This should come as no surprise, after all we are a garden centre! We are fortunate in Ireland to be blessed with a climate which means that you can have interest in your garden all year round.
Over the years, we have learned that most of our customers want help in choosing what plants go together. They want to achieve a “look.”
The most common question we are asked is “what plant will flower all year?”. In truth, there are no plants which will flower for the entire year. Flowering is part of the reproduction cycle of plants. They must stop flowering in order to set seed and to complete their reproduction cycle. The combination of these two needs forms the cornerstone of our garden centre.
We run our plant area like an old fashioned greengrocer. When for example Kumquats were in season he stocked them, and when they were out of season you simply could not get them. In those simpler times all of us lived our lives in closer harmony with nature. The net effect of this is that our plants are always looking their best. We get deliveries of plants up to 5 times a week to ensure peak freshness.
As an average, the flowering period of most plants is 6 – 8 weeks. So almost our entire range of plants to choose from changes on the same cycle.
The layout of our garden centre helps to inspire our customers (and us!). We display plants whose shape, height, texture and colour look well together. So you will find cool, pastel colours in one area. If hot, fiery colours are your thing you will find them displayed in another.
We believe gardening should be about tweaking things constantly, it is not something you create once and leave aside. The simplest piece of advice we give beginner gardeners, who want all year round colour and interest, is to come to us every 6 weeks for a year and choose plant combinations which they personally like.
We advise them not to try and buy everything in one go but to bring the plants home, plant them, and return in 6 weeks and then choose plants which are then in flower in the garden centre. If they repeat this pattern over a year they will then have all year round colour.
