summer when other plants are showing off, trees and shrubs melt into the background, but they&nbsp;all have a moment when it's their turn to shine – often in the depths of winter when there's little else around.
Start your garden's design off on the right foot with specimen trees from the range in our garden&nbsp;centre. In small gardens, trees with year-round interest like the autumn-flowering cherry (Prunus x&nbsp;subhirtella 'Autumnalis') really earn their keep, and evergreen conifers are a sturdy, reliable presence&nbsp;throughout the seasons.
Shrubs provide a framework for your garden: evergreen shrubs in particular are a constant backdrop to&nbsp;other plants, giving weight and depth to your design. Extend the season with winter-flowering witch hazels or&nbsp;Christmas box, and add explosions of summer flowers with roses, hydrangeas or flowering quince.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations% for more information and advice about choosing and growing trees&nbsp;and shrubs.

When you&#39;ve crammed every inch of space on the ground with plants, the only way is up. Clothe your walls&nbsp;in greenery and smother your sheds in flowers to double your planting space and turn your garden into a&nbsp;green sanctuary from the outside world in sunny %locations%.

<div>Climbers are one of the most versatile groups of plants in our garden centre and we&#39;ve got a great selection&nbsp;for you to choose from. Here are our favourites:</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Clematis come in all shapes and sizes, from the tiny starry flowers of &#39;Pixie&#39; to big, blowsy &#39;Rouge Cardinal&#39;.&nbsp;Winter-flowering clematis have pretty seedheads while Clematis montana is a froth of flowers in April.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Wisteria is the ultimate in show-off climbers with its head-turning racemes of headily scented flowers in early&nbsp;summer.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Star jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides) covers the uprights of pergolas and arches with glossy&nbsp;evergreen leaves and scented white flowers and never outstays its welcome.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Honeysuckles are the perfect backdrop to a cottage garden, smothered in tubular flowers all summer and&nbsp;filling the garden with scent and punch-drunk bumblebees.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Passionflowers are far hardier than they look, especially the stop-you-in-your-tracks purple fringed&nbsp;whirligigs of Passiflora caerulea.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing climbers.</div>

Natural planting using swathes of gently-swaying grasses shot through with drifts of tall, open perennials to mimic the wild look of the American prairie lands caught the imagination of gardeners across Europe in the 1990s, and it's been going strong ever since - you can see some fabulous examples at public gardens like Trentham in Staffordshire. It's a look you can adapt easily at home in %locations%&nbsp;for a gorgeous, contemporary design that's also very low maintenance.
You'll find all the plants you need in our garden centre: here's how to create your own back-garden prairie.
<ul>
<li>Choose the right spot: prairies need sunshine, so pick an open, bright area of your garden, preferably not too damp as most prairie-style plants prefer free-draining conditions. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Restrict your varieties: prairie planting relies on repetition for its effect, so limit your range of plants to a handful of grass varieties and a few perennials or annuals - just plant lots of them. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Start with the grasses: these form the backbone of your design, so choose carefully. Tall grasses move gracefully in the wind: good choices are Calamagrostis x acutiflora 'Karl Foerster', Molinia caerulea 'Transparent' or evergreen Stipa gigantea. All have spectacular flowers which sparkle in the frosts of winter. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Mix in the flowers: flat-headed or spherical flowers work best with grasses as contrasts in texture and shape. They often flower at the same height, too, giving that level prairie-like look. Go for achilleas, autumn-flowering asters, and other daisies: both echinacea and rudbeckias were made for prairie settings. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Plant in drifts: design your planting not in blobby groups, but in drifts of the same plant meandering naturally in waves through the design. Plant seven, nine or eleven of the same plant together: be generous for maximum impact. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Don't be too tidy: part of the charm of a prairie planting is the effect of frosty winter weather on seedheads and dead stems, so leave clearing up until February, when you can just chop everything back down to the ground and let it do it all over again.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about designing prairie planting.

Prairie planting

Bulbs

Bulbs aren&#39;t just for spring: you can have flowering bulbs in your garden all year round with a little planning.&nbsp;In our garden centre we stock bulbs seasonally, so you&#39;ll find spring and summer bulbs on sale in autumn,&nbsp;and late-season bulbs on our shelves in %locations%&nbsp;from spring. Choose bulbs for every season to enjoy colour from&nbsp;January till December:

Spring: bulbs are first on the scene with a splash of colour so don&#39;t stint on quantity: fill your garden with&nbsp;crocuses, daffodils, hyacinths and tulips from the fantastic range in our garden centre, and double your&nbsp;display by packing them into pots, too.

Summer: it&#39;s the turn of the real showstoppers in summer, and in our garden centre you&#39;ll find brilliantly-coloured dahlias, flamboyant lilies, sophisticated bearded irises and easy-going pompom allium bulbs.

Autumn: plant lipstick-pink nerines for a brilliant splash of colour in September: other autumn bulbs we stock&nbsp;include autumn-flowering saffron crocus, exotic-looking Gladiolus murielae and brilliant yellow Sternbergia.

Winter: tiny pink Cyclamen coum nod among the earliest snowdrops, while winter aconites and tiny, delicate&nbsp;winter-flowering irises like Iris danfordiae provide a cheery December splash of yellow.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about using bulbs in your garden.

Most gardens have a shady spot: a north-facing wall, perhaps, or under a tree, or in the shadow of a nearby building. Learn to love your shade: you'll find a world of new plants opens up, and you get a cool, pleasant nook to sit out of the heat of the day: perfect for enjoying an iced drink after a hot session gardening.
The range of plants you'll find in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;to grow in shade is extensive and includes delicate woodlanders, broad-leaved foliage plants and pretty spring flowers. We've picked our top ten shade-loving plants to turn your shady bits into garden highlights.
<ul>
<li>Hostas: there's an ever-wider choice of bold, broad-leaved hostas, from beefy ribbed 'Sum and Substance' to white-splashed 'Fire and Ice'. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Ferns: damp shady spots cry out for graceful Osmunda regalis or silver-and-purple Japanese painted ferns.&nbsp; If your shady spot is dry, grow Dryopteris felix-mas: 'Cristata' has curly-ended fronds. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Rodgersia: massive leaves like a bronzed horse-chestnut 30cm across erupt from the ground, followed by stately plumes of white or pink flowers 
.</li>
<li>Foxgloves: living wild in woodland, foxgloves love dappled shade. Grow common foxglove in purple or white, or an eyecatching modern multicoloured hybrid. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Epimediums: among the prettiest spring woodlanders, the young emerging leaves in shades of copper are almost as lovely as the dancing flowers. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Pachysandra terminalis: a really useful ground-cover plant with a dense covering of evergreen leaves that grow even in the deepest shade. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Euonymus: choose from silver-and-green 'Silver Queen' or gold-and-green 'Emerald 'n' Gold' for an easy, evergreen, low-maintenance shrub that sings out from a shady spot. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Brunnera: with broad, ground-smothering leaves (in 'Jack Frost' they're silvery-green), it's the flowers which really steal the show, powder-blue and prolific throughout spring. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Hardy geraniums: among the easiest plants to grow, geraniums flower profusely in shade: choose pale-coloured varieties like Geranium sanguineum 'Album' to glow in low light. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Heucheras: heuchera leaves are every bit as colourful as flowers, from rich plum 'Palace Purple' to 'Amber Waves', the colour of butterscotch. They're evergreen, too.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing plants for shade.

Plants for shade

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Bedding Plants

Bulbs are so versatile you can grow them anywhere &ndash; even if you&#39;re gardening on a balcony. In our garden&nbsp;centre in %locations%&nbsp;we&#39;ve got everything you need to pack containers with spring colour: follow our top tips for a dazzling&nbsp;display.

Layering: choose a deep container from the range in our garden centre and pack bulbs in by planting in&nbsp;layers. Put tall daffodils at the bottom, cover with compost, then tulips followed by crocuses at the top.

Keeping it simple: cram the biggest container you can find with a really special tulip like &#39;Abu Hassan&#39; for a&nbsp;single blitz of brilliant colour with maximum impact.

Get the timing right: combine two bulbs with the same flowering time for twice the wow factor: try partnering&nbsp;dark blue hyacinths with pillarbox red early tulip Tulipa praestans.

Perfect partners: plant pretty violas at the feet of tulips for a partnership made in heaven: lilac-coloured&nbsp;violas with smokey purple tulips are stunning.

Dropping in: have pots of lilies or tulips ready to drop in to your borders just as they&#39;re about to flower for&nbsp;instant garden colour. Just lift them out again once they&#39;re finished.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing bulbs in containers.

Pots of pleasure

Daffodils aren&#39;t just for March. You can enjoy their cheerful yellow trumpets in your garden from January until&nbsp;May if you plan cleverly: we&#39;ve got a fantastic choice in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre to help you do just that.

Early to rise:

&#39;Rijnveld&#39;s Early Sensation&#39;:&nbsp;some years it can be in flower by Christmas. Brilliant yellow&nbsp;and 35cm tall 
&#39;February Gold&#39;: does what it says on the tin: this pure yellow gem reaches just&nbsp;15cm in late February 
&#39;Tete a Tete&#39;: one of the best miniatures, flowering prolifically with golden swept-back petals. About 15cm

Mid-season marvels: 
 
Tenby daffodil (Narcissus obvallaris): Wordsworth&#39;s golden daffodil: small and&nbsp;dainty at 25cm 
&#39;Rip Van Winkle&#39;: miniature double with a spiky mane of green-tinged, spiky petals.&nbsp;To 15cm 
&#39;Jenny&#39; is a mid-sized daffodil at 25cm, with a pale butterscotch trumpet and swept-back, creamy petals

Late and lovely:

&#39;Dutch Master&#39;: brilliant golden trumpets and a delicate scent, growing to 45cm tall 
&#39;Cheerfulness&#39; is a double with three or four scented blooms on each stem: 45cm 
Pheasant&#39;s eye daffodil (Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus): among the last to&nbsp;flower, these delicate white daffs are also scented: 40cm tall

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about choosing daffodils for a long&nbsp;display.

Small but perfectly formed

Tulips left in the ground will sometimes re-flower, but more often they&#39;ll dwindle and disappear. You can&nbsp;replant with new combinations &ndash; but if you&#39;ve got a really good display going, it&#39;s also possible to persuade&nbsp;the same tulips to come back next season. Here&#39;s how:

<ul>
	<li>remove dead flowers and wait till foliage turns yellow, about six weeks after flowering</li>
	<li>dig up your bulbs, brush off excess soil and discard any which are diseased or damaged</li>
	<li>dry under cover for a couple of weeks &ndash; the greenhouse or a conservatory is perfect</li>
	<li>store your bulbs in net bags for winter in a well-ventilated place at room temperature (about 20&ordm;C).</li>
</ul>

In our garden centre you&#39;ll also find species tulips &ndash; smaller, wilder-looking tulips which come back year after&nbsp;year so you won&#39;t need to lift them.

Good ones to try are Tulipa turkestanica, appearing in early spring with up to nine flowers per spike; Tulipa&nbsp;greigii &#39;Red Riding Hood&#39;, 20cm high and scarlet in April; and Tulipa sprengeri, the last of the tulips to flower&nbsp;in late May, again bright scarlet.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about how to make your tulips last&nbsp;for years.

Tulips that last

Those first optimistic green shoots peeking through are a sure sign that winter is on the wane: with a&nbsp;selection of spring bulbs from our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you can cheer yourself up from January to early summer.

Just after New Year the first snowdrops appear: tall &#39;Atkinsii&#39;, or &#39;John Gray&#39; carrying large flowers on arching&nbsp;stems. Scatter other January jewels at their feet for contrast: bright yellow winter aconites, or pretty pink&nbsp;Cyclamen coum.

February is the time for crocuses &ndash; &#39;Snow Bunting&#39; is pure white, while purple Crocus tommasinianus&nbsp;spreads happily through rough grass. Grow them with exquisite dwarf irises, just 10cm tall: &#39;Katharine&nbsp;Hodgkin&#39; has curious greyish-purple petals, &#39;Harmony&#39; is a slatey blue, while &#39;J.S. Dijt&#39; is vibrant purple.

In March the show really gets going. Brilliant yellow daffodils, blue perfumed hyacinths, a sprinkling of bright&nbsp;pink Anemone coronaria and perhaps some white Chionodoxa (Glory of the Snow) make a riot of vibrant&nbsp;colour.

Plant spring bulbs in September or October in well-drained soil in sun or dappled shade, about three times&nbsp;as deep as the bulb itself. Adding a handful of grit helps drainage in heavy soil.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about bulbs for a springtime&nbsp;display.

Spring fever

The spectacular bulb display you&#39;ve been enjoying all spring need not stop with the last tulip. Hundreds of&nbsp;beautiful summer-flowering bulbs, available in our garden centre in %locations%, keep flowers coming till autumn.

Alliums: the firework-like spheres of showy purple alliums light up the border from May to July. Choose from&nbsp;tall drumsticks of &#39;Purple Sensation&#39;, the huge 20cm-across spheres of &#39;Globemaster&#39;, or low-growing Allium&nbsp;karataviense with pale pink heads and broad purple leaves. Nectaroscordum siculum is closely related, with&nbsp;umbrellas of dangling bell-shaped creamy flowers flushed lilac.

