Roots Plants

When we think of lavender, we tend to think of that bluish shade of purple, but did you know that there are white varieties of lavender, too?! 🤍

They will be sure to light up any cottage garden planting scheme. 🏡 With abundant fragrant, fat flower spikes and attractive silvery green foliage, these plants will bring the bees in their droves 🐝

Did you know, the word lavender actually comes from the latin 'lavare', meaning 'to wash', because it was used by the Romans to help wash their hair and clothes! 🧽

Lettuces are incredibly easy to grow, low maintenance and provide a long harvesting season thanks to their "cut and come again" qualities! 🥬

We love to grow an assortment of different varieties, so that your salads are just as colourful and varied as the plants you're growing. 🥗

Grow your lettuces in a raised bed, greenhouse or even in large pots on your balcony! Plant in a sunny or partially shaded spot and keep your plants well watered, particularly during the growing season. 💧

Mixed lettuce is a great option for beginners, providing a great return for fairly minimal effort! 👩‍🌾

If you've got sweet peas growing in your garden (and it's our belief that every garden should) then this is your PSA to keep picking them! 🚨

Sweet peas produce more flowers the more you pick them, so it's important that you're deadheading regularly during the height of the growing season - this can be as regularly as every other day. ✂️

If you don't pick the flowers then seed pods develop, and when this happens? Well, it basically sends a big botanical alert to the plant to stop flowering. ❌

We'd also suggest cutting your plant's tendrils as this will help direct more energy towards flower production. 🌼

So, if you want your sweet pea plants to keep flowering, get busy snipping and treat your home to a floral makeover! 🏡

Do you ever dream of being on stage? Of being on the receiving end of a rapturous standing ovation, with glorious red roses being thrown at your feet? 🌹

No? Just us? Well, if we ever *were* to find ourselves in that position, we'd certainly hope the roses were 'Joyful Anniversary' 😍

These clasically-shaped, carmine red blooms have a subtle scent and are simply perfect for cutting! ✂️

A compact variety, this shrub rose can be grown in either borders or large containers, making it an incredibly versatile option for all the rose lovers out there 💖

Of all the foliage plants out there, the not-so-humble hosta certainly makes a strong claim for being the best! (Although we hear heucheras and brunneras may have something to say about that...) 🍃

There are a huge number of different hosta varieties out there, with most varieties typically boasting broad, heart or oval-shaped leaves in various shades of green (ranging from a bluish green to bright lime green) 🟢

Not forgetting the variegated options out there, with many varieties featuring gorgeous cream or lighter green margins! 💚

Often referred to as the plantain lily, hostas grow well in partial and full shade, making them a fantastic choice for those gardens not blessed with abundant sunlight. 🌥️

Time for us to say goodbye for the day, or rather - hosta la vista... 😉

Whether you're planning a cottage, cutting, wildlife or container garden, you're almost always going to want some salvias in there, and what better place to start than with 'Merleau Rose'? 🌸

With its alluring orchid pink flower spikes, long flowering season and relatively compact habit (growing to a height of around 50cm), this salvia is simply perfect for adding a pop of colour to your perennial flower beds. It even has fragrant foliage, too, just to top it all off! 🥳

Bees bloomin' love salvias (join the club) and are drawn to their vibrant colour and nectar-rich flowers. 🐝

To paraphrase "turn it up to H7" for this plant's hardiness rating - it's tough as nails and will withstand temperatures all the way down to temperatures of below -20°. 🥶

Plant in groups of 3, 5 or 7, alongside other perennial favourites like eryngiums, achilleas and leucanthemums for a seriously good-looking border display! 🌼

With Wimbledon starting yesterday, we thought we'd serve up a few aces of our own here at Roots - 'New Ace' peppers, that is! 🎾🫑

This RHS award winner is an incredibly productive variety that you grow on your patio, in a greenhouse or even on a sunny windowsill. 🌞

Sumptuously sweet and perfect in salads, stir fries and all manner of other scrummy dishes, this pepper is a true delight to grow - and eat! 🤤

Like most of us, these pepper plants do benefit from a bit of support, so get a bamboo cane in by the plant and tie in the main stem with some garden twine. 🧶

Able to be harvested when either green or red, and even boasting a little tolerance to the cold, this pepper is a true star! 🌟

A Scandinavian sensation, that's what 'Parade Cajsa' is!

First introduced by Danish breeders, Poulsen, a decade ago, in 2014, this shrub rose produces delightfully voluminous double blooms in soft pink, flourishing amidst glossy green foliage. 🌹

Blooming continually throughout the summer, this rose will complete any cottage garden look, adding romance and pastel charm in tasteful abundance! 💘

Looking for the perfect rose for cutting? This is certainly one of the best contenders and your bouquets will thank you! 💐

You know what's great? Cucumbers. 🥒 You know what'd be even better? Snack-sized cucumbers. What's that? Cucumber 'Mini Hana' has the solution, you say?! 😮

Smooth-skinned and growing to around 7cm in length, these superbly-flavoured cukes are perfect for lunchboxes and can easily be grown on a windowsill or in a sheltered spot on the patio. 🌞

