This is perhaps one of the top 5 questions we get asked every day, and with the array of different brands and types available, you’re not alone!
Soil conditioners
We’ll begin with our biggest selling line, which is about the best value bagged conditioner at only £2.50 each. Although its called a compost, which can be a little misleading, it really is designed to dig into soil to improve it or to spread over the soil to act as a mulch. If you plant your new plants directly into it, you won’t be impressed!
Our other best selling Soil Conditioner is our Farmyard Manure, well respected and widely known to help improve every kind of soil, be it sand, silt or clay.
These two products do pretty much the same thing; one is animal based, whilst the other is blended from composted green waste….a perfect example of recycling to benefit plants and gardens, without the need for peat.
Multipurpose composts
Good all rounder for different uses
We offer 3 different types of multi purpose, all subtly different but each with their own advantages.
The Bord na Mona compost is the very same which we grow over 100,000 bedding plants in, each and every year. Never once has it let us down. We’re proud to use this one on our own nursery, and we hope it will give you confidence that if we use it, you should get the very same results!
We also offer a multi purpose with added John Innes compost, from another Irish company, Erin. This adds more weight and drainage to the product and if you’re growing plants in pots, we’d steer you to this one instead.
Please note that both of these products are ‘peat reduced’. They do contain peat, but alternatives to peat are added to reduce to overall use of peat. We no longer support 100% peat based composts.
Finally, we’ve introduced a 100% peat free multi purpose compost, to enable those of you who are passionate about peat reduction, to grow beautiful plants. We do advise buyers of our peat free alternative, to carefully monitor watering, as peat free compost tends to need less water than more proprietary peat based composts.
For your acid lovers
Rhododendrons. Skimmias, etc.
If you’re trying any plant which loves acidic soil conditions, then our Ericaceous compost is a good bet. It’s pH is lower than our other composts, so it’s perfect for any lime hater. Rhododendrons, Azaleas, Camellias, Skimmias, Magnolias, even Hydrangeas prefer this type of compost, along with many other species.
If growing Acid lovers in pots, we do recommend an addition of some soil based John Innes compost #1, and the long term feeding with an Ericaceous fertiliser (we sell several here). John Innes is better for long term planting than peat based composts, so a mixture of the two works wonderfully in pots.
If growing Acid lovers in the ground, use Ericaceous to enrich your soil, and supplement this mix with a longer term Ericaceous fertiliser slow release granule. We’re happy to show you.
John Innes soil
It’s what most plants would choose….
If a plant could choose what it could grow in, we’re sure that 99% would choose John Innes.
Why? Easy. It’s the closest thing we can offer to the ‘perfect’ garden soil. Don’t forget that all commercial nurseries use peat based or peat free composts, as they are cheaper, lighter, and easier to transport.
John Innes is heavy, mostly because it’s soil based. And where do most plants grow? In the soil!
So whilst it isn’t commercially viable to grow in, because it’s too heavy to transport, it remains the best compost to grow in at your home.
We offer 4 types, all identical in structure, but different in nutritional;
SEED is very low in nutrition, so it’s perfect for seed sowing, which can suffer if sown in a compost too rich in nutrition.
#1 is perfect for pricking out your seedlings. Slightly higher feed levels than seed, but still safe and not too strong.
#2 is great for potting on relatively young plants.
#3 is by far the best product for planting young and semi mature plants into their final positions…..particularly when growing plant in pots. For growing in pots, we’ll always recommend John Innes over our multi purpose composts.
For growing plants out into the garden borders, you’d be better to buy more organic based products to dig into your own soil….you’ll get far more for your money.
Our mulches
Worth their weight in gold!
Now technically, you could use lots of things as a mulch. The definition of a mulch is really something that will retain moisture (you could use plastic), reduce weed growth (you could use carpets), and improve soil structure (you could use gravel!)
The first of our two biggest selling mulches are without doubt our bark mulch, widely recognised to do all of the above. But on top of this, it’s natural, it’s organic, it’s compostable, and it’s attractive.
Always lay your mulch at least 2-3 inches deep, or 5-7.5cm. Any thinner and it’ll just blow away. You can lay it thicker than this, but the thicker it goes on, the more it will cost per square metre.
And always try and lay it after good rainfall, so you keep the moisture in! Autumn and Spring are perfect, much better than Summer.
Our ‘New Kid on the Block’ is Strulch, that’s a mulch made from mineralised straw. Finer, lighter and arguably more attractive than bark, it looks just wonderful. It goes quite a long way, too! We are beginning to use this product around the nursery to show people just how good it looks, and we’re very excited to see how it performs.
Don’t forget that regardless of what you choose, no organic mulch will control perennial and deep rooted perennial weeds like docks, nettles and bindweed….unless you’ve got control of these first. If you haven’t, I’m afraid they’ll grow straight through your lovely mulch. What mulch WILL do is stop new weeds germinating on your borders and wreaking havoc. To control perennial weeds, come and see us and we’ll happily give you our advice.