News last updated on 06/03/2021
We are COVID-secure and remain open
Following the latest Government guidance, we are pleased to announce that our Plant Centre remains open. Social distancing and safety measures have been reaffirmed and can be viewed on our 'Visiting Us' page.
Please read our safety measures before visiting for further information.
March Newsletter Welcome to our March newsletter, this month details how we are preparing for a busy Spring ahead at the Plant Centre and Production Nursery. Production Nursery This month at the Production Nursery we have begun potting perennial plugs, we have a huge range that will be available from April onwards in one, two and three litre pots. We use a peat reduced compost and top them with a layer of bark which acts both as a weed suppressant, reducing the need for herbicides, and it also improves water retention. These plants will then remain in the glasshouse until they are established enough to be moved to our outside beds, to be hardened off before we make them saleable.
Add some colour with Primulas
Our large range of Primulas are now all in full flower and are ideal for adding some vibrancy to containers, baskets and the front of borders, providing the first hint of spring! You can browse through the varieties we have grown on our Webshop.
Throughout the month we will be pricking out our summer bedding plants, we use a selection of seed and cutting raised plants, which we will be transplanting into pots and packs ready for sale from Easter onwards. This year you will be able to reserve plants using our pre-ordering system on our Webshop to ensure that you don’t miss out, available now on our Webshop. The pre-ordering system will include basket plants, pack bedding, herbs, vegetables, alpines, perennials, compost and growbags. Click here for more information.
Too soon to talk about Christmas? Not for us! We have been repotting our Christmas trees at the nursery and we encourage you to do the same if you bought a potted tree at Christmas. This will help support new growth. Buds will start to grow and produce new shoots in the coming weeks. Alternatively you can plant it in the ground, just make sure the soil has good drainage and remember to keep it well watered during dry summer spells.
Plant Centre
This is the ideal time of year to prepare and dig over beds and borders, by doing this you will help to aerate, drain and warm the soil ready for planting. We supply and deliver bulk loads of topsoil, manure, soil improver and wood chip mulch for more information click the link below.
See below for our delivery radius.
To order a bulk load you can email us at info@oliversplants.co.uk or call 01787 220281.
When you’ve prepared your beds it’s an excellent time of year for planting soft fruit. We have a large selection including raspberries, blueberries and currants, available on our Webshop and at the Plant Centre. You can even plant them in containers if you’re short on space!
Mother's Day
With Mother’s Day fast approaching we will be offering a stunning range of spring planted containers which are perfect for adding seasonal interest and the excellent gift to drop on a doorstep. We will also be making indoor planted containers with our brilliant range of houseplants, this is an ideal present and far longer lasting alternative to a bunch of flowers! We also offer a bespoke gift-wrapping service at the Plant Centre so you can select a plant of your choice to give as a gift. Click and collect and local delivery will be available up until and including the morning of Mothering Sunday.
We have begun our Deal of the Week promotions for 2021! Each week we will be offering a new discount on a fantastic seasonal product. These deals will be advertised on our Facebook page so make sure you have clicked the like button to keep updated. Each deal is carefully considered to promote our plants and products that are looking their best and are seasonally appropriate. Also make sure you’ve joined our Facebook group Gardeners Corner where we encourage our customers to ask plant related queries for us to answer, share advice, show us your success and failures, we also upload helpful tips, tricks and advice for your garden.
Black Horse Cafe
The Black Horse Café will be reopening for takeaway only from 4th of March and will be open 9am-4pm Thursday to Sunday. We will be offering an exclusive Mothering Sunday hamper that includes a home-made sweet or savoury afternoon tea and a gorgeous primrose planter! For more information and prices visit our website.
January Newsletter
Our Plant Centre remains open for all of our trade account holders and professional landscapers and gardeners. We are also allowing retail customers however, we strongly advise you to make full use of our Webshop. We offer local delivery in our own vehicles and a click and collect service. If you're struggling to find what you're looking for or are in need of some advice don't hesitate to contact us by phone or email.
We encourage you to stay home and keep gardening!