Offering a refreshingly cool crunch, 'Mini Hana' cucumbers can also be used to make delicious dips like tzatziki, raita or cacık. 🥄

An F1 hybrid variety, this plant will crop heavily and reliably for you, which is all any of us is ever looking for, really. 🤷

Both easy and fun to grow, cucumbers provide the perfect way to get the kids involved in the garden! 🧑‍🧒‍🧒

Yeah green lettuces are great and all that 🥬 but what about a fancy purplish red one, instead? 😍

Introducing 'Lollo Rossa' a fabulous, frilly lettuce native to Italy with a crisp, refreshing taste that's simply perfect for sumptuous summer salads. 🥗

A great example of a "cut and come again" plant, just take from the outer leaves and your lettuce will keep on producing more delicious leaves. Alternatively, let it mature fully and harvest the whole lettuce - either works well! 👌

In need of new recipe ideas? Make a colourful heritage tomato and mozzarella salad, or chicken lettuce wraps! 🌯

Growing your own veg and then tasting homegrown produce is a truly unbeatable feeling, but knowing where to start can be daunting - and even if you're a seasoned professional, who doesn't like their life to be made a bit easier? That's why we created our Allotment in a Box (AIAB) collections! 📦

Containing all the veg you need for your very own bumper crop, our boxes are put together with painstaking care, with only the very best, healthiest plants being selected to be sent to your door. 🏡

We've curated a variety of different collections so that there's something for everybody; from beginner boxes for those making their first forays into veg growing, to fast-track boxes with XL mature veg, perfect for people who fear they've fallen behind with their planting! 🍅

Wave goodbye to sad, store-bought veg, suffocated in plastic clingfilm and sold for a gazillion pounds per punnet, and hello instead to great veg, grown by you. 💚

Things blueberry bushes offer:

▪️ Fruits with fantastic flavour🫐
▪️ Fabulous flowers that bees swoon over 🐝
▪️ The inspiration for one of Roald Dahl's most memorable moments (we're looking at you, Violet Beauregarde...) 🎫

But we're not focusing on the berries, today, nor on W***y Wonka's hare-brained (borderline maniacal) schemes, we're focusing on the flowers!

Blueberry flowers are simply gawjus, but in our view, aren't talked about anywhere nearly enough. Appearing in spring, the bell-shaped blooms are typically white, sweetly fragranced and readily attract pollinators like bees with their nectar and pollen. 🌼

What pollinator-friendly plants do you have in your garden? 🦋

We love broad beans here at Roots, just can't get enough of them! Tossed through a salad, dried and roasted as a moreish snack, or incorporated into falafels and filo parcels, these little green pods are as tasty as they are fun to grow! 🫘

We're particularly fond of 'The Sutton' - a hardy dwarf variety that's been awarded the RHS' Award of Garden Merit. 🏅

A prolific cropper, this variety doesn't require staking and is suitable for growing in smaller gardens, patio pots, and even on your balcony. 😍

Striking, scented black and white flowers precede the appearance of pods, adding both bold visual impact and pollinator appeal - the dream!

Have you tried growing broad beans before? 🤔

euphor(b)ia: noun 📖 "an extremely strong feeling of happiness and excitement when you see one of these beautiful plants" 😍

As a genus, Euphorbia is highly varied (there are 2,054 accepted species 🤯), offering options for both indoor and outdoor gardeners alike! Here at Roots, we're particularly fond of Euphorbia amygdaloides robbiae, whose plentiful chartreuse flower sprays add real zest and vigor to any garden they feature in! 🟡🟢

Also known as 'spurge' plants, the shrubbier outdoor varieties are typically low maintenance ✅, hardy ❄️, and aren't usually affected by pests or disease 🤒 - what's not to like?!

Have you tried growing these wonderful plants? 🌱

"Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off, and they are nearly always doing it." - Frances Hodgson Burnett 🪶

We're fairly sure that Frances wasn't talking about the incredible 'Red Robin' variety of photinia when she wrote The Secret Garden, back in 1911, but she might as well have been! 🍂

An award-winning evergreen plant whose leaves emerge a bright brick red, before becoming green as they age, and which produces delicate ivory flower clusters in spring, 'Red Robin' really does provide your garden with year-round interest 💪

Exceptionally versatile in nature, this crimson beauty can be grown as a shrub, hedge or even as a small patio tree! 🌳

Are you a fan of red foliage? 🔴

A plant with fab flowers *and* fantastic foliage? Oh go on then, but only because you asked so nicely... 🫡

Heucheras, sometimes called coral bells, are brilliant low-growing plants with lobed (or scalloped) foliage that comes in a range of vibrant hues - from zesty lime to plum purple, and many others besides! 🌈

Not only this, but they also produce wonderfully delicate flower spires in late spring or early summer, adding oodles of elegance and style wherever they're placed 💗

The variety pictured is Heuchera 'Paris', an RHS award-winning plant with silvery green foliage and delightfully dainty pink blooms 🌸 Versatile, low maintenance and tolerant of some shade, heucheras provide interest throughout the year and are undoubtedly a firm favourite of ours here at Roots ✅

The question is, though, do you have any heucheras in your garden? 🍃