Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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Winter is the time of the year that a lot of people think Garden Centres would be quiet, with cooler temperatures, shorter daylight hours and often unpleasant conditions that make you not want to be outside.
Surprisingly, though, it is a busy time in a nursery, not only are we kept busy with sales of winter flowering plants like camellias, azaleas, michelias, rhododendrons, daphnes, grevilleas, correas and hellebores to name a few.
Chinese lanterns look stunning in flower.
But there are also a lot of evergreen and semi evergreen plants whose foliage turn beautiful colours with the colder temperatures that are also in high demand.
Nandinas and coprosmas with their brilliant red foliage are a good example of these as well as the 2026 plant of the year Hydrangea Runaway Bride whose leaves have turned orange, red and yellow all on the one plant.
It is a great time of the year to visit the Garden Centre just to see what is looking at its best through the winter months.
It can help add another season to your garden, to bring in some interest and beauty over these drearier months.
Yultide Camellia showing off its winter colour.
So often you see gardens that look stunning for a few months of the year and then fade into the ordinary over the remainder of the year, featureless and uninteresting.
It is an easy trap to fall into, and it is mostly caused by gardens being planted up all at once with little horticultural plant knowledge and no thought to the progression of the seasons.
In their enthusiasm to plant up the garden, all the plants are selected in a single visit to a nursery, and understandably, they choose the plants that are looking great for that season.
The easiest way to prevent this is to be guided by the Garden Centre staff and use their knowledge of plants, flowering times, plants that work well together, growing requirements and landscape design.
It is their passion, the reason why they have studied so long, the reason why they have been employed, to pass their knowledge on and help customers have success in their gardens.
Don’t be deterred if they show you a few unimpressive options to be incorporated into the garden, plants will come in and out of their prime over the year, and it helps create interest throughout the year with the changing of the seasons.
Leaves turning on the Runaway Bride Hydrangea.
You will also probably find them showing you plants that you have not heard of before or not seen around gardens in your neighbourhood.
Listen to what they say about them and their reasoning for their suggestion, and take it into consideration when making your final selection.
A Hiryu Camellia will brighten up your garden.
This will help you bring difference to your garden. How many times do you drive around estates only to see the same plants over and over again and quite often in the same combinations?
Don’t be afraid to go with the different, the unusual, the promise of a stunning feature plant.
It can make your garden a standout as it grows and comes into fruition.
This will also help prevent your garden from ageing or going out of date.
Just like houses and fashion, the garden industry goes through trends.
Daphne delights with its glorious perfume.
Plants, planting schemes and styles can all come and go, in and out of vogue.
By using a few different plants and carefully blending in your own ideas, you can create a timeless garden, one that will stand out through the ages.
You only need to step into the Garden Centre to see the huge range of plants, not all of them looking their impressive best at any given time, but they all have their special qualities, their particular uses, their reason to warrant being stocked.
It would be so much easier for a nursery to just carry the basics, the popular lines, the plants that will almost sell themselves, but how boring and unimaginative would the gardens be that they are going to produce.
So, if you are establishing a garden or just tinkering with it making changes and additions, drop into a Garden Centre and have a wander through the back benches where you can check out the different, the unusual, the unknown before you go looking at the new and promoted lines.
You might be surprised at what you come up with.
Remember though, this is your garden, take on advice, look around for what you like, consider everything, adapt things to your conditions and site restraints, add your bit of flare on it and make it your own.
If you are looking for another reason to call into the Garden Centre, well this week we have been kept very busy with another delivery of our bare rooted roses arriving along with deliveries of our bare rooted fruit trees and deciduous ornamental trees.
Break out and plant some winter colour with these Argyranthemum.
We have been kept very busy compiling orders, tagging stock and getting them ready for you to peruse through.
If you are in the market for some of these, I would suggest you get in early while the range is still strong.
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