Dahlias: in flower from June to autumn, the choice is as dazzling as the flowers. Single-flowered dahlias mix&nbsp;most easily into borders: try scarlet &#39;Bishop of Llandaff&#39; or white &#39;Twyning&#39;s After Eight&#39;.

Lilies: heady mid- to late-summer fragrance is the hallmark of stately Oriental lilies like white Lilium regale.&nbsp;Brightly-coloured Asiatics like the yellow &#39;Grand Cru&#39; are non scented but don&#39;t need staking: and elegant&nbsp;Martagon lilies have over 20 blooms to a stem.

Crocosmia: super-easy to grow with handsome strappy foliage, flame-coloured crocosmia lights up borders&nbsp;from July to September. Choose from vivid scarlet &#39;Lucifer&#39;, crimson-splashed orange &#39;Emily McKenzie&#39; or&nbsp;buttery &#39;Warburton&#39;s Yellow&#39;.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing bulbs for summer&nbsp;displays.

Summer stars

Container plants

Once the last daffodil has died down, don&#39;t let your bulb display stop. Dozens of bulbs flower spectacularly right through summer, keeping you in dazzling flowers until well into autumn.

Plant as you would spring bulbs, burying them to three times their depth in crumbly, moisture-retentive but free-draining soil. If yours isn&#39;t perfect, dig in organic matter first (we have well-rotted farmyard manure in our garden centre) and add a handful of slow-release fertiliser like bonemeal.

Plant our top ten summer bulbs from the range in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for a summer that&#39;s spectacular from end to end.

<ul>
	<li>Allium: ornamental onions make explosions of colour dotted through the border, with ramrod-straight spherical flowerheads. 
	Recommended varieties: &#39;Globemaster&#39;, &#39;Purple Sensation&#39; 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Agapanthus: the African lily is one of the truest blues you&#39;ll find, and their huge heads are a spectacular sight. 
	Recommended varieties: &#39;Bressingham Blue&#39;, &#39;Back in Black&#39; 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Dahlias: handsome plants with dozens of flower forms: whether you like spider, pompom or single-flowered, you&#39;ll find them in our garden centre. Recommended varieties: &#39;Bishop of Llandaff&#39;, &#39;David Howard&#39; 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Lilies: heavily-scented oriental lilies have huge, heavily-perfumed blooms. Other types include hardy Asiatic lilies and pretty martagon types. 
	Recommended varieties: Lilium regale, Lilium martagon. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Begonias: if it&#39;s waterfalls of flowers you want &ndash; look no further. Tuberous begonias tumble over container edges in a mass of bloom. 
	Recommended varieties: &#39;Champagne&#39;, &#39;Angelique&#39;. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Gladioli: tall and sophisticated, gladioli are in fact easy to grow, with spires of huge, intensely-coloured flowers. 
	Recommended varieties: &#39;Green Star&#39;, Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Acidanthera murielae: another showstopper in the border. Tall, scented and perfect for cutting, its graceful white flowers have purple hearts. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Iris: bearded irises are so aristocratic they have their own language of falls, standards and beards. Don&#39;t worry: they&#39;re all sumptuous. 
	Recommended varieties: &#39;Jane Phillips&#39;, &#39;Superstition&#39;. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Cannas: hot and tropical brilliant orange, vermilion or yellow cannas have paddle-like leaves which can be as colourful as the flowers. 
	Recommended varieties: &#39;Durban&#39;, &#39;Wyoming&#39;.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing and growing summer bulbs.

Bulbs for summer colour

The ultimate in warp-speed gardening, annual climbers shoot up fences and walls like rockets, smothering&nbsp;them in brilliantly-coloured flowers. They&#39;re easy to grow from seed &ndash; choose from the wide selection in our&nbsp;garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;&ndash; and let you create a new display every year, each one more colourful than the last. Here are&nbsp;our favourites:

<div>Spanish flag (Ipomoea lobata): brilliantly tropical-looking relative of morning glory, but with pennants of&nbsp;tubular flowers in flaming shades from red through orange to yellow.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus): the easiest of all the annual climbers, sow pretty, fragrant sweet peas&nbsp;direct at the foot of a wigwam or in pots in October to overwinter for earlier flowers next season. You can also purchase sweet pea seedlings in pots from our garden centre in spring.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Black-eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata): masses of simple, open flowers in all sorts of colours from brick red&nbsp;to bright orange, all with a perky black eye.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing annual climbers in&nbsp;your garden.</div>

Annual climbers

One of our best-loved climbers is the deliciously frothy clematis, at its best scrambling through roses or&nbsp;smothering a fence with an ocean of flowers. You&#39;ll find a clematis for every month of the year in our garden&nbsp;centre in %locations%, but there&#39;s often confusion over when to prune them.

Don&#39;t worry: it&#39;s actually quite simple. All you need to know is roughly when your clematis flowers, and then&nbsp;you can follow our straightforward guide.

Don&#39;t prune:&nbsp;early-flowering clematis like C. alpina, C. armandii, C. cirrhosa, C. montana

If they&#39;re getting too big and need trimming back, do it just after they finish flowering in late spring:&nbsp;otherwise, don&#39;t touch

Prune in February:&nbsp;large-flowered clematis flowering in May and June, like &#39;Barbara Jackman&#39; and &#39;Nelly Moser&#39;&nbsp;light pruning to remove dead or weak stems down to a strong pair of healthy buds. If your plants are&nbsp;getting too big, cut them back harder late summer, after they&#39;ve finished flowering&nbsp;and clematis that flower late, such as &#39;Etoile Violette&#39;, &#39;Gravetye Beauty&#39; and C. viticella&nbsp;cut hard back to about 15cm above ground level, always cutting to just above a healthy bud.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about how to prune clematis.

Clematis pruning made simple

When space is tight, you&#39;ll want to use every inch you can to grow crops. When you&#39;ve run out of room&nbsp;on the ground, sometimes the only way is up.

Edible climbers do everything ornamental plants do - lush foliage, spectacular flowers, and often good&nbsp;autumn colour &ndash; but with the added bonus of a generous harvest. Here&#39;s a selection of the best from the&nbsp;range in our garden centre in %locations%.

Runner beans are straightforward to grow and incredibly generous, producing several pounds of long beans&nbsp;from every plant. &#39;Painted Lady&#39; has bicoloured red-and-white flowers.

Loganberries are loose-stemmed shrubs, easily trained against a fence. The sweet, juicy berries look like&nbsp;oversized raspberries.

Grapevines drip with fruit when trained over arches: &#39;Boskoop Glory&#39; has sweet, smoky purple dessert&nbsp;grapes, and its leaves turn brilliant scarlet in autumn.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing edible climbers.

Edible climbers

Grapevines make wonderful climbers to scramble over a wall or clothe a shed in green. In our garden centre&nbsp;you&#39;ll find varieties for sweet dessert grapes straight off the vine, and others for making deliciously fruity&nbsp;wine. Growing a grapevine outside in the garden isn&#39;t difficult: here&#39;s how.

Planting: dig plenty of organic matter into the soil, as grapevines are vigorous plants. Plant 15cm from the&nbsp;wall, to avoid the dry area at the base, and tie in loosely to a stake. Backfill, adding a handful of slow-release&nbsp;fertiliser, and water in well.

Pruning: grapes are pruned in December, when they&#39;re dormant, as they &#39;bleed&#39; sap if pruned in summer.&nbsp;Leave your vine to grow for a year or two, then choose one shoot to train as the leader and snip back&nbsp;sideshoots to five or six leaves to encourage plenty of fruit.

Problems: powdery mildew covers leaves and fruit with a white, dusty coating and is most common when&nbsp;grapes go short of water. Prevent it by keeping your grape well watered, although avoid wetting the leaves. Mulching the ground thickly helps to lock water into the soil. You can also look out for resistant varieties like &#39;Phoenix&#39;.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing grapevines.

Growing grapevines

Fruit

Healthy and supremely tasty, fresh-picked fruit from the garden is one of the real luxuries of growing your&nbsp;own. A British climate is perfect for growing so many different types from tart rhubarb in early spring to sweet&nbsp;summer strawberries and crunchy autumn apples.

We stock a huge fruit range in our garden centre in %locations%: look out for container-grown bushes and trees to buy all&nbsp;year round, or in winter bare-root plants which establish in double-quick time.

Fruit trees to enjoy in your garden include traditional apples, pears and plums &ndash; we stock many traditional&nbsp;heritage varieties with outstanding flavour and fascinating histories. Look out for unusual fruits, too, like&nbsp;mulberries, quinces and medlars in our garden centre.

Berries and currants are superb value, producing years of plentiful harvests from just a few plants.&nbsp;Gooseberries are first, fruiting from May, while currants (black, white and red) take over in summer.

Bare-root stock gives you a great choice of varieties. In our garden centre from November onwards, you&#39;ll&nbsp;find bundles of raspberry canes, fruit trees and strawberry crowns sold this way to plant as soon as you get&nbsp;them home.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing fruit.

Of all the fruit you can grow in the garden, a grapevine is among the most productive and beautiful. All you need is a sunny wall, fence or pergola for it to scramble up and it'll cheerfully cover the whole thing with big elegant leaves turning brilliant colours in autumn, and of course fat clusters of fruit dripping with sweetness.
There are dozens of varieties of grapevine and we've got a great selection in our %locations% garden centre. For sweet fruit for the table, go for a dessert variety: 'Brandt' has small but very sweet dark-skinned grapes (and spectacular autumn colour) while 'Phoenix' is a reliable modern variety good for both eating and winemaking.
If it's a vineyard you're after, there's an even wider choice. 'Seyval' makes a light, fruity wine; while 'Pinot Noir' ripens well in a good summer for a classic deep red claret.
Here are our top tips for growing successful grapevines:
<ul>
<li>Choose a sunny site, ideally a south- or southwest facing wall and sheltered from the wind. Vines do best in free-draining soil like sand or chalk: if you're gardening on clay dig in a barrowload of grit before planting.</li>
<li>
Add well-rotted farmyard manure (found in our garden centre) to improve soil before planting, as grapevines are in the ground a long time.
</li>
<li>Add a handful of slow-release fertiliser like pelleted chicken manure or bonemeal to keep your plant happy all season.</li>
<li>
Plant when vines are dormant – from late autumn till early spring, as long as the ground isn't waterlogged or frozen.
</li>
<li>Put up a sturdy training system before you plant: stretch wires 30cm apart up a fence, or attach trellis. You'll find all you need in our garden centre.</li>
<li>
Water thoroughly in dry weather: if grapevines get parched at the roots they're more likely to suffer from mildew, ruining your crop.
</li>
<li>Prune each winter once the vine has dropped all its leaves and is completely dormant to remove some of the year's vigorous growth and keep the plant productive and healthy.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing grapevines.

Roses

Growing your plants in containers opens up a whole new world in which you can experiment with different&nbsp;combinations, ring the changes or totally overhaul your planting at the drop of a hat. A huge variety of plants&nbsp;from our garden centre grow happily in containers, giving you potted colour from January to December.

Spring: Tulips arrive in our garden centre from autumn: pack shoulder-to-shoulder into large containers for a&nbsp;cracking display. Other spring bulbs to try in pots include crocuses, daffodils and snowdrops.

Summer: Fill your containers to overflowing with dazzling bedding plants - in our garden centre from spring&nbsp;onwards. Container-grown veg are a great option when space is limited: we stock veg seedlings to make&nbsp;planting even more straightforward.

Autumn: Many shrubs look beautiful framed in a large container and many have spectacular autumn&nbsp;displays. In our garden centre look out for graceful deep purple acers, brilliantly berried skimmia and pretty&nbsp;variegated hollies.

Winter: Combine heathers chosen from the range in our garden centre with white-berried gaultherias or red-twigged dogwood and the large, leathery evergreen leaves of bergenia for winter cheer just outside your&nbsp;door. Replace those tired summer bedding plants with Winter flowering pansies and cyclamen, available throughout Autumn and Winter.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about plants for containers.

A rose in full bloom stops you in your tracks. It steals your heart with its paper-delicate petals and lures you&nbsp;in with its heady, romantic scent. Once you&#39;re truly captivated it&#39;s hard to resist filling your garden with the&nbsp;sumptuous butter yellows, sugar-spun pink, graceful white and blood red petals of this queen of flowers.

We&#39;re in love with roses too, so we&#39;ve got a variety in our garden centre to grace every spot in your garden.

Climbers and ramblers like &#39;New Dawn&#39; and cream &#39;Alberic Barbier&#39; scramble boisterously up trellises and&nbsp;wire supports to clothe walls in swathes of colour.

Shrub roses make striking centrepieces to a border: free-flowering and highly perfumed, they&#39;ll bloom from&nbsp;June till September. Apricot &#39;Buff Beauty&#39; or deep pink &#39;Comte de Chambord&#39; are good choices.

Patio roses like pale pink &#39;Gentle Touch&#39; or pure white &#39;Diamond&#39; are dainty, smaller shrubs bred for their&nbsp;ability to thrive in containers. Smothered in blooms, they&#39;re long-flowering and brilliantly colourful.

Ground cover roses spread out in low, graceful arches to cover the ground in dense foliage and flowers.&nbsp;The &#39;Flower Carpet&#39; series come in gold, pink, white and scarlet.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing roses.

