Monkton Elm News, Events and Tips Blog

Picture in your mind a quintessential English country garden, and there, in the traditional  border would be a clump of Scabious, flowering its heart out.  Known as the Pincushion flower, due to the prominent stamens rising from compact, round blooms, which look like pins in a pincushion, this hardy free flowering perennial has to be one of our favourite cottage garden plants.  Not only will it flower for many months it is also a delicious nectar bar for bees butterflies and other insects.  We have selected Scabious 'Butterfly Blue' and it's offspring 'Pink Mist' because, unlike the old fashioned Scabious causicus, they are very compact,flower continually,  and do not need staking or supporting.  Scabious 'Butterfly Blue' was introduced to the UK Garden Centre market back in 1985 and was an overnight success, with over 20,000 plants sold in it's first season.  This lavender-blue flowering form was originally selected several years before f...

Everyone is welcome to come along to our Spring Open Week and help us celebrate all that’s great about the season, from Monday, March 17 until Sunday, March 23 during normal garden centre opening hours and on the Thursday evening we will be launching our new weekly late opening until 7.30pm.

People who find it difficult to visit us during the week will be able to come along to our late night open evenings every Thursday from March 20th.

We’re extremely excited to be unveiling our new plant canopy area at the garden centre and it’s an honour to have George Hillier from Hillier Nurseries and Garden Centres lending a helping hand for the occasion.

We’re thrilled to have raised £3,200 for Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW). We have supported CHSW for many years and it’s great to see how the money can really make a difference.

We would like to congratulate Chloe Heilbrohn, Craft Advisor, Dan Welch, Plant Advisor, Fiona Smart, Head of Plants, Gail Macrow, Craft Supervisor, John Osment, Plant Supervisor, Richard Pimm, Marketing, Trevor Hazelwood, Groundsman and Will Michieli, Plant Advisor on completing training to improve their development and skills and receiving apprenticeship certificates.

If you love to knit and would like to meet other knitters, then why not join us for our next Pondside Knit Club session on Wednesday, March 12th from 2pm until 4pm.