Impulse Buying @Newlands Garden Centre
February 15, 2009
I went to a couple of garden centres this morning before the Six Nations to check out what deals for containers were on offer and I came away with a bush and a tree.
I’ve been asking around about the droopy lettuce seedlings on the GardenWeb and Irish Allotments forums. The general consensus seems to be that it is lack of light that is causing the dearth of enthusiasm. With sun on the balcony only until late afternoon, and their position indoors, perhaps lettuce germination has been a little premature. On the plus side, broccoli, chili and tomato all look good. (Admittedly I’ve little frame of reference here but at least they stand up on their own.)
In the meantime I thought it would be a good idea to take stock of what’s on offer container-wise in the nearby garden centres (doesn’t that sound interesting!). In short: Most containers were either too small, too ugly or too expensive but we got some around 25-30cm deep for 12-15 euro each in Woodie’s on the Naas rd.
In other more interesting news, I made two dubious purchases at Newlands Garden Centre:
Dubious purchase #1:
5 Raspberry bushes (or more accurately, a bunch of 5 canes/stumps which I am assured will mature into raspberry bushes)
Pros: Raspberries taste nice and are easy to grow.
Cons: Not many people on the the Internet recommend them for container growing. Even then, I’m not sure what to do with the other 4 (stumps on left in photo). Anyone who wants one is welcome to arrange to pick up before I find a home for them elsewhere.
Dubious purchase #2:
1 olive tree
Pros: Olives are nice and the tree is pretty (in the manliest sense of the word).
Con: Olive trees grow in countries where it is frequently 40 degrees Celsius. Our balcony hasn’t topped 10 degrees in a while. Indoors is warmer but even then the olive tree needs needs extensive light. We don’t even have enough light indoors to enable 5 cm seedlings to stand up straight (see above). The garden centre girl says I needed lemon (citrus?) compost. I ignored this and transplanted into multi-purpose compost. Someone please tell me if this is silly.
Anyway I guess this wouldn’t be fun if there were no risks so what’s the worst that can happen, right?
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Hey, as far as the Raspberry goes I grew one on my garden and it worked out well, the only thing is year one usually does not produce much, year two should be better (will let you know in a few months!
) I bought a load more and have planted all of them in pots (even though ), I know it’s not recommended but i don’t want them to go mad and the only way to control the roots is in pots!
To be honest i have grown raspberries before and they are a big plant which growns by runners and can be invasive! I wouldn’t even consider growing them in pots! they produce very little fruit per cane and if you let the pot dry out at all once flowers have set you will get the most horrible dry tasteless fruits. it is the second years runner which you want the fruit from so make sure its a big pot. Sorry bad news. But let me know how you get.
Olive trees are fine outside around dublin. mine has been outside for 4 years now. just keep it watered.