Britain's best-loved flower, roses are found in almost every garden in the country especially in %locations%. And it's little wonder: they're elegant, stately plants that just take your breath away as soon as they flower, with those heartbreakingly beautiful petals and perfume to fill the garden and beyond.
They're also amazingly versatile. Among the roses you'll find in our garden centre are tiny patio roses for pots and ground-cover roses to scramble at the feet of your other shrubs. There are climbers and ramblers to smother fences, and species roses with sculptural autumn hips.
The way you grow your roses is limited only by your imagination. Here are a few ideas:
<ul>
<li>Over pergolas: Tie a rambling rose in to each upright of a pergola and it'll quickly scramble up and over the top, meeting the rose on the other side and forming a bower of flowers you'll love to wander through. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Trained round an obelisk: Choose a moderate-vigour climber like the scarlet 'Dublin Bay' and tie it in at a 45° angle so it winds round the obelisk in a spiral to the top, clothing it in colour. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>In sinks and troughs: Patio roses like buttery 'Sweet Memories' are very happy in containers: plant two or three in a sink or trough, and they'll froth over the top in a riot of colour and perfume. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>On swags: Drill holes through tall, sturdy posts and thread with rope at least 24mm thick to make swags to hold climbing or rambling roses. Tie them in as they grow and they'll knit together into elegantly romantic garden dividers. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>As a hedge: Rose hedges are great for security, as the prickles keep would-be intruders well away, and they look wonderful in full flower. Hedging roses include the dog rose and Rosa rugosa 'Hansa', with fat reddish-orange hips. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Scrambling up into a tree: If you've got plenty of space, there's nothing more beautiful than a big tree exploding with the colour and scent of summer roses. Large ramblers like 'Rambling Rector' and 'Kiftsgate' are spectacular grown like this.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about ways to grow roses.

Ways with roses

Clematis

In many ways, gardening in containers is no different to any other kind: to keep that spectacular display&nbsp;going you need a few tricks up your sleeve. Follow our top tips to keep your containers fresh and inspiring all&nbsp;year round:

Plant for every season: pots of spring bulbs are over by May, so have fresh containers in the wings ready&nbsp;to take over. Dazzling summer bedding plants, on offer in our garden centre, take you into autumn, when&nbsp;brilliantly-coloured acers followed by winter pansies and red dogwood stems see the season out.

Plant successionally: veg in containers are best sown in threes. One container ready to pick, one growing&nbsp;up ready to take over, and the third just sown keep you picking without pause: this technique works for baby&nbsp;salad leaves, carrots, peas and beetroot.

Look after your plants: plants grown in pots need watering every day in summer. Add slow-release fertiliser such as Osmocote&nbsp;granules to the compost or liquid feed weekly, and remove dead blooms to keep the flowers coming.

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about keeping your container&nbsp;displays lasting for longer.

Container displays to last

Clematis win a place in the heart of every gardener for their breathtaking flower displays as they scramble becomingly up fences and over trellises. Most varieties are very well-behaved and just need a little tucking in to their supports every so often and an annual prune to keep them performing year after year.
One of the many good things about clematis is that there's never any need to be without their charming, sunny flowers, as there are varieties which flower at all times of the year. In our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you'll find clematis that flower in spring, summer, autumn and winter: here's our pick to give you a clematis for every month.
January:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Clematis cirrhosa var. balearica has pretty ferny evergreen leaves and curious red-speckled&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; flowers: the fluffy seedheads which follow last for months
February: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;'Wisley Cream' is another early bird with greeny-white flowers and glossy evergreen foliage:&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; silvery, silky seedheads follow the flowers
March:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Clematis armandii is evergreen, with glossy, leathery leaves and almond-scented blossom
April:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Alpine clematis have daintily nodding, violet-blue flowers that last weeks: 'Frances Rivis' is&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; deep violet-blue and a prolific favourite
May:&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Clematis montana comes in white or pink and is cheerfully rampant, a froth of flowers in May
June:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Early large-flowered clematis like 'Perle d'Azur' and 'Prince Charles' have huge and plentiful&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; satiny flowers
July:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Clematis viticella types are tough and trouble-free and come in rich, velvety colours: 'Etoile&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Violette' is deep purple
August:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;Late-flowering 'Gravetye Beauty' is an eyecatching ruby red with lovely pompom-like&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;seedheads to follow the flowers
September: &nbsp; &nbsp; Clematis rehderiana needs plenty of room but if you give it the space it's an eyecatching&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;choice, with big panicles of scented pale yellow flowers like little bells
October:&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;'Bill McKenzie' has bright yellow flowers with curiously thick petals, curling outwards like&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; lemon peel, and long-lasting silky seedheads
November: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Clematis tangutica is smothered in lantern-like flowers followed by big fluffy seedheads
December: &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;Clematis cirrhosa var purpurascens 'Freckles' is a very reliable evergreen type with deeply&nbsp;&nbsp; 
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; speckled dusty pink flowers right through winter
Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about growing clematis year-round in&nbsp;%locations%.
&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Year-round clematis

Containers, Stoneware and Terracotta Pots

Herbs

Most plants will grow quite happily in containers and you can make just as fabulous a display using plants in&nbsp;containers as you can in the garden - great news if you&#39;re short on outdoor space. In our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you&#39;ll&nbsp;find a container for every plant: just match your plants to the pot that suits it best for instant success.

Pots come in a huge range of styles and materials from ceramic to terracotta, stainless steel and stone. Let&nbsp;your imagination run riot creating mixed displays of perennials and shrubs in larger pots for instant impact.

Troughs and grow spaces work brilliantly for growing vegetables on the patio. Place troughs against a wall&nbsp;to grow climbing beans, or divide a grow space as small as 1m x 1m into squares for planting a surprisingly&nbsp;wide variety of fruit and veg.

Hanging baskets brighten up the dingiest of entrance ways with brilliant scarlet pelargoniums or, for&nbsp;something different, tumbling tomatoes or chillies. In our garden centre you&#39;ll find not only the baskets but&nbsp;also liners and water-retaining gel to mix into the compost to hold on to moisture for longer.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing containers.

Herbs have been grown in gardens for hundreds of years: most have a long history, handed down from&nbsp;generation to generation, with uses from medicine to cosmetics and beauty products to flavouring cooking.

They&#39;re easy-going plants which can be tucked into almost any corner of the garden, but to plunge yourself&nbsp;into their fascinating world dedicate a sunny spot to a herb garden. You&#39;ll find it&#39;s full of fragrance and flowers&nbsp;all summer: and best of all, it&#39;ll quickly become part of your daily routine to pick peppermint for your tea,&nbsp;marigolds to brew up some face cream, or a bay leaf or two for the evening meal.

To start you off, here are some essential herbs for your herb garden from the wide selection in our garden&nbsp;centre in&nbsp;%locations%:

Culinary: Mediterranean herbs to give your cooking flavour and colour, these include rosemary, bay, thyme,&nbsp;marjoram and parsley.

Medicinal: make teas and tisanes to boost your health and well-being with peppermint, chamomile,&nbsp;echinacea and lemon balm.

Cosmetic: moisturising cream, hair dye and face packs are all possible from herbs grown in your garden: try&nbsp;marigolds, catmint and witch hazel.

<img alt="" height="467" src="https://www.swarkestonenursery.co.uk/files/images/Herb-Feature-Image.jpg" style="width: 700px; height: 467px;" width="700" />

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing herbs.

When space is really limited, gardening needs ingenuity. With a few clever tricks and some innovative gadgets, though, you can turn even a balcony into a productive garden overflowing with fruit, vegetables and herbs.
You'll find plenty of useful gear to help you build your balcony garden in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, from planters to dwarf apple trees specially bred to grow in restricted spaces. Here are our top tips for balcony success.
<ul>
<li>Use large planters wherever possible, so they act more like raised beds than containers and give your veg a longer root run. Generally, the larger the container you give your veg, the happier they'll be: if your balcony is high-rise, though, get a structural engineer in first to check it can take the weight of containers full of damp compost and plants. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Use successional sowing to keep your pots working hard all year. As soon as you harvest a crop, re-sow the container or replant with vegetable plug plants for a really quick replacement. That way you'll always have new crops growing up as you eat your way through the ones you sowed earlier. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Grow container veg varieties which are better suited to growing with their roots restricted. Good choices are Courgette 'Patio Star', Aubergine 'Ophelia', Broad Bean 'The Sutton' and Pea 'Bingo' – all grow small but have bumper crops for their size. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Don't forget the fruit as there are plenty of long-cropping varieties which grow quite happily in containers including gooseberries, blueberries and blackcurrants. Strawberries do better in pots, as they're off the ground away from slugs; and you can even grow 'Minarette' apple and pear trees, trained on a single stem. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Take care over feeding and watering as your plants depend entirely on you for their every need. Automatic watering systems share the load: you'll find timers, hoses and dripper systems in our garden centre. Add a weekly liquid feed when you water: liquid seaweed acts as a general-purpose tonic, but when plants are flowering a high-potash tomato feed encourages plenty of fruit.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing fruit and vegetables on a balcony.

Growing fruit and veg on balconies

Hanging baskets make a bright splash of colour against a wall or fence, filled with brilliant scarlet pelargoniums or tumbling begonias. But don't just stick to bedding plants this year: try planting baskets which are productive as well as beautiful.
Edible hanging baskets are a great way to squeeze a little more produce out of your garden. Several types of fruit and veg do better raised off the ground: strawberries, for example, are kept well away from slugs, so you get to pick your crop unmunched and perfect.
Mix several different types of edible in the same basket to create a vibrant display of contrasting foliage and fruits: you can even create an 'instant dish' by planting complementary veg together, like tomato and basil for all the ingredients you need to make a flavoursome Mediterranean sauce.
You'll find everything you need to create an edible hanging basket in our garden centre in %locations%, from the baskets themselves to liners, compost, water-retaining gel to cut down on the watering workload, and of course plants and seeds. Here are some great varieties to try growing up in the air this year:
<ul>
<li>Tumbling tomatoes cascade fetchingly in jewels of red and yellow. Choose a container variety like 'Gartenperle' or 'Hundreds and Thousands'. Keep well-watered and feed with liquid fertiliser once a week.</li>
<li>
Chillies are Mexican firecrackers which love a hot, dry spot and don't mind restricted roots. Try multicoloured 'Numex Twilight' or tumbling 'Basket of Fire'.
</li>
<li>Peas: mangetout peas ('Shiraz' is a purple-podded variety) and dwarf types like 'Bingo' or 'Little Marvel' do exceptionally well in hanging baskets and don't need any support. Choose a larger basket and water well.</li>
<li>
Strawberries: fill a hanging basket with two or three strawberry plants and they'll froth joyously over the edge. Prolific varieties include 'Cambridge Favourite' or intensely-flavoured alpine 'Mara des Bois'.
</li>
<li>Herbs: Mediterranean herbs love conditions in hanging baskets. Hang your basket right by the back door for easy picking. Herbs that do well in hanging baskets include thyme, marjoram, basil and summer savory.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about creating edible hanging baskets.

Edible hanging baskets

Combining plants in containers to make a display that looks good all year round is something of an art. It's fairly easy to create a fabulous display in summer: simply choose from the vibrantly colourful bedding plants available in our garden centre from late spring and have the best garden in %locations%.
But what if you want colour from the same container in March, as well as autumn fireworks and some winter colour too?
Here are some great combinations of plants you can find in our garden centre to put together in a roomy container, giving you a potted display that looks good from January to December.
Container 1: Green and gold for shade 
Shopping list: Hosta 'Gold Standard' (or any green and gold variegated variety), Carex oshimensis 'Evergold', Saxifraga x urbium. 
Central to the display in this container is a broad-leaved hosta with striking golden-edged leaves; filigree leaves of evergreen Carex make a contrasting fountain of gold. Underneath the small, frilly leaves of London Pride are topped with summer flowers.
Container 2: Red, red, red 
Shopping list: Cordyline australis 'Torbay Red', scarlet pelargoniums, Oxalis triangularis, Tulipa praestans. 
The evergreen purple spears of Cordyline erupt like a firework from a sea of scarlet in summer, with the deepest purple, clover-like leaves and pink flowers of the oxalis at their feet. Early-flowering tulips start the flaming reds from spring onwards.
Container 3: Fabulous foliage 
Shopping list: Cryptomeria 'Compressa', Heuchera 'Amber Waves', Heuchera 'Plum Pudding', bronze chrysanthemum. 
This container relies on colourful, evergreen heuchera leaves for its impact, though the star of the show in autumn is the low-growing conifer, Cryptomeria, which turns fabulous bronze. Choose a red-bronze variety of chrysanthemum to complement the other colours.
Container 4: Black and white 
Shopping list: Phormium 'Platts Black', Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens', Galanthus nivalis, Tulipa 'Purissima', white chrysanthemum. 
Find a super-modern container in matt black for this fabulous combination of white snowdrops and tulips against evergreen near-black foliage of New Zealand flax and black, grass-like lilyturf. A pure white chrysanthemum keeps the contrasts going into autumn.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations% for more information and advice about planting containers that look good all year.