At the Production Nursery the team are beginning their preparations for the busy spring approaching, and this year we are growing more than we ever have before, with space already becoming an issue we’re excitedly awaiting the construction of our new pack-house and glasshouse!
We are currently working on a pre-ordering system for summer bedding, basket plants, herbs and vegetables and growing media. This will help you to plan what you will be planting in your gardens and allotments this year and reserve the plants with us to ensure you don’t miss out regardless of the lockdown status. More information will follow soon.
Production Nursery
Our Primula varieties are now in flower and are available at the Plant Centre or on the Webshop. They’re excellent for adding colour to containers and baskets at this time of year.
We have potted hundreds of bare-root roses in 34 different varieties on the Nursery, to provide our customers with an extensive range throughout the season. These are available to buy now. It’s an excellent time to plant roses to ensure they are well established before the summer. Once planted you can add a layer of mulch, or manure to help conserve moisture in the soil, and remember to water them well!
The herb seeds that were sown in mid-November have already germinated and will continue to be sown in fortnightly batches. The selection planted includes Parsley, Chives, Basil and Lemonbalm and will be available in the next coming weeks. There will also be a selection of cutting raised herbs including Mint, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.
The spring flowering bulbs that we mentioned in our November Newsletter are coming on nicely despite the pest damage from the rabbits and mice, we still have a great range available. These will make the perfect colourful addition to your containers and borders.
We have potted the first batch of summer bedding plugs this month, this batch included over 2,500 individual Geranium and Osteospermum plug plants. Once potted they are initially kept in the propagation house to keep them warm and encourage growth before they are moved into a cooler zone in the greenhouse. Both plants require a different watering regime to keep the Nursery staff on their toes! The Osteospermums are constantly monitored to keep them moist, if they dry out they become susceptible to scorch, whereas the Geraniums are kept dry as over-watering them can cause fungal diseases.
Plant Centre
The Plant Centre remains open for trade and retail customers, however we highly encourage you to use our Webshop during the lockdown. If you have any queries or questions it is possible to contact us via email, phone and even Facebook, which we update regularly.
This month we will begin stocking our onion sets and seed potatoes. This year we have 12 varieties of seed potatoes available to choose from. The seed potatoes will need to start sprouting shoots before you can plant them, for them to do this you will need to ‘chit’ them, this simply means standing the potatoes up (in an old egg box or similar) in a light, frost-free place until they produce shoots roughly 3cm in length. They can then be planted either in the ground or a suitable container, in which case we recommend the Humax peat-reduced multipurpose. Keep the crop well-watered during dry weather, they also benefit from a nitrogenous fertiliser.
We now have an even larger choice of peat free and peat reduced compost with the addition of the Premium brand Humax Peat Reduced range. We now stock their Peat Reduced Ericaceous compost, Peat Reduced Grow Bag and the Peat Reduced Multi-Purpose compost, all three are formulated to a professional grade. The light textured compost is balanced mixture of Coir, to improve rooting and aid drainage, professional fertiliser and high quality Scottish farmed peat. By late spring 2021 over 80% of the growing mediums we offer will be entirely peat free or peat reduced.
Summer flowering bulbs are available to buy now from the Plant Centre and the Webshop. We have a large selection including Dahlias, Gladioli and Begonias – both upright and trailing. Growing these herbaceous perennials from tubers and corms is more cost effective than buying them as potted plants in the summer, it is also more rewarding! The bulbs are ready to plant now, just be sure to protect them from the frost, we also stock bulb compost which we recommend for optimum growth.
Wishing you all
A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
from the team at Olivers Plants.
We appreciate your continued support through what has been a challenging year and are looking forward to 2021!
We have decided to close over the festive period and will be reopening on the 4th January 2021 to give our hardworking team a well-deserved break, we look forward to seeing you when we reopen!
Christmas Tree Maze Cancelled
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult decision not to run our Christmas Tree Maze this year. We have been fortunate in being allowed to remain open during the November lock down but our Christmas Tree Maze is non-essential and therefore it would be irresponsible of us to hold it this year.
