I visited Morrisons yesterday and they have started to stock summer flowering bulbs and dry pack bare root plants, and it got me to thinking about Wilko and how at this time of the year I would start to get excited by the new season.  Wilko used to open at a time in the morning that meant I could visit before the day job and about this time of the year, I would be going in there almost on a daily basis to see what was new in in the gardening section.  Now I know, that Wilko was a budget shop, but it started out as a hardware and quality homeware shop in the 1930’s, it was British born and I was very attached to it and I do miss it.  The store that  I visited most had a good gardening section, and I visited frequently,  annually purchasing my secateurs, other tools, sundries, pea sticks, and plant labels.

 They used to have at least 2 rows full of gardening stock, from seeds to a good supply of dry pack bare root plants. 

As mentioned at the start of this paragraph, it is the time of year now when there are other shops that are just putting out their dry pack bare root hardy perennials for sale but you do have to be careful when buying these packs. 

Like small children,  initially, they require immediate attention and  need to be potted up as soon after purchase as possible. If you neglect to do this,  they can become disgruntled  and get their own back by dying suddenly on you.   It has happened to me more than once.  I buy a plant in its little plastic bag all nicely tucked up with a little bit of compost. I leave them in the conservatory, with the best of intention of potting them up,  then something more important comes up and  I completely  forget about them.  A week or so later I suddenly remember, when I see the bag looking sorrowfully at me, I hurriedly pot them up in the best potting mix that I can find.  I mother and watch them anxiously but they have already gone past the point of no return and I realise that like a very bad parent, I have lost them.   Another mistake that can easily be made with dry pack bare root plants is to buy them in the winter/early spring when you see them, say in January/February, do the right thing by them and pot them up immediately and then put them in the garden.  Its January/February/March, so we get snow, torrential rain, sleet, or hailstones.  The poor bare roots have been in a nice cool not ice cold warehouse, then on a shelf in a warm, florescently lit shop, and suddenly they are shoved outside in the dark, ice cold and wet.  Sometimes, you may get a tough root that is determined to survive, but it’s probably more luck than judgement and If that happened to me, I would probably  refuse to grow as well.  The moral of the story is, look after your dry pack bare root purchases they are divas until they have put roots down into the garden soil.

Amongst the other tools I used to purchase from  Wilko, were my secateurs, yes they  were  very cheap, but because it is difficult to get secateurs sharpened locally I have historically bought them on an annual basis.  It is very important to have sharp secateurs and not easy to find somebody locally who can do it, so  purchasing them from Wilko on an annual basis was a good option, but more than that they were good tools and felt nice to use.  I also tend to purchase a pair more than once in a season as I do have a tendency to lose my hand tools in the garden and its always when I need them most, so I am happily pruning away, I put my secateurs down somewhere, wander off in a dream to inspect a new beautiful seedling forget about my hastily dropped secateurs until I see an untidy branch and realise I don’t have my secateurs in my apron/trug or bag (whichever, I am carrying at the time, delete as appropriate) I begin scrabbling madly around in the earth and swearing at anything that doesn’t move, until I admit defeat and rush off to buy another pair.  A good reason to have more than one pair.   I don’t know if it was intended, but I think Wilko’s scarlet handled garden tools was a very good idea and possibly a good marketing ploy. 

But I still manage to lose my garden tools on a regular basis.  I have bought myself numerous trugs, bags, and aprons, and they all work to a certain extent, but it is an ongoing problem.  So, I was very grateful for the sensible scarlet handles.

 I have been told that The Range may be an alternative as they have apparently purchased the Wilko brand name. I shall make a   point of investigating this as I like the Range as a homewares shop as well.  I have also found that Morrisons sell a nice line in shrubs and perennials.  Again, I have bought a lot from Morrisons.  I would say that really my garden is mostly stocked from Morrisons and Wilko plants and I am now looking for an alternative to Wilko as my regular shopping haunt.

The message from this post is brightly handled tools have a higher survival rate in my garden than wooden handled tools, although aaesthetically wooden handled tools are probably nicer.