Garden Centre Blues
By bulbaholic
14 comments
From the blogs on this site I guess that some GoYers have acess to good garden centres. Our local one does not fall into that category. Mg and myself went into ours this morning for three things: some plugs, green manure seed and to look at the bulbs.
Firstly I was not too disapointed not to see veggie plugs, they never do that s ort of thing anyway.
There were no seeds of any description. That whole area of the store had been cleared and they were putting up a new display – FOR CHRISTMAS already!!!!!! I ask you, it is still August!
We are not really needing bulbs as we have large mail order packages coming shortly (from Kevock Garden and from GeeTee Bulbs) but we wanted to see if there were any ‘must haves’ on the racks. There weren’t but have you noticed the prices this year? The bulbs for this GC are all supplied by Taylor’s and in past years I have felt that the pricing was good. This year their prices for the general Dutch imports are nearly as high as I pay for some specialist grown species bulbs. The bulbs from the suppliers I have named above are the same general Dutch grown ones distributed by Taylor’s but the prices are much, much more reasonable.
Having got that off my chest I should now go into the garden and squash a few caterpillars, I guess.
22 Aug, 2009
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Comments
Lucky where I live, lots of good garden centres to choose drom but they all do the horrible Christmas thing, don't know if they.ve started yet though. I suppose it keeps their huge premises ticking over businesswise during winter but now is definitely TOO SOON!
22 Aug, 2009
~Wyevale had all their seeds reduced to half price and there was lots of reduced stuff~and yes they have bulbs but a large area has now been given over to Cotton Traders another to Pampurred pets not to mention Maidenhead Aquatics!
~they normally go for their Christmas stuff early and have masses of stuff later in January because it is very tacky ~wish they would start much later!I won't buy Christmas stuff yet!
22 Aug, 2009
That's one of the things we love about living here in Northern Spain - they don't "do" Christmas until about 2 weeks before the event - not even in the big stores. Therefore when Christmas gets here it's like am exciting new event and not something you're thoroughly sick of before it's even started!
22 Aug, 2009
Oh that the same would happen in the UK... I get sick fed up of all the commercialisation of the event!
22 Aug, 2009
Our garden centres are great - they sell china, glassware. clothing, shoes, you name it - who needs to go anywhere else? Oh, perhaps I'll have to go somewhere else for plants!
22 Aug, 2009
Yup that is the problem Wagger - sell anything but plants - added to that when they do sell plants they are a) over priced and b) poor quality!
22 Aug, 2009
Louise and I were at our 'local' GC today and thank goodness, no sign of Christmas yet! :-))
22 Aug, 2009
I asked one of our local Garden Centres why the Christmas displays went put in August - I was told they get the students, who have a summer job there, to put it up before they go back to College. So now you know
23 Aug, 2009
I'd be happy to take it all down again - for free! LOL.
23 Aug, 2009
Students have a lot to answere for! I don't know that is the reason in Forres, I believe that they make more money from the coffee shop and Christmas goods than they do from plants. Shame.
23 Aug, 2009
I agree - there's a large GC up near Bristol which calls itself 'Leisure and Gardening'...hmmm. You can guess where their proiorities lie, can't you!
23 Aug, 2009
Well it isn't gardening :-)
23 Aug, 2009
Garden centres here have gon very poor- and that includes Wyevale. They used to be so good - especially the little private ones.
I never go into Wyevale after mid August because it looks like Christmas eve. - !!!
23 Aug, 2009
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10 Feb, 2009
Well at least I ordered the green manure and some other veggie seeds for autumn planting on-line from Garden Organic :-) Being members we also get a 10% discount on anything we buy :-) :-)
Located veggie plugs on e-bay but delivery was 6 working days and we are back off to Austria on 31 August. So that will have to wait until we return.
22 Aug, 2009