Year-round containers

Few plants are as easy-going as herbs. You can pop them in any spare corner and they'll settle in without fuss. Many of the herbs you'll find in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre are evergreen, too, so they'll perform all year without demanding much in return.
But to encourage your herbs to produce plenty of fresh growth for you to pick, it's worth paying them a little extra attention. Follow our top tips to enjoy heavenly herbs all year round.
<ul>
<li>Improve drainage: shrubby herbs like rosemary, sage and thyme hail from the poor, stony soils of the Mediterranean – and that's what they'll enjoy in your garden. If your soil is slow-draining clay, dig in bagged grit, available from our garden centre, before planting. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sun or shade? Most herbs like to bake and prefer a spot in full sun, but there are exceptions. Parsley bolts if it's too hot, and chervil too prefers shade. Other herbs for shady spots include lemon balm, sorrel and sweet woodruff. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Sow annual herbs little and often: coriander, dill and chervil are quick-growing, leafy herbs, ready within a couple of months of sowing. Make sure you don't run out by sowing a new batch every month, ready to take over once your first harvest is finished. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Give flowering herbs a haircut: mint, marjoram and thyme flower profusely in early summer, and bees adore the blossoms. After the flowers are over, though, trim back the plants by about a quarter to encourage a new flush of leafy growth. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Repot mint every year: always grow mint in containers, as it's incredibly invasive (sink the pot among your other herbs for a more natural look). To keep it healthy, knock the plant out of the pot each spring, divide and replant in fresh compost. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Bring in frost-tender herbs: lemongrass, French tarragon and stevia don't tolerate temperatures below zero, so each year before the first frost dig them up and pot up in compost with added grit for drainage.&nbsp; Overwinter in a frost-free greenhouse or on a windowsill till late spring.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing herbs.

Keeping herbs happy

You may be short of outdoor space, but that doesn't mean you have to do without home-grown vegetables. There are lots of veg which do brilliantly in containers, whether windowboxes, grow bags, pretty terracotta pots or just tin cans nailed to a fence.
Growing in containers has many advantages: perfect soil, easy planting and your crops are kept well out of reach of slugs. These days, there are lots of innovative new ideas around to help you get started: look out for wall-hung vertical planters, automatic watering systems and even special varieties of veg bred for growing in pots, all available from your favourite garden centre in %locations%.
There's a huge range of veg you can try in containers, from herbs and salad leaves to tomatoes, chard, beetroot and even climbing French beans trained up against a wall. Just follow our five golden rules for a summer of plenty from your patio.
1.Use the largest containers you can 
The more room veg roots have, the happier they'll be (you can pack more veg in to larger pots, too!) So always buy the biggest containers you have room for.
2.Water, water, water 
Plants in pots are completely reliant on you for water supplies. Water container-grown veg every day – twice a day in hot spells.
3.Feed, feed, feed 
After the first six to eight weeks compost runs out of nutrients, so add weekly liquid feeds to your watering routine.
4.Re-sow fast-growing crops every month 
Keep picking continuously by sowing new containers of fast-growing salads, herbs, and quick crops like beetroot and turnips once a month.
5.Choose the right varieties 
Look for the words 'container veg' or 'patio veg' on seed packets: special varieties like Courgette 'Patio Star' and Aubergine 'Ophelia' will crop brilliantly in pots.&nbsp;
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about a container vegetable garden.

A container vegetable garden

Wicker baskets from the range available in our garden centre make a wonderfully natural setting for bulbs, pansies and primulas. But for a display as productive as it is beautiful, plant your basket with a selection of herbs. It makes a charming gift – and it's perfect for spoiling yourself, too.
Pick out a style and colour that catches your eye, in the largest size you can afford: larger baskets hold more&nbsp;compost, so don't need watering as often, and you can include a wider range of herbs.
If the basket doesn't already have a liner, cut polythene to fit and punch holes in it for drainage. This holds in&nbsp;moisture, and also protects the wicker. Then add a layer of gravel for drainage.
Fill your basket with multipurpose compost mixed with a handful or two of horticultural grit - both are&nbsp;available in our garden centre. Then get planting!
Shrubby herbs like rosemary and thyme are fragrant and last years. But leave space for some annuals, too,&nbsp;like spicy basil or French tarragon. You'll find all these herbs and more to choose from in our garden centre.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing baskets and herbs&nbsp;for your display.
&nbsp;

Herb baskets

There's a huge choice of containers available in our garden centre in %locations%, but two types remain most popular: clay&nbsp;terracotta, or versatile plastic. So which is best for you?
Terracotta has the look of a richly organic traditional material, yet you'll find angular modern designs among&nbsp;the traditional clay in our garden centre.
Terracotta pots are heavier, and also have porous sides, allowing air and water to pass through and letting&nbsp;plants' roots 'breathe'. This means you'll need to water more often: lining the inside with plastic (punched with&nbsp;drainage holes) helps. You'll find pots in our garden centre are labelled 'frost resistant' so they won't flake or&nbsp;crack in the cold: putting them up on pot 'feet' also helps prevent frost damage.
Plastic is light and lasts ages, and there's a dazzling range in our garden centre. Modern plastic finishes can&nbsp;look almost identical to terracotta, so you can still get the traditional look.
They hold on to water more easily, needing less watering and a perfect environment for plants like&nbsp;blueberries which like to sit in damper compost. Drought-lovers like Mediterranean herbs, though, prefer&nbsp;terracotta.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing between plastic or&nbsp;terracotta containers for your garden.

Plastic vs terracotta

Containers are brilliantly versatile, and you can use them to create whatever mood you want in your garden in %locations%&nbsp;– whether it's lushly tropical, or funky and stylish. Here's how:
Container colour: Paint raised garden boxes or wooden containers – both available in our garden centre –&nbsp;to create quirky colour-themed container gardens. Oil-based stains are low-key and tasteful; or try waterproof&nbsp;marine paints in vibrant colours. Echo stem or flower colours for a really striking effect.
Plant style: For the jungly look, pick big plants with lush-looking leaves: phormiums, hardy gingers and&nbsp;bamboos all thrive in large containers. For container cottage gardens, plant small-flowered geraniums at the&nbsp;feet of container-grown apple trees. Architectural palms, bamboos and echeverias create a minimalist, clean&nbsp;look. All are available, plus many more, in our garden centre.
Mood management: Clashing colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel such as purple and yellow&nbsp;create vibrant, exciting moods, as do hot colours: red salvias, yellow chrysanthemums and orange daylilies,&nbsp;for example. Harmonious colours – blues, purples, reds – are soothing and calming: pastel shades and white&nbsp;also turn the pressure right down.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about creating containers for&nbsp;special effects in your garden.

Container moods

Whatever size your garden, containers are likely to feature. Tulips packed into big oak barrels look fabulous&nbsp;even among rolling acres: and if all you have is a handkerchief-sized yard, pots are your garden in %locations%.
Choose with care from the extensive range in our garden centre so the right pot is in the right place. Here&nbsp;are a few tips:
A few larger pots are better than lots of little ones: large pots make a great statement and have a greater&nbsp;volume of compost so need less watering.
Choose the pot to suit your situation: lightweight plastic is more sensible than weighty terracotta on roof&nbsp;gardens; and match pots to their environment. Modernist planters sit uncomfortably in a rural idyll.
Theme your containers: decide your style from the start: modernist metal, or traditional terracotta? Painted&nbsp;ceramic or warm wood? If all your containers follow a single theme it pulls your display together.
Choose the container to fit your plants: Shallow-rooted salads, herbs and flowers thrive in as little as&nbsp;15cm of soil, so are happy in trays, windowboxes and troughs. Save big, roomy pots for hefty bananas or&nbsp;container-grown fruit trees.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing containers for your&nbsp;garden.

Right pot, right place

A key part of your garden is the setting you put it in: the boundaries you use to divide up the space to create&nbsp;interest and mystery, leading you on a journey through the space, and the scene you set with buildings,&nbsp;sculptures and backdrops. In our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you&#39;ll find a great range of hard landscaping features to&nbsp;enhance your garden.

<div>Fencing is the easiest way to divide up larger spaces or pick out the boundaries of smaller ones. There are&nbsp;dozens of styles in our garden centre: add trellis for supporting climbing plants.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Pergolas and arches lead a visitor through from one part of the garden to another to reveal the secrets&nbsp;beyond. Run an inviting path through the middle and scramble deliciously fragrant plants over the top.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Decks are an economic and warm surface for gardens, and we have all you need to create your perfect&nbsp;outdoor eating area or sun deck.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Buildings set the scene: rustic log cabins give a country feel, or for a chic urban vibe go for slick office&nbsp;spaces. In our garden centre you&#39;ll also find greenhouses, tool sheds and cold frames.</div>

<div>&nbsp;</div>

<div>Please ask the staff in our&nbsp;%locations% garden centre for more information and advice about landscaping your garden.</div>

Hard landscaping

Grow bags are incredibly useful throughout the garden: just pop them anywhere you want to grow plants but don&#39;t have soil, like the edge of a patio or outside the back door. They give you an instant growing space for sweet peas, annual climbers like morning glory, or productive herbs, vegetables or even fruit.

We stock grow bags in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre all year round, as well as useful accessories like frames that clip over them to support your plants as they grow and covers to help them blend more easily into the garden. Here are some top tips to make sure you get the best from your grow bags throughout the year.

<ul>
	<li>Fluff up before planting: When you get your grow bags home, plump them up like a pillow before you use them. This breaks up the compost inside where it&#39;s become compacted in the stack, letting in air and making it easier for your plants&#39; roots to penetrate.</li>
	<li>
	Stack several together: If you&#39;re growing big plants like tomatoes, consider stacking two or even three grow bags on top of each other to give your plants a better root run. Cut out a long rectangle from the first grow bag, then put another on the top, cutting squares from the underside to let the roots through.
	</li>
	<li>Feed regularly: Plants in grow bags rely on you for feed and water, so make sure your plants never go short. A weekly general-purpose liquid seaweed feed keeps most plants going; switch to high-phosphate tomato feed once they start flowering. You&#39;ll find both in our garden centre.</li>
	<li>
	Use a second time for salads: Once your peppers and cucumbers have finished, don&#39;t throw out your grow bag. Top up with compost if necessary (you may need to cut a longer rectangle from the top) and re-sow with baby-leaf salads to see you through autumn.
	</li>
	<li>Recycle the compost: When you&#39;ve finally finished with your grow bag, empty the spent compost on your compost heap or just straight onto your flower beds as a soil-improving mulch.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing in grow bags.

Greenhouse grow bags

Woodlodge Pots

Elho

You too can grow fruit &ndash; even if you don&#39;t have a garden. Almost all fruit trees and bushes can be grown in&nbsp;containers, and more exotic fruits, like peaches and nectarines, do better in a pot as they can be protected&nbsp;more easily. Here are our top tips for growing fruit in pots:

Which container? Choose terracotta or plastic planters about 7cm larger than the plant&#39;s rootball from the&nbsp;range available in our garden centre. Re-pot into larger containers each year.

Which compost? Soil-based composts such as John Innes no 3 are available in our garden centre and are&nbsp;ideal for fruit as they hold on to nutrients for longer. Don&#39;t use garden soil as it doesn&#39;t drain well enough.

Which stake? Most container-grown trees need staking. Sturdy tree stakes and bamboo canes 8cm in&nbsp;diameter are available in our garden centre: sink to the bottom of the pot and tie in loosely.

Which feed? We have specialist feeds for potted fruit, such as citrus feed for lemon trees, in our garden&nbsp;centre, and also slow-release fertilisers such as Osmocote and pelleted chicken manure for other fruit trees.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing fruit in containers.

Container fruit

Fruit trees are usually grafted &ndash; that is, the top, fruiting part of the tree is attached to roots which control the&nbsp;size and other factors like disease resistance. These are known as rootstocks, and it&#39;s important to choose&nbsp;a tree with the right rootstock for what you want to do. Here&#39;s a quick guide to those you&#39;ll find at our %locations%&nbsp;garden&nbsp;centre:

Apples: 
M27: very dwarfing, growing to 1.8m: the best choice for decorative &#39;stepover&#39; apples.

M9: dwarfing, to about 2m: the best choice for cordons.

M26: general-purpose dwarf rootstock, to about 3m: great for minarettes, cordons and espaliers.

MM106: grows up to 5m and ideal for full-sized trees.

Pears: 
Quince C is usually the only rootstock for pears as it&#39;s suitable for almost anything. Grows to about 5m.

Plums and damsons: 
Pixy: dwarf roostock suitable for fans and cordons, with a height of 3m

St Julien &#39;A&#39;: the most useful for garden trees, and more vigorous than Pixy at about 5m

Cherries: 
Gisela 5 and Tabel: Dwarfing, growing to about 2m, and ideal for fans

Colt: produces a full-sized bush tree to about 5m tall

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing the right rootstock&nbsp;for your fruit trees.

Rootstocks made simple

Squeezing fruit trees into a small garden isn&#39;t as impossible as it seems. Train fruit against fences and you&#39;ll&nbsp;not only fit in one tree &ndash; you can choose several!

Minarettes: Vertical upright stems laden with fruit on short spurs. Great for growing in containers or for pretty&nbsp;vertical accents in your garden. Use for: apples, pears, plums and cherries.

