Larry Smith and the Riverside Gardens team talk all things pots, plants and pruning in their weekly gardening column.
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It happens every year, the first mild sunny days of spring and gardeners swarm into the Garden Centre inspired by the beautiful spring weather.
After months of planning and preparing their garden projects over the winter months, the weather finally feels right to get into it, so into the nurseries they flock.
This is great for our industry because, like gardeners, we too have been waiting for the busier times of spring through to autumn to help people with their gardens.
Finding the right plants, advising on growing conditions, helping them with their design, solving gardening problems and generally just being kept busy.
The frustrating thing, though, is gardeners often feel spring before the plants can show it, no matter how much we plan or how hard we try, if the growing conditions have not been favourable, then the full range of plants or back up stock is not always available.
Growing plants takes time, cuttings must form roots, seedlings must establish, young plants must be potted on, and every batch needs time to develop the size, strength and root system expected for retail sale.
Sure, you can hurry them on a little in an enclosed environment, but ultimately, they must be hardened off to the outside climate.
This again takes time, extra labour and additional production costs which all must be considered.
So, when it is all said and done, the plants will be ready when they are ready, all in their own time.
A good example of this, this year, is Loropetalum Little China Ruby, a beautiful colourful compact evergreen shrub that can add colour to the garden throughout the year.
Its dense, naturally rounded growth is covered in ruby to deep plum foliage, with delicate, cerise tassel-like flowers in spring and autumn.
Growing to about 1m high and 1.5m wide, it makes an attractive feature plant, a low informal hedge or colourful addition to mixed border in a full sun to partly shaded position.
A very popular, useful and adaptable plant.
At the start of the month, we had ample of these in stock with the promise of good back up supply, but by mid-month we had sold out.
The grower is now having to carefully pick through the back-up stock to sort out what is ready for supply this week.
A few weeks of sunny weather and there will not be a problem, but for now, all nurseries are on a trickle feed until the whole batch is ready.
One that has kept us waiting this spring has been the much-awaited release of Anisodontea Carnival Lights Candy Apple.
It has been heavily promoted as a breakthrough variety because of its unusually deep red flowers.
It was also shortlisted for the Chelsea Flower Show Plant of the Year competition 2026.
Earlier this year we were given a stock plant to trial and help promote its spring release and we have had to wait until now for the plants to be ready, with the first batch arriving this week.
Anisodontea Carnival Lights Candy Apple is a compact, free-flowering shrub with hibiscus-like flowers in a deep, rich red colour with darker veining towards the centre.
The dark green, soft-looking foliage provides a nice backdrop that makes the deep red flowers stand out.
Growing to about 90cm high and 60cm wide, it has a neat, upright habit that suits pots and sunny garden beds.
The trial plant in the nursery has been flowering for about a month already and should continue through summer and into autumn.
They are said to perform best in full sun to light shade with fertile, free-draining soil.
If our pre-orders are anything to go by, they are sure to be a very popular release this year.
All the well-deserved hype and fanfare surrounding Hydrangea Runaway Bride, the plant of the year for 2025, is another example of just how plants can be tricky when it comes to scheduling their supply.
Although the promotional campaign and initial sales were successful, it was well into late summer this year before there was adequate supply of this much sought-after plant.
This once again bringing home the point that plants are living, growing products rather than items made on an assembly line.
So, once demand outgrows supply, there can be quite a considerable lag time before stock levels can catch up.
With the first new season batch of these arriving this week, we are hoping there are plenty more in the system for the months to come.
So, if you walk into a Garden Centre and cannot find the plant you are looking for, please ask a staff member.
It could quite easily just be between batches rather than not being stocked or out of season, particularly through this fast-growing time of the year.
As a few warm sunny days can see small plants that have been just sitting there looking underdone for months, suddenly burst into growth, bringing them up to a high-quality retail plant ready for your garden.