Watch videos from my top three show gardens and my favourite garden from every other category, plus much more from my day at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Category: Wellbeing
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Coolings Feel Good Gardens – May
There is nothing quite as satisfying as growing your own – imagine the joy of tucking into your first roast dinner with home grown fluffy roast potatoes!
Chard ‘Rainbow’
This wonderful vegetable is rich in nutrients making it the perfect addition to your diet. This Chard requires full sun / part shade and is perfect for cut and come again use!
Sweet Pea – Spencer Mixed
The glorioulsy sweet scented Sweet Pea flowers throughout the Summer. They are fantastic blooms for picking and enjoying fragrance infoors. Super easy to grow up a support.
Artichoke Cynara Scolymus
The Globe Artichoke is a magnificent statuesque plant that will return year after year and produce delicious large thistle-like flowers that can be boiled and eaten as a gourmet treat once the fluffy “choke” in the flower centre has been removed.
Apple Malus domestica ‘Ballerina Flamenco’
This Apple Tree is very reliable with a columnar habit. The dark red, crisp fruit are suitable for eating or cooking. Ballerina Flamenco grows in most soils and in sun or part shade making
them very easy to grow!
Shop the May theme look in-store or online:
Sweet Pea Spencer Mixed (9cm Pot)
Chard ‘Rainbow’ Mixed Multi-Pack
Blackcurrant Ribes ‘Black ‘n’ Red’ 3L
Chard ‘Rainbow’ Mixed Multi-Pack
Ballerina Apple Flamenco
Smart Veggies-Onion, Radish, Lettuce Stk
Smart 14 Kikuyu Faux Rattan Cone
Miracle-Gro Performance Organics Fruit & Veg Food Granular 1kg
Elho Green Basics Stack & Grow Large Living Black
Levington Tomorite Peat Free Planter
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Christmas Tree Out, Houseplant In!
Spathiphyllum (Peace lily)
Easy, low maintenance and peaceful, just as their common name suggests. A Peace Lily will make the perfect addition to any room but preferably a home with low light. They won’t take up much of your time, just a weekly water and in return they will emerge with white flowers from their glossy, oval leaves. Just when you thought a Peace Lily couldn’t give anymore, they are also one of the best air purifiers!
Dypsis lutescens (Areca palm)
Perfect for giving a tropical vibe to any space whilst we all dream of the day we can be in warmer climates again. Treat them well with a light spot but not in direct sunlight, water a few times a week during the summer but not so much during the winter.
Nephrolepsis exaltata (Green Lady)
One of the most popular ferns, perhaps because of their striking yet elegant arching fronds. Perfect for displaying in a hanging basket or in a high positioned pot where it can cascade over the edge. An easy-going houseplant, requiring moderate light requirements from bright, indirect sunlight to light shade and remember to keep the soil moist at all times.
Houseplant Feed and Accessories
To ensure your houseplant is kept in its best possible condition we recommend feeding regularly with Baby Bio Houseplant Food (£2.99 – 175ml). We also recommend treating your houseplant to Houseplant Myst (£4.99 – 300ml) which gives complete care including nutrients, growth enhancer, pest repellent and leaf conditioner. See individual plant labels for care instructions.
To give your space an extra trendy finishing touch choose an indoor plant pot or basket to stand your new houseplant in, we have a range of pots and baskets available in-store to suit all interiors.
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Summer Soothers
This week, as part of Mental Health Awareness Week, we have picked our top herbaceous choices to create a calm blue display in your garden. At this time of year the herbaceous border comes into its own, bursting into life and overflowing with colour. These plants will look great this Summer and will create comeback colour, as they will thrive again next year. If a trip to the garden centre sounds more stressful than calming at the time, then remember you can also shop with us online and get plants delivered directly to your door.
A lovely deciduous perennial with strap-like foliage with flowers from mid to late summer. Heads of soft blue flowers are held on upright stems, up to 60cm. It likes a sunny spot. Buy online.
‘Six Hills Giant’ produces an abundance of lavender-blue flowers in Summer, paired with grey-green foliage. It will grow to around 90cm high and will be at home in the sunshine. Buy online.
This hardy geranium sports blue flowers with purple veins and golden-green leaves. ‘Blue sunrise’ enjoys the sunshine has a sprawling habit, making it a good choice for the front of a border. Buy online.
Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’ (AGM)
‘Walker’s Low’ produces mauve-blue flowers throughout summer and has delicate aromatic foliage. Loved by bees and gardeners alike, it holds an Award of Garden Merit. Buy online.
Omphalodes cappadocica ‘Cherry Ingram’
‘Cherry Ingram’ produces delicate starry blue flowers in a deep blue shade. Smaller in stature at around 25cm, this compact variety is good at the front of a border or as ground cover. Buy online.
