Courtyard Planters

02/06/2026

SPIRES IN THE GARDEN
We like to have a spire type flower peppered through the border in every season, at the moment it's foxgloves, camassias came before and persicaria will follow. They draw your eye through the space without being too solid, and provide visual cohesion even when the planting is a bit busy (for us busy is functional - we need a wide range of varieties for cut flowers and propagation parent plants, so we can't be too precious)

22/05/2026

Tithonia Torch
Lots of you admired these last Autumn in the flowerbed in front of our house. We will have a tray of young plants for sale tomorrow £2.50 per pot. They are tender annuals so they are just for this year...but, by gum, they put on a show and bring the colour from late summer into autumn.

16/05/2026

We often get asked about what can be recycled from the garden here is your definitive answer from Leeds Recycles
We can reuse your 1,2 & 3 litre pots (any shape or colour)(sorry not little pots or trays)
And we sell SylvaGrow peat free compost in re-useable Bags for Life too.

Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field🎃 🥁 ! If you’re getting stuck into some gardening this weekend, remember you can recycle empty plastic bottles and stretchy plastics like these in your green bin! ♻️ We’ll also take your plastic plant pots too (just not the black ones) 🪴💚

16/05/2026

OTLEY SHOW DAY
Tom and Islay are in the shop. Katie and Neve are at the show...it's a family affair today.

15/05/2026

Katie will be at Otley Show in the Otley BID Buy in Otley marquee, up in the right hand corner of the main field just before you get to the lake. Come and say hello...tomorrow is all about chit chatting rather than selling (but we will have a few of our gorgeous Otley grown, peat free perennials with us too)

15/05/2026

Treat the Cat has found the best spot...he's sat on the heated propagator...look how smug he looks with his tummy being gently heated from underneath 🤣

09/05/2026

Buckle Up Baby, it's Bedding Season
For the next 6 weeks we'll be devoted to refilling your hanging baskets, replanting lots of the planters around town (say hello if you see us up a ladder!) and working out the logistics of delivering everything back to you without it falling over in the car.

05/05/2026

Cutting flowers this morning got me thinking about having colour all year round in the garden. This time of year is sometimes called 'The hungry gap', in allotment terms the over wintered crops have finished and the summer ones haven't started yet, and the same can be true in the flower garden.
We currently have flowers from;
🏵 centurea Montana
🏵 Aguilegia
🏵 late pheasants eye narcissus
🏵 red campion
🏵 geranium phaeum
🏵 geum totally tangerine
And all of these spread like weeds, so it's easy to think of them as thugs and remove them, but they really do serve a purpose. Best to control them by cutting them back to the ground as soon as they've finished flowering so they don't seed everywhere or block out your fancier late summer plants.
All featuring in our cut flower bunches £5. We're open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday 9.30-5.00.

03/05/2026

Woolpack Studios do great work in our community making music in so many forms accessible; community choirs and bands, rehearsal space, music lessons and recording. They had a terrible flood last year that destroyed their stage, if you have a few £s to spare this is a great local cause.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/woolpackstudio?utm_medium=CF&utm_source=CL

01/05/2026

JOBS FOR APRIL
🌷enjoy the fading blooms on spring bulbs...not sure if it's odd, but I love flowers as they tip over into faded glory.
🌷then dead head and feed before leaving the foliage to die back and nourish the bulbs for next year
🌷look at the night time temperatures several times a day as the greenhouse gets fuller and fuller
🌷Last chance for sweet peas, they are running low now
🌷we're running very low on our compost Bags for Life, if you have any empties languishing in the shed, return them to us for your £2.50 deposit back, the system works best when they keep circulating
🎉 celebrates 21 years in business this weekend. That's bonkers...but we've been too busy looking after plants to celebrate. We'll raise a glass tonight to celebrate.🥂 Thank you to all our lovely customers who let us keep doing a job we love...Tom and I are now both utterly unemployable now after 21 years of self employment 🤣