Never has there been a better time to plant a herb garden and reap the benefits of producing your own fresh, healthy food. And, of course, they are a pleasure to grow and make a pretty display. Making use of home gardens for kitchen produce has always been a sensible thing to do and this collection of 12 plug plants provides an easy and enjoyable way to establish some fabulous herb varieties. They are easy to grow and harvest, take up very little space and give you almost instant results - there's no hanging about for months while they mature! Growing your own herbs will encourage you to be more creative with your cooking and perhaps explore other ways to be inventive with herbs. Try drying any surplus for use in the kitchen through the winter months - even when dried, their flavour will be more authentic and intense than shop-bought herbs. You can even mix the dried leaves together as an aromatic pot pourri for your home. Planting herbs is also a great way to get the kids involved in gardening - and they will enjoy eating the results! This mixed collection of 12 plug plants provides one of the simplest ways of growing attractive herbs for pleasure and culinary use. It includes 7 of the more popular kitchen garden varieties: Mint, Thyme, Sage, Garlic Chives, Parsley, Tarragon and Rosemary.
Growing your own lettuce is so simple, and this mix of quality seeds gives fast results - either sown in the ground or in containers. It's an easy and environmentally friendly way of ensuring a constant supply of fresh, tasty salad leaves all through the summer - much cheaper and less wasteful than expensive bagged lettuce you buy in the supermarket. This superb mixed lettuce selection will produce a variety of different shapes, colours and textures throughout the season. The packet includes equal seed quantities of: Catalogna, Cocarde, Curled Red American, Grand Rapids, Red salad bowl, Rossa di Trento. Varieties grow at different rates, giving a different salad mix at every cut. Succulent and as fresh as you can get directly from your garden, these salad leaves are a good source of minerals and vitamins A and C; their flavour and goodness easily outclass shop-bought lettuce. Sow outdoors from May to August, where they are to crop, in fertile, moisture-retentive soil in a sunny or semi-shaded position. Harvest from April to October, picking a few leaves from each plant; this will stimulate further growth of new, young leaves and allow you to keep cutting up to 4 times. Or pull the lettuces whole once they have reached full maturity. Supplied as a packet of 775 (approx.) seeds ready to sow outdoors in their cropping position. Grows to 30cm by 30cm.
Recent Lily breeding has created some huge and beautifully fragrant Oriental type Lilies, in their pinks and whites, their brighter, bolder and brighter Asiatic cousins seem to have been left out. Not any more following their breeding with the ever-popualr Longilforum scented lilies, to create Longiflorum Asiatic (LA) hybrids. With their beautiful sunshine rays of colours in a range of bold 'fruit-salad shades' in yellow, berry pink, orange and red, these vibrant and hot tropical colours really light up your hot summer garden, and they even inherit some of the fragrance of their parents too. Short and strong enough to grow in pots, yet tall enough to cut armfuls of flowers each summer, they are versatile, and very hardy and easy. Plant en masse in large pots or in groups for maximum impact, or maybe just dot them round your garden to brighten up odd spots. Plant in spring, and pick in summer - and again year after year. Great value and easy to do Lilies.
One of the most attractive and sweetly fragrant summer flowering bulbs, this specially selected mixture will be supplied as heat-treated corms, which guarantees they will flower from the first season onwards. Supplied in a stunning array of bright colours, these will be perfect for growing in pots on your patio or planting in beds or borders. They will over-winter in mild winters, and produce bigger and better displays in future years. These beauties no longer need to be simply a treat, so grow your own, and you can enjoy bountiful crops to pick again and again, and at a fraction of even supermarket prices and at just pennies per bulb. They thrive in pots in warm spots, or in well-drained soil, they will flower in summer. Cut the flowers when tight in bud for maximum enjoyment and fragrance indoors, or leave them to provide a splash of colour outside.
Whilst you may have a perception of dahlias as being old-fashioned, and what grandad grew when you were younger, they are enjoying a renaissance in the last few years, as they provide such stunning colour and value for money in the late Summer and Autumn. So easy to grow, as they are supplied as tubers, packed full of energy to burst into growth in Spring. Plant in pots or in the garden, they will get away quickly from May, and produce a mass of bright colours which will pepper your garden like gemstones as Summer turns to Autumn. Each pack provides 10 mixed colour and shape tubers, which will reach 60-90cm tall, and produce 20-30 flowers each. These can be cut for the house, or left to enjoy outdoors. Dead-heading will prolong flowering well into Autumn. They will survive milder Winters, or the tubers can be lifted and kept dry over-Winter, or left in pots if you choose them to grow. Old-fashioned Dahlias - a great addition to any Autumn garden.
This charming mix of species crocus are early flowering, so will bring fresh spring colour to your garden from March to April. In a mixture of blues, yellows, and white, each bloom compliments the other and will provide you with a stunning display in your garden. Being low-growing, they are suitable for planting at the front of beds and borders or for naturalising through grass. This wonderful crocus mix is also great for pots and containers to brighten up your patio, decking or balcony. They will come back every year in greater numbers and are perfect for planting under shrubs and trees. Supplied as a pack of 30 bulbs, size 5/7, ready for planting.