Polemonium reptans ‘Heaven Scent’
‘Heaven Scent’ is a beautiful variety of Polemonium, with dark purple foliage in Spring and lightly fragrant purple-blue flowers through to July. Towards the end of Summer foliage will turn green. Growing to around 60cm high, ‘Heaven Scent’ is happy in sun or part shade. Buy online.
Recognisable by its super large blossoms, ‘Blue Marvel’ produces spikes of violet-blue flowers throughout Summer. Ideal for containers, it makes a bold addition to a patio. Additionally, use it as part of a cottage garden as it’s loved by wildlife. Buy online.
Nepeta x faassenii (syn N. mussinii)
Also known as Catmint, this Nepeta is a beautiful choice for a border. It has swathes of spike-like, pale lavender-blue flowers with aromatic silvery grey-green leaves. It likes sun or part shade and will grow to around 45cm high. Buy online.
Veronica teucrium ‘Crater Lake Blue’ (AGM)
Producing a sea of blue, ‘Crater Lake Blue’ is the perfect choice for the front of a border. Holding an Award of Garden Merit, this impressive variety will create an intense show of blue from June to August. Buy online.
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Gardening for Wellbeing
Gardening is also good for our mental health. Even something as simple as having a plant on your windowsill or desk can reduce stress, make you feel more energized and able to think clearly. People suffering from anxiety or depression have found gardening and caring for plants to be incredibly beneficial. So good in fact that some GPs have even started writing prescriptions for gardening! The benefits can be as varied as reduced stress to increased fitness and improved vitamin D levels.
Gardening health benefits can include heart health, better sleep, improved hand strength and the financial benefits of gardening include growing your own vegetables and cut flowers, getting creative with plants to decorate and dress your home and a nice garden can increase the value of your home by up to 20%.
If you need any more encouragement to get out in the garden this spring, gardening is also good for the planet. Think of the environmental impact of homegrown fruit, vegetables and flowers versus those flown halfway round the world. As well as the reduction in plastic consumption, grown at home you can be certain of just how many (or how few) pesticides and herbicides have been used in their production.
Some excellent varieties of fruit cannot be grown for commercial use as they don’t, for example, travel or keep well, but all the better for home gardeners!
How much nicer is a home-grown bunch of flowers than something picked up in a hurry from a supermarket? Or a pot of plants lovingly tended for months before being gifted? And they’re cheaper too…
Choosing plants that are grown locally also help to reduce environmental impact. We grow most of our plants on-site and use other local nurseries for specimen or unusual plants.
Gardening can be great for wildlife
Our gardens are a vital home for wildlife and many species really need our help if they are to survive. But attracting wildlife to your garden is easy and enormously rewarding. A pond is a great place to start but even bird feeders, a bird bath or bird box will have a positive effect. Plant lots of colourful flowers and watch the bees and butterflies come flying in.
Bring the Outdoors In with Houseplants
You can still experience the benefits of nature when it’s too cold for a stroll around the garden by having houseplants.
Shades of green are recognised as being restful, so introducing houseplants to your home can help ease stresses and boost mental wellbeing. As well as looking good, houseplants also improve air quality by trapping and capturing pollutants, allowing you to breathe in cleaner air.
Visit our shop for gardening tools and sundries, seeds, houseplants, bird care and lawncare. We stock everything you need for your garden.
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Multisensory Gardening
Choose scented plants to add smell to your garden. These are best placed in sheltered areas as this contains the fragrances better and will allow them to be enjoyed more.
NEW Clematis ‘Sugar Sweet’
The firstly truly scented large flowered clematis, with beautiful almond fragranced flowers. Available from Coolings for the first time this Spring.Lavender ‘Ashdown Forest’
A superb variety with lovely scented flowers and foliage. Perfect for celebrating our new site at Wych Cross.Plants with interesting textures are ideal garden choices for those living with sight impairment. They also go down particularly well with little ones who like to investigate their surroundings.
Senecio ‘Angels Wings’
This stunning recent introduction has tactile silky silver foliage. Works well in containers and is impressive on a patio.Griselinia littoralis
Silky soft glossy foliage makes this popular choice the perfect evergreen screening plant.Edible plants are useful to grow for kitchen use or enjoyment, as well as many of them bringing extra colour to the garden.
Nasturtiums Jewel Mix
Both ornamental and edible, the flowers have a peppery taste.Strawberries
A fruity classic, we have a selection of delicious and easy to grow varieties available this Spring.Sound can produce an extra dimension to a sensory garden. Bamboo and grasses are ideal for creating some plant-based audio, along with adding water features or bird baths.
Fargesia nitidia ‘Black Pearl’
This is an amazing clump forming bamboo with attractive dark canes, ideal for containers and smaller gardens. The breeze moving through the foliage will create a relaxing rustling sound.You can find out more about Kent Association for the Blind and their work on their website at www.kab.org.uk