Cordons: Also single-stemmed, but trained at 45&ordm; to encourage more fruit. Spaced 75cm apart you&#39;ll fit four&nbsp;varieties into just 3m. Use for: apples, pears, redcurrants, gooseberries

Espaliers: vertical stems with tiers of horizontal branches trained out at 30cm intervals along wires. A&nbsp;beautiful way to cover walls and fences. Use for: apples, pears, plums, apricots, peaches

Fans: branches are splayed out from two arms at the base in an even fan across the wall. Use for: plums,&nbsp;cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots

Stepovers: like cordons but bent at right angles and trained horizontally to a wire at 45cm above the ground.&nbsp;They make wonderful edging. Use for: apples

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about growing fruit trees in small&nbsp;spaces. Trained trees are available but must be ordered especially for you - please ask a member of staff to place an order (there may be a wait for your tree depending on the time of year).

Fruit trees for small spaces

'One generation plants the tree, another gets the shade' – so goes the Chinese proverb. The fruit trees you plant today will grow for many decades into the future, though luckily you don't have to wait till your kids take over to enjoy the fruit.
Once you've selected your tree – traditional apples and pears, or perhaps cherries, apricots or a fig, all available from our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre – give it the best possible start to its long life by getting the planting right. Here's how:
<ul>
<li>Choose the site carefully: some fruit trees, such as cherries, will fruit in partial shade but most need a sunny spot that's reasonably sheltered. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Dig your hole: the size is important so your tree grows at the right height in the soil. Make your hole a third wider than the rootball, and the same depth as the container the tree is growing in (if your tree is bare-root, look for the 'soil mark' just where the roots meet the stem). 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Use a garden fork to lightly loosen the soil at the bottom of the hole to let the roots get through easily. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Bang a sturdy tree stake, available in our garden centre, into the bottom of the hole at 45° to vertical, pointing into the prevailing wind. It should cross the trunk about halfway up. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Now place the tree in the hole next to the stake, spreading out the roots evenly if it's bare-root. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Back-fill the hole with soil, treading it in gently as you go so the tree is well anchored in the soil. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Water thoroughly, so the moisture sinks right down into the root zone, and top with a nice deep mulch of well-rotted farmyard manure, pulled back from the trunk so it doesn't encourage rotting. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Finish by tying the tree to the stake with a specialist rubber tree tie. You'll find these in our garden centre: they work in a figure-eight between tree and stake to prevent rubbing and allow the tree trunk to expand.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about planting fruit trees.

Planting a fruit tree

Flowers and foliage are often the first thing gardeners think about when choosing plants for the garden, but many plants have another explosion of colour that&#39;s every bit as spectacular as blossom or elegant leaves. Berries can smother a tree or shrub in a good year, often in late autumn and early winter when there&#39;s not much in the way of other colour around.

Visit our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;in autumn and you&#39;ll find dozens of plants in full berry, and it&#39;s quite a sight. Here are our top picks for a spectacular autumn display.

<ul>
	<li>Barberry (Berberis thunbergii) is a really easy to grow shrub that just keeps on giving. Covered in pale straw-coloured flowers in spring, it follows with brilliant red berries and orange foliage in autumn. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Cotoneaster come in all shapes and sizes, from horizontalis, with herringbone branches which can be trained against a wall, to serotinus, an arching shrub to 1.5m tall. All are smothered in berries in autumn. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Firethorn (Pyracantha) comes with red, orange or yellow berries: plant all three for a firework display of densely-clustered berries in autumn, and train against a wall for a sculptural garden feature. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Holly (Ilex aquifolium) only has berries if you plant a male and a female plant: if you haven&#39;t room, there&#39;s a self-fertile variety called &#39;JC Van Tol&#39;. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Rowans (Sorbus) are small trees whose berries are much loved by birds. Sorbus cashmiriana has pearly white berries, while &#39;Joseph Rock&#39; fruits buttery yellow. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Beauty berry (Callicarpa bodinieri) has perhaps the most extraordinary autumn berries of them all: in an iridescent, jewel-like violet purple there&#39;s nothing else quite like them in the plant world. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Elder (Sambucus nigra) follows its frothy dinner-plate flowerheads with striking sprays of black berries: pick them as soon as they&#39;re ripe and you can make elderberry wine. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Species roses are the ones which produce ornamental hips in autumn to follow a riot of summer flowers. The hips of Rosa moyesii are sealing-wax red and waisted, like flagons of wine, while R. spinosissima has fat, spherical black hips.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about plants with good autumn berries.

Autumn berries

No garden should be without a tree: they add height, structure and a feeling of permanence and timelessness. But if you have a small garden in %locations%, it&#39;s hard to imagine shoehorning in a tree as well.

Well: that depends on what kind of tree it is. Of course if you plant large trees in small gardens they swamp the space and make it difficult to grow anything else &ndash; but there are dozens of smaller trees which never get much more than 7m (25ft) high and behave themselves perfectly.

You&#39;ll find a superb selection of smaller trees in our garden centre: to help you choose, here are our top ten favourites.

<ul>
	<li>Japanese maples are all fabulous choices. Acer griseum has curling cinnamon bark, A.&nbsp; palmatum var. dissectum has filigree leaves that turn scarlet in autumn, and low-growing A. shirasawanum &#39;Aureum&#39; has broad, graceful leaves in brilliant yellow. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Silver birch (Betula utilis var jacquemontii) has pure white bark that shines out in a winter border: grow a multistemmed specimen for maximum impact. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Crabapple (Malus x robusta) has the bonus of a heavy crop of edible fruit in autumn for making delicious crabapple jelly. &#39;Sentinel&#39; is brilliant red, while M. x zumi &#39;Golden Hornet&#39; has yellow fruit. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Star magnolia (Magnolia stellata) is the one to choose if you don&#39;t have enough room for the big magnolias: it stays to a compact 1.5m tall and still has big, pure white whirligig flowers in spring. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo) gets its name from the fat red fruits it produces in autumn. It&#39;s great value, with glossy evergreen foliage and small bell-like white or pink flowers in spring. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) is an easy-to-grow small tree about 5m (16ft) tall. It looks good most of the year, with white blossom in spring, good autumn colour and vibrant red berries. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Snowy mespilus (Amelanchier lamarckii) is another hard-working tree, with delicate white blossoms arriving at the same time as the coppery young foliage in spring, followed by spectacular autumn colour.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about choosing trees for small gardens.

Small garden trees

&#39;What is life, if full of care we have no time to stand and stare?&#39; So said Welsh poet W H Davies &ndash; and it&#39;s a&nbsp;good motto for gardeners. Take time out to simply enjoy being in the garden you&#39;ve so lovingly created.

Seating in the garden slows the pace, providing a spot to pause and take in the view, and there&#39;s a great&nbsp;range of benches and chairs in our garden centre. Here are just some of the designs.

Wooden seats and benches:&nbsp;We stock Charles Taylor British-made hardwood benches and companion seats.

<img alt="" height="300" src="https://www.swarkestonenursery.co.uk/files/images/FU101624_1.jpg" style="width: 270px; height: 300px;" width="270" />&nbsp;&nbsp;<img alt="" height="300" src="https://www.swarkestonenursery.co.uk/files/images/HB01B_LS_V01(1).jpg" style="width: 427px; height: 300px;" width="427" />

Contemporary style: clean lines, minimalist shapes and cool colours mark out modernist benches and&nbsp;chairs in sleek wood or metal.

<img alt="" height="300" src="https://www.swarkestonenursery.co.uk/files/images/ascalon-abbey-bistro-set-p3719-16624_zoom.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 300px;" width="300" />

Weave casual dining:&nbsp;We stock Bramblecrest and Kettler weave furniture. Both brands have a range of luxury furniture including recliners, bistro sets, dining sets and corner sofas. We even stock firepit tables which allow you to enjoy your outdoor space well into the evening.

<img alt="" height="300" src="https://www.swarkestonenursery.co.uk/files/images/Bramblecrest-Monterey-8-Seat-Oval-Dining-Set-with-Lazy-Susan-Parasol-Base-in-Sandstone-1.jpg" style="width: 300px; height: 300px;" width="300" />&nbsp; <img alt="" height="300" src="https://www.swarkestonenursery.co.uk/files/images/classic-recliner-lifestyle-2019-fi.jpg" style="width: 449px; height: 300px;" width="449" />

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing chairs and&nbsp;benches for your garden.

Sitting pretty

Hanging chairs are the very latest in gardening style: not only beautiful sculptural pieces that make your&nbsp;garden bang on trend, but also incredibly comfortable. These are chairs you sink into, enveloping you in a&nbsp;little cocoon of luxury.&nbsp;

Our most popular hanging chair is this Oakridge Double Cocoon redefines relaxation, boasting a contemporary take on a traditional swing seat, perfect for enjoying the longer summer days in full relaxation.

Crafted from a synthetic weave which has the aesthetic qualities of natural wicker, yet provides added qualities including weatherproofing and U.V. resistance ensures this set is longlasting.

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Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about hanging seats for your&nbsp;garden.

Hanging around

The moment the sun comes out, everyone in Britain heads outside to enjoy the garden. Whether it&#39;s a spot&nbsp;of sunbathing, or an al fresco dinner party, furnishing your outdoor space comfortably makes those precious&nbsp;summer moments go with a swing.

We have outdoor furniture in dozens of styles in our garden centre in %locations%: to help you choose, ask yourself these&nbsp;questions first.

Wooden or metal? Wooden furniture is warm to sit on; treat&nbsp;regularly with a preservative to keep it looking&nbsp;good. Metal is an elegant choice: add cushions for comfort.

How much room have I got? Making the best use of the space you&#39;ve got by measuring the area&nbsp;accurately and plotting on graph paper what size of furniture would fit best.

Is the style right? Blend your furniture with the wider garden&#39;s design: for minimalist contemporary spaces, choose&nbsp;funky modern styles, while traditional wood or metal suit rural country gardens.

What about storage? We stock a range of protective covers to keep your furniture in tip-top condition.

Please ask the staff in our %locations% garden centre for more information and advice about choosing furniture for your&nbsp;garden.

A room outside

Once colder weather arrives and the nights draw in, you&#39;ll want to retreat indoors and cosy up to a roaring&nbsp;fire rather than braving the elements outdoors. But before closing the back door behind you, take some time&nbsp;to tuck your garden furniture up for winter in %locations%.

Wood can be left outdoors but a quick once-over with teak oil keeps it supple (only apply when the wood is&nbsp;dry). Follow up by soaking each leg in pots of wood preservative overnight.

Metal furniture is treated with anti-rust agent and coated against the damp, but if the surface has been&nbsp;damaged touch it up straight away using matching car or metal paint.

Covers are available in our garden centre so you can leave garden furniture outside yet safely out of the&nbsp;weather. Made from weather-proof fabric, they&#39;re fitted in minutes &ndash; though make sure your furniture is dry&nbsp;before putting them on.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about how to care for your garden&nbsp;furniture over winter.

Winter care for garden furniture

Furnishing your garden is rather like furnishing a room: you&#39;re creating comfortable places to put your feet&nbsp;up, while blending colours, styles and textures so the whole effect is timeless and effortlessly chic. Here are&nbsp;just some of the essentials you&#39;ll find in our garden centrein %locations%:

Benches make wonderful focal points as well as giving you somewhere to sit back and enjoy the view&nbsp;you&#39;ve created. In our garden centre we stock dozens of styles, whether you&#39;re looking for rustic, natural&nbsp;wood or ultra-modern painted steel.

Chairs and tables: our many patio sets include bistro tables&nbsp;and picnic benches. For nooks and crannies add single seats like chairs, swing seats&nbsp;and loungers for pure relaxation.

Soft furnishings finish your look perfectly. In our garden centre we have waterproof cushions for benches and seats in brilliant colours.

We stock Bramblecrest and Kettler weave furniture, Charles Taylor wooden furniture and Ascalon metal furniture.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about furnishing your garden.

Garden furniture

Cats are among the most persistent of garden pests. Even if you love your pet cat to bits, it&#39;s no fun&nbsp;discovering they&#39;ve been using your garden as a toilet. If it&#39;s your neighbour&#39;s cat it&#39;s downright infuriating.

Luckily cats are fastidious creatures and it&#39;s relatively easy to make your garden into a no-go zone they&#39;ll&nbsp;prefer to avoid. Here&#39;s how.

Get a dog: perhaps not always practical, but cats will avoid your garden like the plague.

Avoid patches of bare, dry soil: these have &#39;cat litter tray&#39; written all over them. After sowing seeds, poke&nbsp;prickly rose, holly or hawthorn prunings into the ground every 15cm or so to keep cats clear.

Use large-grade gravel: small chippings on pathways and drives are inviting to cats, so use larger stones&nbsp;instead: there&#39;s a good choice in our garden centre.

Hang citrus peel among your plants: cats hate oranges and lemons, so hang fresh peel among vulnerable&nbsp;plants.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about keeping cats off your&nbsp;garden.

Averting cat-astrophes

Four-legged friends can be wonderful companions in the garden: there's something comforting about having&nbsp;a friendly dog snuffling nearby while you weed.
But let's face it - sometimes they can be one of the worst of all garden pests. It is possible to have both a dog&nbsp;and a nice garden, as long as you take precautions.
Choose plants wisely: more robust plants easily withstand doggy rough and tumble, and there's a wide&nbsp;range in our garden centre. They include lavender, potentilla, and sturdy geraniums and Astrantia.
Follow your dog: watch your dog's route through the garden: they're creatures of habit and usually follow&nbsp;the same path. Avoid planting where he runs, and consider converting his routes into your paths.
Protect plants: Sturdy metal supports placed strategically around more delicate plants steer the dog clear of&nbsp;accidents - there's a good range to choose from in our garden centre.
Provide a digging spot: Dogs who love to dig can be persuaded to use a dedicated earth box: try burying&nbsp;his favourite toys for him to find so he's encouraged to use it instead of your borders.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about adapting your garden to&nbsp;accommodate your dog.

