|
May has thankfully seen a lot more rainfall than April, but if the dry spell gave you pause for thought, have a read through some of our top tips for reducing water usage in the garden!
The frosts (should) have passed, so you can get on with filling your patio pots and hanging baskets! We have lots of bedding packs outside, including night stocks, tobacco plants, alyssum, pansies and many others, but you will find most of the seasonal plants packed into Shophouse. Find flowers in every colour of the rainbow, with handy tags to let you know if they trail or grow upright!
We have a great choice of grow-your-own plants for May. Salad pots are in Shophouse, including tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, basil and more. Outside we have our starter packs with all sorts of brassicas and other veg plants, with strawberry plants alongside. Head "over the hedge" for fruit bushes and fruit trees! New for this week is the Cut Flowers range - annual plants ideal for turning into beautiful bouquets. Including Cosmos, Cornflowers, Dahlias, Salvias and many more. Make the most of our current offer: 6 for £10! 
Help the bees and give a Helping Hand to local people in need! April is the month for seed sowing and you will surely find no packets more worthy of your money than our new Throw to Grow Bee Mix seeds. This special blend of annual and perennial flowers benefits bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects – as seen in our display garden last year. And more than that, each packet sold will raise vital funds for Ipswich-based charity Helping Hands Suffolk. This community group - made up of amazing volunteers – provides practical support, friendship and dignity for everyone under the homeless umbrella and other vulnerable friends in our local communities. Pick up a packet on your next visit to the nursery, or add one on to your next online order by clicking here.  Come and get inspired by the latest installation in our garden area! It Came From Japan is filled with plants native to Japan - lots of easy-care leafy evergreens with some beautiful spring blooms too. If you decide to recreate the look we have a handy display of Japanese plants just outside Shophouse!  Spring is a wonderful time of the year for fragrance in the garden. Take some time out from your busy life to really enjoy the sights and smells of your garden: follow your nose and see what you can find! Wallflowers and Hyacinths are fabulous for fragrance and did you know that many Primroses, Daffodils and Tulips are also scented? Garden Pinks - of the same family as Carnations and Sweet Williams - have long been a favourite of gardeners (and butterflies too!). Shrubs worth a sniff include Osmanthus, Skimmia, Sarcoccoa (sweet box), Mahonias, Daphnes and some Viburnums.  We have launched a new fundraiser in aid of the people of Ukraine. Give a donation and you can receive 25% off any specially stickered plants.
Our new display features a range of plants native to Ukraine, including Cotinus (smokebush), Euonymus (spindle), Viburnum, Tamarix, Iris and Crocus, as well as blue and yellow Hyacinth. Donations will be passed on to the DEC. You can also donate directly to the appeal here: Start planning your gardening year ahead with our new selection of seeds! Including annuals, perennials, vegetables, salads and herbs.  At Katie's Garden we like gardening to be as easy as possible. Our handpicked selection is made up of easy-to-grow seeds which can be started off on the windowsill. Growing them should be child’s play! Whatever your age, the satisfaction of nurturing something from seed to plant is hard to beat. All our seeds are from Suffolk’s own Thompson & Morgan and come with their 100% satisfaction guarantee. GROWING TIPS
If Dudley, Eunice or Franklin gave your fences a battering, this could be the perfect opportunity to plant a hedge in their place. Hedges fare much better in high winds, and they are fantastic for wildlife too. 
Take a look at what we have our online shop. If you have any requests please get them in sooner rather than later as hedging season ends in March! If you need any planting tips click here for our advice page and video tutorial.
Come and work with us in 2022!
We are advertising for several positions on indeed.com - including Horticultural Nursery Worker; Horticultural Assistant - Sales Outreach Team; Gardener/Handyperson/Driver. For more information and to apply click here. Please note we are not accepting applications via any other methods. Snowdrops available now! Approx 10 bulbs per pot for £2.99. We also have many more potted bulbs to choose from, although it will be a while before some start to bloom! We also have fresh stocks of Hellebores (Christmas roses) for £4.99 a pot. These perennials are fantastic for winter and early spring flowers. They do best in rich soils, and prefer shade or part-shade. Great for ground cover, they keep their leaves year-round. In the shrub range the first Camellias are coming into bloom, and there is wonderful fragrance coming from the white flowers of the Sarcoccoa (Sweet Box)!
The weather forecast is looking kindly for the rest of the month, so seize the opportunity to get ahead in the garden! Winter is the time for planting trees, hedges and roses, and we have lots to choose from, along with new ranges of seeds, and more.  New trees have just arrived to join our collection, including both ornamental varieties and fruiting varieties, which should start producing delicious crops in just a few short years. The best time to plant trees is in winter when they are dormant, and the same applies to hedging plants. As long as the ground is not frozen or waterlogged you are good to go! Hedges are terrific for wildlife, as well as for creating windbreaks, giving privacy, and adding structure and interest to your garden. Whether you want dwarf varieties for edging flower beds, sizable evergreens for marking boundaries, or native plants for providing food and shelter for wildlife, we have something for you! Prices start from just £1.99 a plant.
Speaking of which … every year we take advantage of the quieter months to carry out improvements and repairs to the nursery, and 2022 is no exception. So please bear with us, and please do ask a member of staff if you can’t find the plants you are looking for – we probably do have them somewhere even if they are not in their usual place!
If you are keen to grow-your-own this year, our first few seed potatoes are available now, with onion sets due to arrive soon. Fruit bushes are well worth planting at this time of year, so they are settled in for the summer. Spring is just around the corner, and the first bulbs are peeping up from their pots. There is already a smattering of colour across the primroses, polyanthus, bellis and wallflowers, with the promise of masses of blooms in the coming weeks! Snowdrops in-the-green should be arriving early February. The winter-flowering Jasmine are in full glory and the likes of the Hellebores, Rhododendrons and Azaleas are fat with buds, so there is much to look forward to on the nursery and in the garden.
We have reopened for 2022! We will be open 10am to 4pm seven days a week.
For safety reasons the nursery cannot open in certain weather conditions including snow, ice, floods and high winds - please phone beforehand to check. Contact us here |
