Although I do have a lot of plants on my plots, there is always room for more especially now that I am selling flowers as well.  As is the case for most gardeners, I love a good garden centre.

When buying to sell,  the majority of gardening purchases are necessarily bought on a wholesale basis, both from physical garden centres and nowadays also on the Internet. The Internet is all very well, but nothing can beat actually seeing the plants that you want to buy in the flesh, so to speak and it is always so lovely to be out in the fresh air. Buying from a garden centre is useful in so many ways.  Firstly it is possible to see the plant before you buy, and you can choose the best specimen.

I also find it educational, I always see something new in garden centres or a new way of using a plant. A good garden centre will usually be focussing on the latest varieties and species and very often they will be placed in a prime position in full flower or very near flowering time.

So last weekend, I decided to spend a day garden centreing. It was a mild day and it felt like Spring was in the air. I found all my notebooks that I had been using to note which plants were on my wish list. I packed a picnic lunch. Using a vintage picnic set that I save for my outings, and I set off.

The garden centre that I was intending to visit on Sunday is called Maytree and is approximately a three quarter of an hour drive away and I am lucky that there is also another garden centre on my return journey.

It is a pleasant journey some motorway, and some country roads, I had also packed some good CD’s to sing along to as I drove.

I arrived in good time and parked in the spacious car park at Maytree Nursery in Dunkirk near Faversham. Although I had arrived fairly early, the garden centre was already filling up, which I am always pleased to see. This garden centre has been in business for quite a few years now, and certainly when I have visited local gardens through the National Garden Scheme, quite a few garden owners had bought plants from Maytree. 

This is a reasonably large site, and in the spring and summer It is very easy to lose track of time and spend several hours here. I have been late for visits to family on more than one occasion through forgetting to have my phone switched on and missing an alarm I have set for leaving.

Moving on, there is a large area selling hardy perennials. Both in 2 litre large pots and in the smaller 9 cm pots.  The hardy perennials are mostly kept together in alphabetical order (this makes my  OCD tendancies very happy), the larger plants housed on the ground on landscape fabric, and the smaller pots on growing benches. Everything looks healthy and cared for.

There are 2 large polytunnels which in the summer are full of half hardy and tender perennials. Currently, the selling space  in the tunnel is being used to sell Hellebores and Camellias. 

Outside the polytunnel is a large area devoted to shrubs for sale. The shrubs are for sale in several different plant pot sizes and they have a good range of prices ranging from approx £10 and going up to over £100. All the shrubs look very healthy to my eye. Even though they are necessarily growing in pots, they did not looked starved or uncared for.

Closer to the sales desk hut there are several large growing tables housing a variety of plants, I noticed Sweet Peas, some herbs such as mint and Rosemary and various other garden sundries.

They have a small area devoted to pots and other garden structures and the simple sales hut sells everything needed to for a good growing season. Inside I found a small variety of Dahlias and other summer bulbs. I was very pleased to see that I did not know the supplier of these bulbs so something a bit different as well.

All of the photographs above were taken during a summertime visit as stupidly I was so excited at being out on such a lovely day I forgot to take photos. This is something I really need to get my head around if I am to carry on with this blog. Still it is early days.

The below photographs were taken the weekend just gone so are more indicative of how my local garden centre is currently presenting itself.

On my return journey, I visited my local garden at Hawkinge, which, although not the largest, packs a fairly hefty punch. It is not on such a large site as Maytree, but investment here has been substantial. They have a nice selection of summer flowering bulbs, including Dahlias, Gladioli, and Begonias.

It is still very early for planting these, but historically, I have left it till later to buy, and the nicest colours have been sold. I will not make that mistake now. The trouble with this time of the year is temptation, unfortunately, when it comes to pretty flowers, I am not very good at resisting temptation, and I broke a cardinal business rule. I bought retail when I could have bought wholesale. Thank goodnesss the dahlia tubers on sale are under £10,  it would be very easy to get carried away and completely forget I still don’t have that much space, its a retail sales centre and I do actually have to sell the flowers.  A saving grace is that if I pot these dahlias up immediately, they will hopefully grow away and I will be able to take cuttings from them, thereby increasing my stock so in actual fact it will be as though I bought wholesale anyway. (I do like a nice plan).

Outside is a fairly nice sized outside sales area, with a nice selection of shrubs for sale

The roses  look very healthy and well cared for

In the summer the herb selection is quite good and last year I remember they had several different varieties of Rosemary and mint which are both useful for a flower seller.

Hawkinge garden centre is very easy on the eye and well laid out which makes it a very pleasant buying experience and I always enjoy a visit there, and rarely leave empty handed.