The internet is quickly becoming a popular and convenient way for people to buy their garden plants and flowers.
Ordering online offers numerous advantages
1. The main advantage is the extensive catalogues that are available online, and the various flowers and plants available for purchase within these catalogues. This is ideal as even the largest of garden centres isn’t going to be big enough to have every possible flower and plant, meaning you may have to go to more than one to find exactly what you’re looking for.
2. Using companies website you are able to search their entire stock instantly be searching the flower/plant name, making the search process much quicker and allowing you to comparison shop.
3. The description of the flower or plant given by the online garden centre will give you more information about what it needs to grow and any special requirements it may have, so you can check it is suitable for where you intend on placing it.
4. Shopping online also enables you to find rare and exotic flowers much easier and quicker than you would do ordinarily, you can even have these imported from companies off the internet.
5. These catalogues not only sell flowers and plants, they also sell gardening related equipment such as tools, things for your greenhouse, pest control, fertiliser, compost etc.
Here are some tips on selecting what online garden centre to order from and things to check or ask them:
• Order from a reputable and professional company that has plenty of good reviews from genuine customers. Speak to other gardeners for hints on the best online garden shop to use.
• Use a garden centre catalogue listing website to help you to choose where to buy from, more often than not these will have real customer reviews for you to read.
• Before choosing what flowers and plants you want to buy consider what garden you have, what space you have and the size of this space, what your garden’s growing conditions are like, how much sunlight they are going to get etc. to ensure you buy a plant that can grow in those conditions. Buy hardy plants as they have more chance of growing.
• Do some comparison shopping, get prices from various companies and use this, along with the reviews of the company’s performances to make your selection. When looking at prices take into consideration any shipping fees that will be added upon checkout.
• Check that the products you want are in stock and available.
• Check with the company as to how the flowers and plants are grown, do they have a nursery or are these flowers wild plants?
• What refund and return policies does the company have in place, and are there any cut off dates? What are the telephone numbers that you need to contact the company? These should be clearly visible on the company website.
Once you have received your plants you should plant them as soon as you possibly can to give them the best chance of survival. However, if you do not already have holes dug up and prepared for your flowers to be planted into, don’t panic, you can keep the plants alive while you prepare these. If you have bulbs, whilst it does vary between bulbs, usually storing them in a box in a cool and darkened room and misting them lightly is the best thing to do to keep them moist until you can plant them. Most flowers are received with bare roots, i.e. no soil. When they arrive, remove any packaging apart from anything protecting the roots, keep them out of direct sunlight and mist the roots often. If you are keeping the flowers for more than a week be sure to cover them with soil. On the day you are planting the flowers, remove the packaging from the roots and allow them to soak in water.