Our full range of Christmas Trees will be available from the end of November at our Plant Centre, or via the web shop using our 360° images to view individual trees. Orders placed online can be delivered to the surrounding areas by our delivery service, or using the new click and collect system where you can collect your order from a designated area without having to enter the Plant Centre. Christmas wreaths will also be available at our Plant Centre and to purchase via our web shop.
November Newsletter
Welcome to our newsletter for November. As the Autumn season progresses, we now turn our focus to Christmas preparations, which are gaining pace.
Production Nursery
The Production Nursery have been taking advantage of a slightly lighter workload to complete crucial jobs such as weeding, tidying, and potting on. Any shrubs that have been left over from the Summer, such as Hydrangeas, Buddlejas and Spirea, have been potted on form 3 litre pots to 5 litre pots and cut back ready for next spring.
The two litre perennials that have been grown from plugs have been cut back and weeded ready to be sent to the Plant Centre in Spring. During November the alpines that have been grown from seed and cuttings will be transplanted into 9cm pots again ready to be sold at the Plant Centre in the Spring.
Whilst you have been buying and planting your bulbs at home we have also been doing the same at the Production Nursery, the range we are growing includes; Crocus, Iris, Snowdrop and Narcissus bulbs to increase our selection of potted bulbs available in the spring.
Our Primulas will be available during November at the Plant Centre but first they require a little bit of maintenance, we begin by cleaning off any unwanted leaves and moving them onto capillary matting so that they can be watered from underneath, this helps to keep the flowers looking good. The primulas are spaced out across the matting to allow generous air circulation and minimise the chance of the Primulas developing any fungal diseases.
During the month of November, we will also begin to take soft-wood cuttings from our stock plants including Saliva, Verbena, Gaura, Lavender and Penstemon. The cuttings are planted into watered plug trays and placed in the propagation house, the propagation house is lit by LED grow lights which produce specific wavelengths of light that are utilised by the plants for optimum growth. The cutting are then covered with a clear plastic sheet to reduce transpiration (water loss), this covering is removed on rainy and overcast days to avoid the cuttings becoming too moist. Taking softwood cuttings is an excellent and cost-effective way to propagate your favourite plants and is easy to do, follow our Facebook group Gardeners Corner for our top tips on cuttings at home.
Plant Centre
This month we’re very excited to tell you about our new houseplant room at the Plant Centre. This area was purpose built to provide the optimal conditions for healthy, happy houseplants with thermal covering for insulation and full of bright natural light.
The new larger houseplant area is able to accommodate more houseplants including the Orchids, Peace Lilies and Monstera. We believe it’s imperative to have plants in your home as they are incredibly beneficial in many ways, especially as more of us are spending more time in our homes and even working from home. Plants such as Zamioculcas, Peace Lilies and Aloes have excellent air purifying qualities by removing toxins from the atmosphere. We have easy to maintain houseplants for those that aren’t particularly green fingered and there is always someone to advise which houseplant will suit that certain spot you have in mind, be it in the living room, bathroom or bedroom.
We’ve been reorganising the Plant Centre for the arrival of our bare root hedging, and will be doing so again in late November for our Christmas trees! November is the perfect time to plant your shrubs, bare-root and root-ball hedging as we mentioned last month, orders can made via the Webshop or you can come in and have a browse.
This month we have invested in three new printers for the Plant Centre and Production Nursery not only are they faster and more efficient, but they also help us to reduce our wastage. The new printers will now only print the exact desired number of labels, the new layout of the labels looks more professional. Our stick in labels, and new clip on labels, are still kerbside recyclable as well.
November brings the preparations for Christmas at the Plant Centre as we begin to make wreath bases ready for decoration and businesses begin putting their orders in for Christmas trees!
A large selection of roses will be available from the middle of the month as it’s the perfect time to plant them before growth resumes, just avoid planting when the ground is frozen. It’s a good idea to condition the soil with some manure before hand to increase the nutrient level. Be sure to take a look at our Facebook group Gardeners Corner where we have shared our top tips on Rose pruning!