DD, I commend your courage in continuiing to garden. It seems a bit short-sighted to criticise buying plants online when we are all socialising and learning online, and this, too, is a boon for older and less fit gardeners.
Our local GC was taken over from a chain by a private owner, recently. It has improved vastly and I love it and visit it monthly, at least, for all the reasons mentioned above. I have noticed that it has less stock this year than last, though, and really hope it continues to do well. It is fairly cheap for plants and I do buy there. Nutcutlet mentioned Touchwood for aquilegias and since this is local for me, I visited there and bought seeds and other plants, which were dug up before my eyes. That lady gardens in a tiny area and I imagine that online sales provide her main business income.
Wherever you buy plants, online or locally, the growers are local to someone! They are merely expanding their business online and by catalogue in order to survive. We all know that there are issues of price and some are cheaper and of poorer quality than others, but it is horses for courses. I've been to Hayloft plant centre and it is a charming small garden centre. I spent too much but loved it.
I use both, and think this gives the best of both worlds - loads of choice online (and most online nurseries I use are very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful - if they are not, they do not get repeat orders!), and the chance to see things (and be tempted) in a GC. Long may both continue.
Thanks GG & Brumbull, I do have to be carefull, I do tend to break easily and have alot of pain & gardening is my only real pleasure since I can barely tollerate alcohol anymore ..
This site has been my winter saviour and has been lovely to chat along with regular posters. I do get told off by my mothering next door neighbour (lol, she's only in her late 40's). But like I say, I do what I can & I stop when I have to. If I don't do it its not going to get done and since I am the one sitting out there in the nice weather (if it ever comes back), I just don't want to be looking at a pile of weeds.
It is such a purposeful activity, too, isn't it? A way of creating and enjoying beauty and the natural forces of the earth recreating itelf. Crumbs, I'd better go and calm down!
Like others on here I don't really have a choice. I do not drive. We have a family car but my OH loathes GCs (well shopping at all really....supermarket shopping is about his limit tbh) and will chose routes that avoid GCs...sounds worse than he is achully he's generally a sweetie and has done a lot of structural work for me in the garden. He's taken me before but he's so impatient it's not worth it...
I go to GCs with family members sometimes, but obviously as I'm being taken I am not at liberty to request particular nurseries...my sisters in particular choose GCs on the basis of the standard of their restaurants. Most of these tend to be humungous 'lifestyle centres' where plants and gardening products form a tiny percentage of the merchandise. I know that these places have to attract as many people as possible to compete in the marketplace, but that is scant comfort when one is looking for a particular plant.
These huge GCs seem to offer a pretty limited number of (often poorly cared for) plants. Occasionally I will purchase something that I know that I can't grow from seed, but on the whole I prefer to wait until I can get along to garden shows in the spring and summer. A local company puts on a coach and it means that I have access to many specialist nurseries in one place, I can usually see what the plants are going to look like (in theory) often the growers are around to chat to and generally the prices are not bad.
Seeds I do buy online, and I have had excellent service from companies like Nicky's Nurseries, Chiltern Seeds, D T Browns and Nuts n'Cones amongst others. Quality Control has been excellent and on the rare occasion that I've encountered problems the customer service has been prompt and effective.
I hesitate to comment on behalf of the disabled or those older members of society who find it hard to get about but some of the larger GCs seem to be rocking with their presence. Clearly they are doing more than just gardening...but find them great places to eat (often several times a week), meet friends and have social contacts, be taken by their many carers for a day out, keep warm in cold weather' window shop in comfort and under cover, and not least enjoy the myriad of flowers and plants and perhaps live again their gardening memories, successes and failures. So it's all a bit more complex than praising the internet for this group, and believing that GCs are for the able bodied. It's actually the reverse...online is for fit busy people, and GCs are a boon to the less mobile.
Good point, WW. But it isn't even as simple as that. For those who can get to GCs, they are a great meeting place - for the senior citizen, for the ladies who lunch, for couples to get a quiet coffee together. They are also a place to get among living things, to see beautiful plants, to learn, to spend money. Great! There are people who can't get to them and there are people who haven't time to go. There are knowledgeable gardeners who want rarer plants and busy gardeners who want to choose and order their plants during odd corners of the day. There are lovely private garden centres and plant breeders who could not survive without the internet.
So what does all this prove? We need and are entitled to enjoy BOTH.
Posts
SORRY....
Brumbull, I spelt your username wrong...
I know, thats why I appologised for it.