Dog-friendly gardening

Tiny, velvety, almost completely blind, moles are among the most secretive garden creatures. You might live&nbsp;with one for years and never see it. But you'll notice what it's been up to.
Moles live underground, tunnelling in search of earthworms to eat. Their habit of throwing up excess soil&nbsp;onto the surface of a lawn as molehills is maddening enough, but their tunnels also undermine the lawn's&nbsp;surface, and moles can disturb roots of young plants as they move around.
You'll find several options for controlling moles available in our garden centre:
Trapping: set the trap in a tunnel, about 10cm below the surface. Check live-capture traps twice a day,&nbsp;releasing any moles at least a mile away. It's likely another mole will move in - so repeat as necessary.
Sonic devices and repellents: these use buzzing noises or unpleasant odours to drive moles away,&nbsp;although they can re-invade other parts of the garden.
Mole-repelling plants: You'll find caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyris), daffodils, tall and stately Fritillaria&nbsp;imperialis (crown imperial) and yellow Allium moly in our garden centre: all are said to be unpleasant to&nbsp;moles.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about managing moles in your&nbsp;garden.

Managing moles

Early in the year, wasps are welcome visitors: they gobble up aphids and caterpillars by the dozen to feed to&nbsp;their young, leaving your plants pest-free.
By summer, though, they become a nuisance, eating holes in ripening fruit and swarming over picnics,&nbsp;making outdoor life almost impossible and occasionally downright painful.
You don't have to destroy wasp nests unless it's posing a risk to you or your family. But it's wise to keep the&nbsp;insects at bay using a combination of deterrents and traps.
Wasp traps can be as simple as a jar with some sugary water in the bottom to lure them in, or a device which&nbsp;fits into the top of a plastic drinks bottle, allowing them to crawl in but not escape again. There's a good&nbsp;selection to choose from in our garden centre. Always place traps well away from seating and play areas.
Effective deterrents include imitation wasp nests, taking advantage of a wasp's natural behaviour to keep&nbsp;them away. Wasps are very territorial and won't re-use old nests, so if you hang an imitation nest near your&nbsp;patio or seating area they'll go elsewhere.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about controlling wasps in your&nbsp;garden.

Wasps wasted

In the battle against all the creepy crawlies which would like to enjoy your plants as much as you do, it's a&nbsp;good idea to be well-armed. You'll find everything you need to fight the good fight in our garden centre in %locations%: keep&nbsp;these essentials in the garden shed and you'll be prepared at all times.
Sprays: insecticidal soap takes care of sap-sucking aphids on everything from roses to cabbages: you'll find&nbsp;handy spray guns in our garden centre. We also stock tree washes for getting rid of overwintering larvae and&nbsp;eggs on fruit trees and bushes.
Barriers: keep pests at bay without having to kill them: a screen of horticultural fleece around carrots keeps&nbsp;carrot fly away, while garlic granules, grit and copper rings deter slugs. Insect-proof mesh available off the&nbsp;roll or as a ready-to-use cloche keeps caterpillars and other pests off crops.
Organic deterrents: in our garden centre you'll find a range of organic methods for tackling pests, from&nbsp;super-effective wildlife friendly slug pellets to biological controls. We also stock a range of pheromone traps&nbsp;to hang among your plants for catching codling moth and other flying pests.
Please ask the staff in our %locations% garden centre for more information and advice about dealing with garden pests.

Garden pests

Weeds, so the saying goes, are just plants in the wrong place. The trouble is, there are so many of them. However much you might think dandelions are pretty, or ground elder has elegant leaves, if you stop to admire them too long you (and your plants) will quickly be overrun.
You'll probably never be completely free of weeds, but it's quite possible to keep them well under control. In our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre you'll find all you need from weedkillers for persistent thugs, to hoes to deal with tiny annual weed seedlings before they get their heads too far above ground.
For a really effective anti-weed strategy, tailor your approach to the weed you're tackling: here's how.
<ul>
<li>Annual weeds: the easiest to tackle as long as you have a routine. Every week without fail, whether it looks like it needs it or not, use a Dutch hoe to slice through emerging seedlings just below the surface. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Deep-rooted dandelions and docks: these can regenerate from the tip of the root left in the ground, so dig down deep enough to get the whole thing out, or spot-treat with a glyphosate-based weedkiller. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Smothering bindweed: The twining stems of bindweed are a menace in the garden, strangling your plants and smothering everything, Hand-weeding rarely controls it properly: in our garden centre you'll find hand-held glyphosate gel weedkiller treatments to paint on the leaves without endangering nearby plants. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Persistent ground elder and couch grass: These won't kill your plants but they do compete with them for water and nutrients. Their long, brittle roots mean they often survive digging out by hand. Spray with glyphosate-based weedkiller, or keep them out with thick weed-control fabric, available in our garden centre. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Thuggish brambles:&nbsp; Often a problem on neglected ground, brambles colonise large areas by arching stems which root where they touch the ground. Don a thick pair of gauntlets and wade in with loppers to cut them back, then dig out rootstocks one by one, or paint the stumps with a brushkiller treatment like SBK.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about dealing with weeds in your garden.

Keeping down weeds

Last time you gave someone a bunch of flowers, did you stop to wonder what you were telling them?
It's not just the 'I love you' of red roses: flowers have a whole language of their own. Refined Victorian&nbsp;gentlemen would give their lady loves a 'tussie-mussie' (posy) full of cryptic messages to tell her what&nbsp;politeness wouldn't allow him to say out loud, from primroses ('eternal love') to the striped carnation of&nbsp;rejection.
There are dozens of floral gifts to choose from in our garden centre, from small posies to larger floral&nbsp;arrangements, as well as plants whose flowers have secret meanings. So when you next pick a floral gift,&nbsp;give some thought to the hidden messages you could send:
For a wedding: Camellias for devotion, sunflowers for loyalty and adoration, and red poppies for eternal love&nbsp;and affection
For a friend's birthday: buttercups for riches, celandine for joys to come, and pear blossom for lasting&nbsp;friendship
To say sorry: broom for humility, a peony for shame and rue for regret.
For a bereavement: Campanulas – 'thinking of you'; borage for courage, and cypress for sorrow.
Please ask the staff in our&nbsp;%locations% Garden Centre for more information.&nbsp;

The language of flowers

If you grow your own food, you're not only a gardener: you're a farmer, and a cook, too. There's a wide range&nbsp;of presents for all three in our garden centre: here are a few ideas.
Trugs: the smooth curves of hand-made wooden trugs are the ultimate in good-looking baskets to gather&nbsp;fruit and veg.
Apple storing racks: no more fiddling about with cardboard boxes and newspaper: practical wooden&nbsp;racking holds fruit in perfect condition through winter.
Fruit pickers: those maddening apples and plums growing at the top of the tree are no longer just for the&nbsp;wasps: long nets on telescopic handles make picking them a cinch.
Preserving pans: most veg growers are dab hands at making chutneys and jams: a proper preserving pan&nbsp;gives them perfect results every time.
Lantern cloches: Glass-windowed mini greenhouses for bringing on early crops which are as ornamental as&nbsp;they are practical.
Hand care: After days toiling at the plot a gardener's hands are in serious need of TLC. A nailbrush, some&nbsp;good soap and a heavy-duty handcream specially formulated for gardeners should put things right.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about choosing gifts for gardeners&nbsp;who grow their own.

Grow-your-own gifts

Gifts for people who love their garden are everywhere in our garden centre and you're sure to find inspiration&nbsp;from our range of products to enhance your home and garden.
Garden ornaments you'll find in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;include sundials and clocks, statues and sculptures,&nbsp;windchimes, wall art and topiary.
Keen veg growers will enjoy our windowsill kits and beautifully presented pre-packed sets of seeds and&nbsp;pots. We've also got a range of seed boxes, ornamental plant labels and planters to get them growing fresh&nbsp;fruit and veg year-round.
Practical presents are always useful when you're out in the garden come rain or shine. There's a selection&nbsp;of sturdy garden clothing in our garden centre, as well as tool belts, welly-boot pulls, and useful gadgets like&nbsp;pot makers using recycled newspaper.
Plants are always a delight to gardeners. You'll find seasonal plants including pots of forced hyacinths and&nbsp;spring bulbs, fragrant winter shrubs or poinsettias for Christmas in our garden centre: another great gift idea&nbsp;is a rose named for an anniversary.
For gardeners who like to choose for themselves we have gift vouchers in attractive presentation cards,&nbsp;suitable for every occasion.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about gifts for gardeners.

Gifts

Pick the right tool for the right job, and you'll find things magically become easier. Specialist garden tools&nbsp;have been designed for every gardening task, and if you invest in the tool that's made for the activity you&nbsp;have planned, work becomes a pleasure.
Here are just some of the specialist gardening tools you can find in our garden centre:
Bulb planter: slice through the ground to remove a perfect cone of earth for planting your spring bulbs
Dibber: use the tip for making indentations in compost for seeds, or go deeper for transplanting seedlings
Edging knife: neaten up the tricky bits between flower border and lawn with an easy-to-use half moon edger
Draw hoe: pull up earth around potatoes to protect from frost and encourage lots of tasty tubers
Garden line: sowing in a straight line is a doddle when you mark out your drill with a simple garden line
Pruning knife: sharp, efficient, and small enough to slip into your back pocket: essential kit at cuttings time
Shears: specialist topiary shears clip tight corners, while general-purpose types keep hedges in good shape.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information about which gardening tools to choose.

Special tools for the specialist gardener

There's a huge range of gardening tools nowadays – you'll find most of them on display in our garden centre.&nbsp;Though they're all great to have, there are some you'll use every time you go in the garden. All these are&nbsp;available in our garden centre in %locations%.
Digging spade: makes heavy-duty soil turning jobs easy. Lightweight, easy-clean stainless steel blades are&nbsp;best.
Garden fork: great for digging stony soils, mixing in a layer of compost, or weeding larger areas.
Hand trowel: essential for transplanting seedlings and planting bulbs: blades marked with measurements&nbsp;make judging planting distances easy
Weeding fork: careful weeding among established plants needs an easy-to-manoeuvre hand fork.
Secateurs: back-pocket essentials for all gardeners at pruning time, but also for dead-heading and taking&nbsp;cuttings
Watering can: from one-litre seedling cans to 10-litre behemoths, a watering can makes sure plants never&nbsp;go short
Wheelbarrow: the garden workhorse, whether you're pruning roses, barrowing muck or clearing a patch of&nbsp;weeds
Dutch hoe: hoe off weed seedlings once a week and you'll always have a pristine plot
Rake: use for raking spring seedbeds, levelling soil in summer, or gathering autumn leaves to make leaf&nbsp;mould soil conditioner.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information about choosing the tools which are right for&nbsp;you.

Must-have gardening tools

We're all different shapes and sizes as gardeners, so you wouldn't expect to feel comfortable using the same&nbsp;tools as your taller-than-average neighbour.
That's why it's important to choose tools that fit. It makes your gardening life more comfortable, and it's better&nbsp;for your health. If you work stooped over a fork that's too short, or struggle with a rake that's too tall, it's a&nbsp;recipe for a bad back and muscle problems. You should be able to work standing as straight and upright as&nbsp;possible, without straining your arms or shoulders.
Fortunately in our garden centre we have tools in a wide range of lengths and weights, so you can choose&nbsp;the one that suits you best.
Lift the tool as you would in the garden: is it the right weight, and not too heavy (or too light)? Grip the&nbsp;handle, too, to test it's a comfortable width.
Then stand it next to you. For an average height the length of handle is around 72cm, but we have longer&nbsp;and shorter in our garden centre.
We also have tools for gardeners with particular needs: left-handed secateurs, for example, or long-handled&nbsp;trowels for those who find it difficult to bend down.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information about how to make sure you choose tools&nbsp;which are right for you.

Choosing tools that fit

The centrepiece of every well-kept garden, an emerald green lawn sets off your plants to perfection and&nbsp;gives you a beautiful, soft space to sit and soak up the atmosphere.
Keeping your lawn in tip-top condition is easy when you've got the right tools, and luckily we've got just what&nbsp;you need right here in our garden centre. Here are a few essentials to get you started:
Lawnmower: the number one requirement for trim lawns, choose a mower to fit your garden. Push mowers&nbsp;are practical and environmentally friendly for tiny lawns: electric or petrol make short work of anything larger.
Half-moon edger: straightforward and comfortable to use, the half-moon blade slices those hairy, overgrown&nbsp;edges into a crisp, pleasing finish
Wire rake: rake up autumn leaves to make leafmould, then give your lawn (and yourself!) a workout by&nbsp;scarifying – raking out the old thatch to let the grass breathe
Garden fork: perfect for aerating lawns, punching drainage holes through the surface to let water flow away&nbsp;from the surface and down to the roots where it's needed.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information about which tools to choose and how to use&nbsp;them.

