Alan's Bio:
Alan, a 3rd generation Nurseryman has been working on the family nursery for 23 years. His experience in gardening includes, designing award winning RHS displays, maintaining gardens, big and small and growing plants commercially for garden centres and the gardeners alike. These are his top picks for February 2024.
Our top plants March 2024
Alan's top plants for buying in March 2024
March is the traditional start of the gardening year in the UK. It is when can get some serious time in the garden, start making plans and look forward to the coming months full of flowers, heavenly scents, and fruits of our labour. With that in mind, my top picks for March 2024, really focuses on some of the best plants to get in March, that will produce wonderful plants in the coming months.
Bacopa
What would a hanging basket be without Bacopa, this is one of the best-known hanging baskets plants and in many ways takes a back seat, to plants such as Geraniums and Fuchsias. However, Bacopa really is one of those must have plants, plus the newer varieties of Bacopa are much improved. We grow and love the Bacopa Giga series. This range of plants are stronger growers, much larger flowers and take less care. If you are looking for a flowering trailing plant, you can’t go wrong.
Chilli Adorno
A stunning compact chilli, that works just as well as an ornamental plant, as it does an edible chilli. The leaves are a deep purple when established and through the summer will be covered in small to medium sized chilli fruit which are bright red in colour. This is the ideal chilli for a patio, grown in a container. As well as looking great, they are also great to add to cooking, the medium to hot chilli is perfect to add a chilli hit to your dishes and freeze well too.
Petunia Starry Night Collection
Looking for a flower that really stands out? Look no further. The starry night collection of petunia, have wonderful velvety flowers, which are speckled like the night sky. This is a fantastic container plant, where they will flower from mid to late spring, all the way though until September.
Calibrachoa Chameleon
For bright colours and ever-changing interest, you can’t look any further than the Chameleon Calibrachoa. The whole range is full of interesting colours from, bright pinks to subtle blueberry. A very free flowering range of plants, that are ideal in containers and hanging baskets, they are easy to look after and will flower all summer long. Something very distinctive about the Chameleon range, is they change their look, as the season progresses, meaning you never loose interest.
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Vibrant Verbena
Verbena has long been a garden favourite. Over the years the colours have increased so there is a colour for everyone. Verbena is just as happy at the edge of a border, as it is in a container or hanging basket. The flowers first start appearing in early summer and will last all the way through until the autumn. If you are looking for a low maintenance plant, verbena maybe the perfect plant for you, it will cope with wet summers, as well as periods of dry. A plant that keeps on giving.
Brilliant Basil
You may be surprised to hear, there are many different types of basils. However, not all Basils are created equal, that is certainly the case when growing them in the UK. Let’s face it, basil is not exactly at home in our weather. But Basil breeding has come a long way. We grow very special cutting raised basils and they don’t just taste amazing; they look great too. If you find basil tricky to grow Basil Coldasil and Magic Mountain Purple, maybe perfect for you. They can cope with the UK weather, better than many other Basils. There is no way we can call them hardy, but if you love basil on the windowsill and patio in the summer, these are ideal varieties.
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Beautiful Bidens
Bidens may not be a plant you are familiar with, but these annual container and basket plants will be a hit in any garden. The bright flowers really do put on a show and first start appearing as early as April. Bidens have a lovely compact habit and make a good specimen plant, in a container or grown around the edges of a mixed planted pot. A very underrated and easy to grow plant.