DD, I commend your courage in continuiing to garden.
It seems a bit short-sighted to criticise buying plants online when we are all socialising and learning online, and this, too, is a boon for older and less fit gardeners.
Our local GC was taken over from a chain by a private owner, recently. It has improved vastly and I love it and visit it monthly, at least, for all the reasons mentioned above. I have noticed that it has less stock this year than last, though, and really hope it continues to do well. It is fairly cheap for plants and I do buy there. Nutcutlet mentioned Touchwood for aquilegias and since this is local for me, I visited there and bought seeds and other plants, which were dug up before my eyes. That lady gardens in a tiny area and I imagine that online sales provide her main business income.
Wherever you buy plants, online or locally, the growers are local to someone! They are merely expanding their business online and by catalogue in order to survive. We all know that there are issues of price and some are cheaper and of poorer quality than others, but it is horses for courses. I've been to Hayloft plant centre and it is a charming small garden centre. I spent too much but loved it.
I use both, and think this gives the best of both worlds - loads of choice online (and most online nurseries I use are very knowledgeable, friendly and helpful - if they are not, they do not get repeat orders!), and the chance to see things (and be tempted) in a GC. Long may both continue.
Thanks GG & Brumbull, I do have to be carefull, I do tend to break easily and have alot of pain & gardening is my only real pleasure since I can barely tollerate alcohol anymore
..
This site has been my winter saviour and has been lovely to chat along with regular posters. I do get told off by my mothering next door neighbour (lol, she's only in her late 40's). But like I say, I do what I can & I stop when I have to. If I don't do it its not going to get done and since I am the one sitting out there in the nice weather (if it ever comes back), I just don't want to be looking at a pile of weeds.
It is such a purposeful activity, too, isn't it? A way of creating and enjoying beauty and the natural forces of the earth recreating itelf. Crumbs, I'd better go and calm down!
Like others on here I don't really have a choice. I do not drive. We have a family car but my OH loathes GCs (well shopping at all really....supermarket shopping is about his limit tbh) and will chose routes that avoid GCs...sounds worse than he is achully he's generally a sweetie and has done a lot of structural work for me in the garden. He's taken me before but he's so impatient it's not worth it...
I go to GCs with family members sometimes, but obviously as I'm being taken I am not at liberty to request particular nurseries...my sisters in particular choose GCs on the basis of the standard of their restaurants. Most of these tend to be humungous 'lifestyle centres' where plants and gardening products form a tiny percentage of the merchandise. I know that these places have to attract as many people as possible to compete in the marketplace, but that is scant comfort when one is looking for a particular plant.
These huge GCs seem to offer a pretty limited number of (often poorly cared for) plants. Occasionally I will purchase something that I know that I can't grow from seed, but on the whole I prefer to wait until I can get along to garden shows in the spring and summer. A local company puts on a coach and it means that I have access to many specialist nurseries in one place, I can usually see what the plants are going to look like (in theory) often the growers are around to chat to and generally the prices are not bad.
Seeds I do buy online, and I have had excellent service from companies like Nicky's Nurseries, Chiltern Seeds, D T Browns and Nuts n'Cones amongst others. Quality Control has been excellent and on the rare occasion that I've encountered problems the customer service has been prompt and effective.
I hesitate to comment on behalf of the disabled or those older members of society who find it hard to get about but some of the larger GCs seem to be rocking with their presence. Clearly they are doing more than just gardening...but find them great places to eat (often several times a week), meet friends and have social contacts, be taken by their many carers for a day out, keep warm in cold weather' window shop in comfort and under cover, and not least enjoy the myriad of flowers and plants and perhaps live again their gardening memories, successes and failures. So it's all a bit more complex than praising the internet for this group, and believing that GCs are for the able bodied. It's actually the reverse...online is for fit busy people, and GCs are a boon to the less mobile.
Discuss.
Good point, WW. But it isn't even as simple as that. For those who can get to GCs, they are a great meeting place - for the senior citizen, for the ladies who lunch, for couples to get a quiet coffee together. They are also a place to get among living things, to see beautiful plants, to learn, to spend money. Great! There are people who can't get to them and there are people who haven't time to go. There are knowledgeable gardeners who want rarer plants and busy gardeners who want to choose and order their plants during odd corners of the day. There are lovely private garden centres and plant breeders who could not survive without the internet.
So what does all this prove? We need and are entitled to enjoy BOTH.
I do so agree GG...I hope that we will keep and enjoy the best of both worlds.