Look after your lawn

Pruning is one of the most enjoyable jobs in the garden, whether you're sorting out tangled climbing roses,&nbsp;thinning blackcurrants or removing damaged tree branches.
Using the right tools for each cut helps you work more efficiently and the plant stays healthy - ragged cuts&nbsp;invite infection to set in.
We have a wide range of pruning tools to choose from in our garden centre. Here's what you need to get&nbsp;started:
Secateurs: used for branches up to 2cm diameter. Bypass secateur blades cut like scissors and are handy&nbsp;in tight corners; anvil secateurs are useful for hard, woody stems.
Loppers: for thicker branches, up to 5cm across. They're like giant secateurs, some with extendable&nbsp;handles and ratchet actions for extra cutting power.
Pruning saws: for medium-sized branches. Folding saws have hinged blades which pack away into the&nbsp;handle; larger fixed-handle blades eat through major jobs.
Bow saws: for large tree work. Lightweight 'D' shaped saws with a hacksaw-type blade for tricky corners.
Overhead pruners: when a branch is out of reach, this telescopic handle with both a lopper blade and&nbsp;pruning saw on the end is perfect.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information about choosing pruning tools for the job you&nbsp;need them for.

Cutting edge tools

Tools are a gardener's best friend – and top of the list come your trusty hand tools, pressed into daily service&nbsp;for everything from pruning to digging to sowing to weeding.
In our garden centre you'll find the basic kit for starting out: border spades and forks to turn your soil, hand&nbsp;tools for close-up weeding and secateurs for pruning, trimming and dead-heading.
For trickier jobs there's a huge variety of more specialist tools in our garden centre. We have hoes to suit&nbsp;every purpose, whether it's earthing up potatoes or more delicate weeding; and our range of rakes make&nbsp;short work of levelling seedbeds, collecting autumn leaves or clearing up debris.
Pruning tools are an essential part of a gardener's armoury: in our garden centre you'll find loppers for&nbsp;thicker branches or if you're really getting stuck in, pruning saws and bowsaws for the big jobs. Plus we have&nbsp;specialist weeding tools for winkling weeds out of the toughest corners; garden knives for everything from&nbsp;cutting string to taking cuttings; and everything you could need by way of dibbers, brooms and bulb planters.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about the range of hand tools we&nbsp;have in stock.

Hand tools

Power tools

Tools powered by electricity or petrol make short work of even the toughest jobs, keeping your garden spick&nbsp;and span and leaving you with enough time to enjoy yourself, too. You&#39;ll find a great range of both electric&nbsp;and petrol power tools in our garden centre in %locations%: here&#39;s how to choose between the two.

<div>Electric tools tend to be smaller, lighter, and easier to use. They&#39;re ideal for smaller gardens where there&#39;s&nbsp;a readily-available electrical supply, as they&#39;re easy to manoeuvre around and don&#39;t take up much space to&nbsp;store. If you haven&#39;t already got a weatherproof outdoor socket get a qualified electrician to fit one for you,&nbsp;but remember to always use a circuit breaker between the socket and plug for safety.</div>

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<div>Petrol tools are larger and heavier, and really power through your work. Petrol strimmers slice through the&nbsp;toughest of bramble thickets, and petrol lawnmowers are ideal for large lawns and where there&#39;s no power&nbsp;source handy. Don&#39;t forget to add two-stroke oil, available from our garden centre, each time you fill up: it&#39;s&nbsp;important to get the ratio right, so check the manufacturer&#39;s instructions.</div>

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<div>Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about powered tools.</div>

Your tools are your best friends in the garden. They'll stand by you through thick and thin: they're the first things you reach for at times of trouble, and your companions through your greatest triumphs.
Well-made, good-quality tools like those you'll find in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre can last you a lifetime if you take good care of them. So make it a part of your annual routine to spend an hour or two at the end of the season getting them in good shape before storing them away for the winter. Here's how:
<ul>
<li>Give them a clean: let your stainless steel spades and forks dry for a few days so the mud is easier to brush off with a stiff-bristled hand brush. Get every last bit off including the mud wedged in to the neck of the tool head.</li>
<li>
Repair any breakages: bent fork tines can be straightened with a piece of hollow metal piping: just slot it over the end of the tine and pull. Replacement wooden handles are available in our garden centre, and you'll also find spare watering can roses to replace the one you lost, and new blades for pruning saws.
</li>
<li>Oil non-steel tools to prevent them rusting in damp weather. This can be as easy as wiping them over with a rag soaked in paraffin, or alternatively fill a bucket with sand and mix in some oil; then dig your tools into the sand to clean and oil them at the same time.</li>
<li>
Hang everything up out of the way so they won't fall over into a hopeless tangle which you'll have to sort out before you can use them.. Hang spades, hoes, forks and rakes blade-upwards, on double nails banged into the wall, and add some single nails to hold hand trowels, forks, and shears.
</li>
<li>Get powered tools serviced at a reputable garden machine company once a year, to change the oil, sharpen blades and generally give them the once over before they're back in regular use again.</li>
</ul>
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about looking after your garden tools.

Looking after garden tools

Gardeners demand a lot of pruning tools, especially in winter when there are roses, clematis, apple trees and fruit bushes to do. There are other cutting tools in regular use, too: hedging and topiary shears, and blades you might not think of as blades like hoes and border spades, both of which need sharp edges to cut&nbsp; through the earth.

Keeping your tools razor-sharp is key to efficient working. Blunt tools take more effort to use, and worse, they can tear at branches rather than cutting them cleanly, causing snags and ragged edges that invite rots and other infections to set in. Hoes and spades, too, are far more effective if they&#39;re sharp enough to cut through obstacles rather than bludgeoning them with brute force.

You&#39;ll find all you need to keep your tools honed to perfection in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, from sharpening stones to specialist sharpening tools for curved blades such as secateurs. To use them well and get your tools cutting cleanly, follow our top tips:

<ul>
	<li>Work out which side has the flat cutting surface: for bypass secateurs, this is the curving blade that scissors past the &#39;anvil&#39; one. This is the edge you need to keep sharp. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Work at an angle of about 30&deg; to the blade and run the sharpening stone along the angled side &ndash; if you look at the blade sideways on you&#39;ll find out which that is. Work from hinge to tip, always moving the stone away from you to avoid hurting yourself. Keep doing this for a few minutes and you&#39;ll find you have a rough edge forming on the underside as tiny shards of metal shear off. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Use a circular motion to gently remove this burr from the other side of the blade, though working flat to the blade this time as you don&#39;t want to take the edge off again. 
	&nbsp;</li>
	<li>Consider a professional tool-sharpening service for larger-bladed items like hedging shears or petrol-driven hedge trimmers. These only need doing around once a year and it&#39;s easier to get the professionals in.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about sharpening gardening tools.

Keeping tools sharp

Keeping a display going from May to September is usually a tricky juggling act involving careful choice of&nbsp;plants to flower one after the other, and luck.

You can make things easier by simply controlling when your perennials flower, using a trick known as&nbsp;the &#39;Chelsea chop&#39; &ndash; because you do it when the Chelsea Flower Show is on, around the end of May.

This works well with lots of perennials, and you&#39;ll find most of them in our garden centre. They include&nbsp;daisies: dyer&#39;s chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria), Echinacea and Helenium; and many cottage garden&nbsp;favourites like Phlox paniculata, Sedums and goldenrod (Solidago).

At the end of May, use secateurs (found in our garden centre) to cut back every stem by a third to a half. It&nbsp;seems brutal, but all you&#39;re doing is delaying flowering for a while. Cut back some clumps and not others,&nbsp;and some flower at the normal time with a second display arriving a few weeks later.

You&#39;ll find plants grow sturdier and less leggy &ndash; so you don&#39;t need to stake them: you get double the flower&nbsp;power, too. So get chopping!

Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about using the Chelsea chop to&nbsp;delay flowering.

The Chelsea Chop

If a garden were a picture, trees and shrubs would make the frame, but the paint would be perennials,&nbsp;bringing the whole thing to life with colour and movement.

Here are our top tips for picking combinations from the fantastic choice of perennials in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;to&nbsp;make your garden a work of art.

Design in triangles to avoid a &#39;blobby&#39; effect. Combine tall verticals &ndash; say, foxgloves - with hummocky&nbsp;shapes like geraniums and low-growing horizontal ground cover.

Contrast shapes to bring out the best in your plants. Look for opposites: strappy-leaved daylilies with broad-&nbsp;leaved heucheras, or upright, airy grasses with daisy flowered rudbeckia.

Use repetition to pull your design together. Several bold clumps of the same variety of helenium at strategic&nbsp;points, for example, make the garden feel whole.

Manage colour to create the mood you want. Zingy reds and oranges with clashing blues and purples are&nbsp;exciting, whereas similar shades together calm things down.

Plant in groups or drifts for real impact. Odd numbers work best: three is a minimum but you can go up to&nbsp;nine, eleven or fifteen plants at a time for real wow factor.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about designing with perennials.

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Designing with perennials

There&#39;s a spell in late August when the garden can hit the doldrums. Late summer is a tricky time, when the&nbsp;main razzmatazz is over and plants start to tire.

Get the show going again with some of the many perennials you&#39;ll find in our garden centre which are at their&nbsp;best in late summer. Here are our top ten:

Helenium &#39;Moorheim Beauty&#39; starts in July: its coppery-red daisy like flowers go on for months

Phlox paniculata &#39;Mount Fuji&#39; froths with fragrant white flowers into autumn

Aconitum &#39;Sparks Variety&#39; flowers till late September with spires of midnight blue

Plume poppy (Macleaya microcarpa) is a dramatic, towering perennial with handsome foliage

Red hot poker (Kniphofia uvaria) has spires of tubular flowers from red to pale yellow

Aster &#39;Little Carlow&#39; is one of many Michaelmas daisies, with cheerful lilac flowers

Anemone x hybrida &#39;Honorine Jobert&#39; carries pure white flowers on dancing stems till autumn

Penstemon &#39;Garnet&#39; has deep wine red foxglove-like spires till October

Sedum &#39;Ruby Glow&#39; tops succulent purple leaves with flat ruby-red flowerheads

Crocosmia &#39;Lucifer&#39; produces fiery red sprays of tubular flowers from August

Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about perennials that look good in&nbsp;late summer.

Late summer perennials

Perennials play an exuberant starring role in vibrant summer displays – but you may be surprised to know&nbsp;there are many which perform well into winter.
In our garden centre we've got plenty of perennials to bring colour to the garden through even the coldest&nbsp;months: here are five of our favourites.
Bergenia are also known as elephants' ears: big, broad, leathery leaves turn shades of red and purple in&nbsp;autumn and stay evergreen all winter. Fat flower spires top the display in spring.
Heuchera foliage comes in every colour from lime green to deep purple: they have pretty flower spires in&nbsp;summer but in winter make bright splash of welcome colour.
Hellebores are among our best-loved winter flowers: Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) flowers in December&nbsp;while H. orientalis starts in early spring. The handsome leaves are evergreen, too.
Cuckoo pint (Arum italicum) reverses the seasons, dying down in summer but returning in autumn with&nbsp;handsome marbled leaves and spikes of red berries.
Phlomis russeliana is one of many perennials which holds architectural seedheads into winter, contrasting&nbsp;well with the equally sculptural winter remains of grass flowerheads.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre for more information and advice about perennials that look good in&nbsp;winter.
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Winter perennials

Dahlias are among the loveliest of late-summer bulbs, flowering their socks off for weeks on end (especially if you dead-head them regularly to keep the blooms coming).
You can choose a dahlia to suit your garden whatever your style: spidery cactus varieties like 'Black Narcissus' for an exotic look, or pretty pompom 'David Howard' for a classic herbaceous border. Single-flowered dahlias suit natural planting styles: in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;you'll find delicate pure white 'Twynings After Eight' and what are popularly known as 'The Bishops' – 'Bishop of Llandaff' in scarlet, yellow 'Bishop of York' or lilac 'Bishop of Leicester'.
All, however, are frost-tender, so need special care over winter.
In a well-drained soil in a warmer area of the country, you may be able to leave your dahlias in the ground: insure against hard frosts by covering the ground around the plant with a mulch up to 15cm thick of dry autumn leaves or coarse bark chips. Hold it in place with a double layer of fleece, pegged down to stop it blowing away. In spring remove the mulch to allow the plant to shoot up again.
If you're reluctant to risk losing your tubers in a hard winter, though, lift and store them in autumn under cover. Here's how:
<ol>
<li>Once the foliage has been blackened by frost, dig up the tubers and let them dry for a day or so. Then brush off excess soil and trim back the stems to about 15cm above the roots. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Line a shallow tray with newspaper and place your tubers on top with the stalks uppermost. Pack loosely with dry compost or sand, so the tubers are just covered. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Store somewhere dry, cool and frost-free: a garden shed won't be reliably frost-free unless it's heated, so cover your dahlias with sheets of newspaper if a frost is forecast. 
&nbsp;</li>
<li>Inspect your tubers regularly through the winter and get rid of any showing signs of rotting or disease, as otherwise it'll spread quickly to other healthy tubers in storage.</li>
</ol>
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about storing dahlias over winter.