Hyacinths are very easy to grow both indoors and outdoors too, filling your home or garden with amazing colour and fabulous, heady scent.An iconic spring flower, for best effect your pot of hyacinths is absolutely ideal in a cool room, where they will release their delicious scent for everyone to enjoy. In fact, they'll last twice as long as when grown in a warm room!Ideal to bring early spring colour into your home, simply slip the planted pot into a decorative container whey they will come into flower from February. Once the flowers have finished, they can be planted into the garden.When planted in beds or borders, they will fill your garden with powerful fragrance each April (naturalised bulbs flower slightly later than their pot-grown kin) and of course their majestic flowers can be cut to make magnificent indoor cut flower displays too!They are really easy to grow; once planted, leave them in the ground and they will flower for many years getting bigger and better each year.Supplied as 15 ready to plant bulbs in a mixture of colours - please note that this is a random mix and colours cannot be guaranteed.
Bulbs such as Daffodils herald the arrival of spring and these bright bloomers are a must for everyone, with flowers from February until April. With their distinctive trumpets, there are few flowers which are as instantly recognisable. Perfect for pots, planters, beds and borders, and also make wonderful cut flower displays allowing you to enjoy them in your home too - especially as some are delightfully fragrant. Reliable and hardy, they're possibly the easiest plant to grow - you basically dig a hole, add the bulbs, cover them up and leave them alone! They'll grow almost anywhere too, even happy in light shade and prefer a free-draining soil. Leave the bulbs in the ground after the flowers have died back, and they'll reward you with bigger, better displays, each year for many years to come. Supplied as a pack of 50 bulbs, size 12/14 ready to plant out in autumn.
A fabulous collection of double-flowered freesias to bring a mixture of colours and perfume to your garden. These stunning double blooms will flower more prolifically than the single-flowered varieties, producing gorgeous, trumpet-shaped freesia flowers with a delicious fragrance above the narrow, lance-shaped leaves. A native of South Africa - we tend to think that growing them in the UK will be difficult, but this isn't the case - they're really easy! Freesias grow well in a sunny spot in well-drained soil and are a great candidate for a pot in a sunny greenhouse or conservatory or on the patio. A cut-flower favourite and a popular cottage garden flower, you can keep your home filled with the delightful scent of fragrant, fresh-cut flowers. Supplied as a collection of 50 mixed-colour freesia corms.
Also known as the Mexican shell flower, peacock flower or Aztec lily, the striking Tigridia is a delightful flower with petals in a multitude of shades of scarlet, orange, pink, yellow, mauve and white, usually with contrasting spots and splashes in the centre of the flower. Each bloom consists of three large coloured petals surrounding three smaller spotty petals and a central cup and with its lance-shaped leaves, the blooms are not unlike a gladiolus, and just like day lilies will flower for just one day - although although they are produced in succession, so blooming can last several weeks. Hardy to -2°C, in cold areas dig up the bulbs after flowering and overwinter in sand in a dry, frost-free place, repotting in the spring. Alternatively they can be grow in pots and moved out of the cold in winter. Supplied as a pack of 25 bulbs, ready for immediate planting. Plants will reach up to 1m and flower from July to August.
While you may have a perception of dahlias as being old-fashioned, and something that your grandad grew when you were younger, they have actually been enjoying a renaissance over the last few years, mainly because they provide such stunning colour and value for money in the late summer and autumn. So easy to grow, Dahlias are supplied as tubers, packed full of energy to burst into growth in spring. Plant in pots or in the garden and they will get away quickly from May, producing a mass of bright colours which will fill your garden as summer turns to autumn. Our collection of cactus dahlias will give you large, double blooms with narrow, spiky petals and each pack provides 5 mixed colour tubers, which will reach around a metre tall, and produce plenty of flowers each. These can be cut for the house, or left to enjoy outdoors. Dead-heading will prolong flowering well into autumn. Plants will survive milder winters, but we recommend lifting the tubers and storing somewhere dry and frost-free over winter, or left in pots if that's how you choose to grow them. These blousy Dahlias make a great addition to any autumn garden and their blooms will bring colour as everything else starts to fade.
While you may have a perception of dahlias as being old-fashioned, and something that your grandad grew when you were younger, they have actually been enjoying a renaissance over the last few years, mainly because they provide such stunning colour and value for money in the late summer and autumn. So easy to grow, Dahlias are supplied as tubers, packed full of energy to burst into growth in spring. Plant in pots or in the garden and they will get away quickly from May, producing a mass of bright colours which will fill your garden as summer turns to autumn. Our collection of decorative dahlias will give you large, double blooms with colour-splashed petals and each pack provides 5 mixed colour tubers, which will reach around a metre tall, and produce plenty of flowers each. These can be cut for the house, or left to enjoy outdoors. Dead-heading will prolong flowering well into autumn. Plants will survive milder winters, but we recommend lifting the tubers and storing somewhere dry and frost-free over winter, or left in pots if that's how you choose to grow them.