Welcome to my early autumn blog. Orders are starting to taper now but, we have had another very busy year. The weather has been great and has really encouraged everyone to get out in their gardens. The benefits that a pond can bring to a garden are more widely appreciated now, and this has been good news for us. The interest in natural swimming ponds seems to grow exponentially and the trend towards using native plants continues to be strong. We keep large numbers of all the popular native plants so that you will not be disappointed when the time comes to order, but of course at this time of year plants are starting to retreat towards dormancy and we have started the long job of cutting everything back. Cutting back achieves several things; it tidies up the brown and unattractive foliage and prevents all that material from decaying in the pond. This removes a major source of nutrients for blanket weed and other algae in the Spring. We leave on the persistent trailing stems of plants like Menyanthes, Persicaria amphibia and Potentilla palustris to give the amphibians something to spawn in in late winter/early spring. Cutting back also stimulates new growing points to form close to the base, encouraging a bushy growth habit. Plants like Mentha, Myosotis and Veronica get leggy very quickly and cutting them back encourages repeat flowering and keeps the plants looking green and fresh. Cuttings can of course be used to make new plants.
The next couple of months are the best time to give your pond a good tidy up, remove excess silt and plan for next year. Most of the critters have done their breeding and you will cause the least damage in autumn.
This winter will be your last chance to purchase many of the big leafy moisture loving plants such as Ligularias and Rodgersias.
from us online, as we will be discontinuing them from Spring next year. They have always been a small part of our business and sadly the cost of keeping a worthwhile stock has for some time exceeded any sales. The cost of packing and sending these big leafy plants has always been high, which makes them expensive and limits their sales online. There aren’t all that many left, and now that they have been cut back, they are much cheaper to send so there will be some good last-minute bargains. Now is an excellent time to get these plants in the ground for a great display next year. (We will continue to keep a smaller selection at the nursery for collection only.)
If you have a large space to fill you will get great deals for the next few weeks, please check the listings, or ask for more details without obligation.
If you are planning a project next year which is likely to require many hundreds or possibly thousands of plants, please don’t wait to ask us until the day before you want them. We can always offer the best deals for forward orders, and these can amount to over 30% discount for larger numbers of potted plants. We’re always happy to quote, our simple unsophisticated website doesn’t allow us to create pricing variations for every eventuality so please ask, there’s no obligation.
As ever we will try to keep a lid on prices next year, it’s not really the plants themselves that increase in cost but the cost of compost, pots, labour and especially packing and delivery that continues to soar. That’s why we can always offer the best deals for collection from the nursery. There will probably be a small increase on the cost of potted plants sent by courier, but it still won’t cover our costs in this respect. The worst orders for us are ones just above our minimum order charge that still have to go by APC, such as two single one litre pots; we have always been making a loss on these so will be increasing our minimum order charge to £30. At this level we will just about break even on a minimum order, but it really makes no sense to make nothing at all on orders sent to our smallest customers!
I’m pleased to say that my book has been very well received and is now being reprinted, so there may be a short period in which it’s hard to obtain, but more will be available soon. We still have a couple of dozen in stock for those early Christmas present opportunities (yes, it’s the C word already!) https://www.devonpondplants.co.uk/product/a-book-by-david-kerr-ponds-a-practical-guide-to-design-construction-and-planting/
Our YouTube videos are popular too and we continue to add to the information available there – if you haven’t already done so, please check them out at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQLqxKvTu3p8Is5A88X6COg/videos . We’re still a bit hammy but I think that we do quite a good job.
A big THANK YOU to all our customers, large and small, we look forward to supplying top quality plants and service for years to come.
Ruth, David, and the team at Devon Pond Plants