Hello all
Welcome to my first blog of 2026. Today I thought I would explain our gardening year and how the change of seasons affects availability of the stock that we offer.
Availability changes rapidly in Spring when we are at our busiest, but here is a quick synopsis of what you can expect as the year progresses. In winter, our stock is either older plants remaining from the previous season, or new plants which were propagated in late summer/autumn; the latter may not yet be solidly rooted and may not yet be available for dispatch. The former represent excellent value as they are bigger, older plants but will be in short supply if we have had a busy preceding year (and we usually have!) In early Spring, we split up any congested pots and clumps of plants or surplus stock, and these plants are then available for sale as bare root plants until they are all gone. Older overwintered potted stock soon gets mopped up, and there is often a period in early Spring when bigger plants are not available; the old stock has gone, and the new stock isn’t quite rooted or ready to sell yet. The best availability is usually April/May when we have the highest stock. Late starters like Acorus, Lythrum and Pontederia may not be available until towards the end of May. If these are available, they may have low kerb appeal as there will be little or no new green growth yet. Bunched oxygenators and floating plants are also not generally available until May. The next thing to disappear is our remaining stock of bare root plants, most of which are gone by the end of June. After this, mostly only potted stock is available, though we can wash off pots for sale as bare root for an extra charge, or you can do this yourself, if plants are required in bare root form for planting into low nutrient systems e.g. natural swimming ponds (more on this below). As summer goes on and the mad rush begins to ease, we are busy taking cuttings and starting off new plants for sale the following year. Some varieties may be sold out until these young plants have grown sufficiently to sell. We can’t suddenly produce large plants if they have all sold out! The choice of stock for purchase is usually lowest from late October to February, but this is not a good time to plant anyway. Some unusual or specialist plants are not available by mail order all through the year for operational and logistics reasons, though they may be available in low numbers at the nursery. If you see plants listed that appear to rarely be available, we can often send these at special request, though an additional carriage charge may be applied, please ask. Similarly, if there’s something that you want that you don’t see, we are often able to source it for you from our wide range of contacts.
Some plants, especially the soft stemmed native oxygenators usually sold bunched, are highly seasonal and are only available for a relatively short period of time. In these cases, you just have to buy when they are growing actively, which is usually May to July. Callitriche is the only one available in winter and this will not be available in the summer months. We can’t possibly grow enough oxygenators ourselves to satisfy demand and rely considerably on others for some of these, so if you need a lot you may have to put in a special order and wait.
There are also other plants that do best in cooler water and go dormant in summer, such as Aponogeton and Water cress (Nasturtium). Few other plants will be growing at all in the cold dark months of January and February and they are best left undisturbed.
There are also a few evergreen plants like the Acorus gramineus family and Baumea. If you have a newly constructed pond devoid of plants, it is difficult to find anything other than those at this time of year to provide cover and spawning material; you may have to be patient and plan for the season to come. Mid to late March in the south and mid to late April in the north is early enough for planting. All through the year there will be plants that will come and go, so it is unlikely that you will be able to purchase all your plants in one hit, though in May to July typically everything will be available subject to stock remaining. Our low carriage charge means that it will not be too painful to make several purchases at the optimum time of year for the plants concerned.
Industry changes and our own advancing ages are slowly changing the way in which we sell plants. When we first started at this site nearly 25 years ago, we sold most plants in bare root form. Producing bare root plants involves a lot of digging and carting of heavy wet mud, and we are increasingly unable to manage this heavy work. The increase in labour costs has impacted us too, and we don’t employ anybody on minimum wage or even a “living” wage, our employees are well paid, and the economics now mean that there is little margin in producing bare root plants from scratch. Many growers, including ourselves, have found that demand is increasingly for the P9 format for value for money, convenience and ease of planting, plus some larger plants in 3 litre pots for more immediate impact. For situations where bare root plants are preferred for establishment in low nutrient systems such as natural swimming ponds, the P9 pots can be washed lightly before planting, giving a better result for establishment and minimal additional nutrient introduction to the system.
Please be aware that if you see plants advertised elsewhere for sale as bare root, they are quite frequently supplied as plugs, sometimes ready washed to camouflage their origin. These are much smaller plants which will have a correspondingly low success of establishment if planted directly into the ground. We mostly don’t supply plugs as we believe that they represent poor value compared to a P9 pot. Exceptions are the very fast growing and tough native plants like Phragmites, which are unsuitable for garden ponds but sold in hundreds or thousands for large lakes and wildlife habitat. In these cases, they will be clearly described on our website as plugs. These can be relied on to establish well and grow on fast even from plug size. The plants which we supply and describe as bare rooted are older, bigger and more mature flowering sized portions and priced accordingly.
Please remember, when you order from us, if you can place an item in your basket, it means that we actually have it and can send it straight away; we don’t take your money and make you wait months for it. The only exception to this is if we have accepted a separate order on the basis that you will wait for all items in the order until they are all available. This is exceptional and not possible directly through the website, only by correspondence.
Our prices are competitive and our range unsurpassed; the proof is in our steadily growing turnover and the increasing number of professional garden designers, landscapers and gardeners who buy their plants from Devon Pond Plants.
If you haven’t already done so, please check out our series of YouTube videos; they have been very successful, and our customers have invariably found them helpful. David’s book has now been reprinted and continues to sell well too.
CHANGES TO PRODUCT RANGE FOR 2026
In order to streamline our product range, from 2026 onwards we have decided to discontinue the x3 bare root option from all ranges. Bare root plants will only be available as singles from our Pick and Mix option and sometimes as a x10 trade pack. There are also several bare root pond packs. Oxygenator bunches and floaters will be offered in multiples of 5 only. If you have an outstanding notification request for x3 of any bare root or floating plants, this will automatically be made ineffective, so please enter a new notification request for your chosen plant in a different format.
For operational and logistic reasons, quite a number of our specialist plants will no longer be available by direct mail order, but we do keep them at the nursery and can potentially send them to you, though an additional carriage charge may apply. If this is something you desire, please email us to ask.
Lastly, and regrettably, we have had to increase both the value of the order for free delivery to £100.00 from £85.00 and the basic charge for delivery to £9.90 from £8.50. After Vat is deducted this still means we are charging only £8.25 for a service which costs us an average of over £12.50 from APC. Unfortunately, these fixed costs cannot be further discounted on smaller orders.