Getting dahlias through winter

All the beauty products in your bathroom cabinet, from soaps to moisturiser, have their origins in plants, and&nbsp;many are easy to reproduce at home using herbs you can find in our garden centre in %locations%. Here are just some of&nbsp;the ways you can garden yourself beautiful:
Lavender bath water: put one part lavender flowers with two parts bay leaves, four parts fine oatmeal and four parts bran in a saucepan with water and simmer for an hour. Strain and add a cupful to your bath to&nbsp;guarantee a good night's sleep.
Marigold moisturiser: you'll find easy-to-grow pot marigold seed in our garden centre. Melt 150g&nbsp;emulsifying cream over a pan of boiling water, then add 70g glycerol and 80ml water and stir. Stir in 30g&nbsp;dried marigold petals, and simmer for three hours: strain and store in the fridge.
Herbal foot bath: pick a large handful of mixed fresh herbs: sage, thyme, sweet marjoram and bay work&nbsp;wonders. Put in a large bowl of boiling water with a tablespoon of salt and when it's cooled a little, sink your&nbsp;feet in. The ultimate reviver after a tiring day.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing herbs to use as&nbsp;cosmetics.

Herbs for beauty

Bouquet garni is a traditional French method for using herbs in bunches to infuse a dish with flavour. The&nbsp;combinations help solve the problem of which herbs to grow for flavouring your cooking: simply divide your&nbsp;herb garden into separate areas for meat, fish and poultry, choose the right herbs from the selection in our&nbsp;garden centre, and you&#39;ll have a perfect selection for every dish.

Poultry dishes: lemony flavours contrast well with chicken, turkey or duck, so grow lemon thyme or lemon&nbsp;grass mixed with hyssop, thyme, tarragon and parsley.

Fish dishes: Aniseed-flavoured herbs produce classic fish dishes. Fennel and tarragon taste gorgeous with&nbsp;plaice; try lovage, dill, and bay with other fish such as bass, perch and salmon.

Meat dishes: rich meat casseroles come alive infused with flavoursome Mediterranean herbs. Oregano,&nbsp;thyme, sage, rosemary and bay can cope with slow cooking and taste wonderful together.

Make the bouquet garni by picking a sprig of each herb, with stalk attached, and tie together securely with&nbsp;string. Tie the whole bunch to the casserole handle and allow to drop into the dish during cooking. Remove&nbsp;just before serving.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about herbs you can grow for&nbsp;cooking.

Grow your own bouquet garni

Herbs are really successful in containers, as most come from shallow, stony Mediterranean soils and relish&nbsp;drier conditions in pots. Group several together for a fragrant herb patch outside your door. Here&#39;s how to&nbsp;grow five of our favourite herbs in containers:

Rosemary: give this hefty shrub plenty of room and a soil-based compost such as John Innes no. 3&nbsp;(available in our garden centre) to provide it with nutrients for longer.

Mint: mint is best in containers as it can be invasive outdoors. There are dozens of varieties in our garden&nbsp;centre: apple mint has fuzzy leaves while purple-stemmed chocolate peppermint looks sumptuous.

Coriander: sow fresh into generous troughs every month for a constant supply of fragrant flavour: as you&nbsp;use up one trough, the next is ready to pick.

Chives: generous potfuls of chives are perfect for snipping with scissors to add an oniony tang to salads.&nbsp;Their pretty pink pompom flowers are edible, too.

Basil: purple or green varieties look gorgeous in containers and they&#39;re happier there, too, as their tender&nbsp;leaves are out of reach of slugs. Keep well watered and pick regularly to keep it productive.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about growing herbs in containers.

Herbs for containers

Set aside a corner of your garden for a traditional herb patch and you&#39;ll be hooked on these gorgeous little&nbsp;plants forever. Whether it&#39;s leafy parsley or fragrant thyme for cooking, or pot marigolds and echinacea for&nbsp;cosmetics or home-grown medicine, herb gardens are productive, useful and beautiful.

Herb planters:&nbsp;in our garden centre you&#39;ll find specially designed containers made of compartments&nbsp;for an instant herb garden. Simply fill with compost and plant a different herb in each&nbsp;section for a pretty feature.

Formal herb gardens: traditionally, herb gardens were laid out in formal geometrical patterns, easy to&nbsp;recreate at home. Mark out a circle or square, then divide into symmetrical beds: L-shapes or diamonds work&nbsp;well. Add a central focal point, like an elegant container, and paved paths for a neat, satisfying design.

Herb spirals: another great way to grow herbs is to build a rising spiral of stones, bricks or vertical wooden&nbsp;boards to about 80cm high, then back-fill with soil. Herbs love the sunny, well-drained conditions and create&nbsp;a lovely cascade effect as they grow over the edges.

Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about making a herb garden.

Making a herb garden

Once you&#39;ve started making your own herbal teas, you&#39;ll be spoilt for tasteless teabags forever. Fresh herbal tea doesn&#39;t take any longer to make than a bag in a cup: just pick yourself a generous sprig from the herbs growing just outside the back door, dunk in a mug of boiling water and leave there for five minutes. And that&#39;s it: instant, delicious, refreshing and health-giving tea.

There are dozens of herbal teas and tisanes you can make from herbs you&#39;ll find in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre, with beneficial effects from helping digestion to aiding memory. Here are the best of the home-grown teas we love to drink:

<ul>
	<li>Peppermint: The herb of choice for an invigorating, refreshing tea that also helps soothe indigestion and clear colds. There are several different mints so try a few for their different flavours: spearmint is the one to go for if you like your tea really minty.</li>
	<li>
	Rosemary: There are those who swear that the secret to their good memory is a cup of rosemary tea every morning for breakfast. Whether or not you believe them, rosemary tea is also great for relieving headaches and kick-starting your day.
	</li>
	<li>Lemon verbena: This beautiful and fragrant herb makes a fragrant yellow-green tea with a wonderful flavour like lemon sherbet. Soak three leaves in a mug and drink just before bedtime to send you off to sleep relaxed and soothed.</li>
	<li>
	Chamomile: You&#39;ll need flowers for this one (dry some for winter use). About a tablespoon of flowers steeped in a cup of boiling water gives you a green tea that&#39;s both anti-inflammatory, so great if you&#39;ve got a sore back, and also mildly sedative, helping you get to sleep.
	</li>
	<li>Fennel: A great winter tea, the seeds of tall, stately fennel taste like aniseed. Pop a teaspoonful in your mug and then strain them off like tealeaves for a really refreshing drink that will freshen your breath. It&#39;s also said to relieve hunger pangs &ndash; great if you&#39;re on a diet.</li>
</ul>

Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about using herbs in teas and tisanes.

Herbs for tea

Big pots of leafy, flavoursome and generous annual herbs sat just outside the back door where you can reach out and pick them for your cooking are one of the delights of your %locations%&nbsp;kitchen garden. When you grow your own, you can have as big a bunch of parsley as you want: and even better, you can try more unusual herbs like caraway, summer savory, dill and chervil.
Here's how to make sure you have pots and pots of flavour from one end of the year to the next:
<ul>
<li>Sow little and often so you've always got a new tray of seedlings ready in the wings to take over once the previous crop finishes. Plant half a row, or a new container once a month from March to September for year-round flavour.</li>
<li>Keep parsley in the shade, as if you let it get too hot and dry it'll quickly flower and run to seed. Pretty aniseed-flavoured chervil, looking a little like cowparsley, is another plant that likes cool, shady conditions.</li>
<li>Pick leaves frequently as it encourages fresh growth. Basil, parsley, and coriander all flower if left to grow unchecked, which turns the leaves bitter. Keep the sweet, fragrant young foliage coming by nipping out the tips for cooking every few days.</li>
<li>Sow coriander where it's to grow as it hates being transplanted. If you haven't got a spot in the garden, just sow the large, round seeds directly into a trough or generous container to grow into a fountain of lush, spicily scented greenery for flavouring Asian cookery and salads.</li>
<li>Make a late sowing to bring indoors in around September, and you'll have fresh herbs to pick from the kitchen windowsill all through winter. Parsley and basil are perfect for this: pick them sparingly and they should keep going till spring.</li>
</ul>
​Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about sowing and growing annual herbs.

Sowing and growing annual herbs

Sometimes looking after your garden is just a matter of harnessing the power of Mother Nature. Biological&nbsp;controls do away with damaging artificial pesticides by fighting garden pests with their natural predators,&nbsp;keeping your plants protected the way Nature intended.
They're surprisingly easy to use: some, such as the slug nematode Phasmarhabditis, mix with water to&nbsp;sprinkle on the ground; others, like the whitefly control Encarsia formosa arrive on cards to hang in the&nbsp;greenhouse.
Follow three main rules to make your biological control programme a success:
apply at the right time: greenhouse biological controls need at least 10°C at night to work, while&nbsp;outdoor controls such as slug nematodes are active above 5°C.
choose the right control: we have biological controls available for all sorts of pests in our garden&nbsp;centre, but each one only attacks one type of pest - so be sure what you're tackling first.
be patient: predators take several weeks to build up numbers before they start making a dent in&nbsp;your pest problem, so introduce them as soon as you notice the first signs of infestation. .
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;for more information and advice about biological controls to use in&nbsp;your garden.

Keeping pests away naturally

Once you start using cloches you'll wonder how you ever did without them. These mini-greenhouses were&nbsp;invented by the Victorians but a century later are still earning their keep in the garden.
The simplest cloches are clear polythene stretched over wire hoops, available in various sizes in our garden&nbsp;centre. Pop one over a row of seedlings and you create a microclimate, protected from chill winds and&nbsp;concentrating sunshine. Under their protection it's possible to start sowing in February with early peas,&nbsp;carrots and salad leaves.
Exotic crops like sweet potatoes are also possible even in the UK with their help: plant tubers through black&nbsp;polythene, then cover with cloches for the tropical conditions they need.
Individual bell cloches protect against birds, slugs and light frosts - courgette plants grow fast and slug-free&nbsp;under them, while in damp winters they give alpines the dry but cool conditions they need.
For the ultimate in style, glass Victorian lantern cloches make handsome features in their own right. Move&nbsp;them around as you want to cover vulnerable plants: pop one over dahlia tubers to fend off slugs while they&nbsp;establish.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations% &nbsp;for more information and advice about which cloches are best&nbsp;suited to your needs.

Get canny with cloches

Just as you put on a coat or hat to keep off the weather or troublesome insects, plants need extra layers&nbsp;when conditions turn tough. In our garden centre you'll find everything from horticultural fleece to UV-stabilised polythene to protect plants all year round.
Place clear polythene sheets or cloches over the soil in early spring a few weeks before sowing to warm it&nbsp;and speed up germination. Seedlings grow without a check under polythene cloches, though remove covers&nbsp;once the plants are big and sturdy. In autumn, late sowings under cloches keep you picking through winter.&nbsp;Sow chard, beetroot and winter salads under polythene in September to crop till spring.
Netting fends off pigeons and cabbage white butterflies from vulnerable cabbages or broccoli. The finer&nbsp;weave of insect-proof mesh, also available in our garden centre, keeps out even aphids and mealybugs.
Keep horticultural fleece handy for emergencies: when late frosts threaten, throw a double layer over&nbsp;emerging new potato foliage to prevent damage. And coax exotic palms, bananas or tree ferns through&nbsp;winter by packing them with straw and swaddling in layers of fleece.
Please ask the staff in our %locations%&nbsp;garden centre for more information and advice about plant protection and how it&nbsp;can help in your garden.

Plant protection

Public enemy number one in the garden needs no introduction. There can be few pests hated as heartily as&nbsp;slugs and snails: anyone who's found hostas eaten to lacy doilies, or lettuces munched to a stump will know&nbsp;the heartbreak these slimy menaces cause.
We've got an armoury of weapons you can use against them available in our garden centre. Use a&nbsp;combination of barriers, baits and traps to keep your plants slug-free.
Barriers are laid thickly around individual plants or beds. Copper rings give slugs a small electric shock, and&nbsp;a thick layer of grit is really hard for slugs and snails to slime across - they hate added garlic even more. Top&nbsp;grit barriers up regularly to keep them effective.
Trap slugs using milk or beer in a purpose-built slug trap available in our garden centre. Place the trap near&nbsp;the plants you want to protect: slugs are irresistibly drawn to the liquid, fall in and drown.
Slug pellets are also available, now as wildlife-friendly ferrous phosphate - scatter sparingly and water in to&nbsp;make them more effective. Replenish regularly to keep your plants well protected.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations% for more information and advice about slug deterrents suitable for&nbsp;your garden.

Tackling slugs and snails

A little protection for your plants in extreme weather or when pests and diseases threaten can be the&nbsp;difference between success and abject failure. There's a comprehensive armoury of defences against the&nbsp;main threats to your plants available in our garden centre.
Frosty weather: in our garden centre you'll find horticultural fleece both on the roll and in handy packets.&nbsp;Throwing a couple of layers over tender plants like potatoes when frost threatens can be enough to see them&nbsp;through. We also stock hessian sheets to tuck around thick straw for protecting tender palms, gingers and&nbsp;bananas.
Gales and rain: polythene cloches, available off the peg in our garden centre, prevent your plants from&nbsp;getting waterlogged or shredded by wind. Our easy-to-construct cold frames also keep the weather off&nbsp;vulnerable young plants and seedlings.
Pests: stretch fine-gauge netting, also available in our garden centre, over a framework to keep birds from&nbsp;stealing your berries. Netting cloches over cabbages and sprouts also keep pigeons at bay. There are a&nbsp;range of other options for warding off all sorts of pests in our garden centre, from biological controls to slug&nbsp;barriers and insecticidal sprays.
Please ask the staff in our garden centre in %locations%&nbsp;&nbsp;for more information and advice about protecting your crops.