Derwen Garden Centre, Welshpool

Our parents had given us some money as an anniversary present so we thought we’d treat ourselves to some plants for the garden. So, as part of our anniversary day out we went to Derwen Garden centre near Welshpool.

Derwen Garden Centre is actually one of three sites, that as far as we can tell are owned by the same people. There is the Garden Centre and Farm Shop that we went to, the Dingle Garden and Nursery and the Dingle Wholesale Nursery.

Dingle Garden

We’d been to the Dingle Garden and Nursery before. It is an internationally acclaimed, four-acre RHS garden on a wooded slope with a large lake at its centre. It’s a lovely place to wander around with new things to explore at every turn and a garden that encourages you to look around the next corner. However as we’d been there before and had some money to spend we though we’d visit the garden centre instead.

Derwen Garden Centre

The garden centre is an independent family business billed as having a “friendly and relaxed atmosphere for all to enjoy”. We found this to be true and enjoyed wandering around it just as much as wandering around the RHS garden itself.

On our way in our eyes were drawn to a couple of bird baths. We’ve been meaning to add a bird bath to the garden for a while and have a spot in mind so we had a look at these, but then saw a really nice water feature made from a twisted column of stone. We certainly liked it but it needed to be switched on in order for water to be present and it didn’t have a pool of water. As we wanted it to function as a garden feature, a bird bath and a water source for the bees this wasn’t ideal.

We continued on around the garden centre which has a large variety of plants from large container grown trees through to alpines, with everything in between. What’s more, all the plants were healthy and they all made us want to buy them and add them to the garden. Spending our anniversary money was going to be easy, even though the plants were reasonably priced. Deciding what not to buy was going to be a little more difficult.

Themed Gardens

As well as the plants for sale, the garden centre also has a selection of themed gardens. Having been involved in the making of medal winning gardens at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show the owners decided to create their own themed gardens to give visitors the “Chelsea experience all year round”. They have 15 themed gardens all of which are very different and offer inspiration for your own garden. We liked parts of almost all of them and having never been to Chelsea or any other garden show for that matter we were impressed by how much they can fit into a small area without it feeling cramped.

I’m not sure if I’ll use any specific features of any of the themed gardens in our garden, but it has made me think that maybe certain areas don’t need quite so much space and that I could create smaller paths in amongst more planting areas. It’s also shown me that we need some more height in the garden, which is difficult to achieve here on a windswept coast. Come to think of it their seaside garden didn’t have much in the way of height and was the most ‘open’ of the themed gardens.

We then stopped for a coffee and cake – a very relaxed coffee and cake by our standards as Morgan wasn’t with us. Once again we were impressed with the cafe and the prices weren’t extortionate as they often can be in such places.

Maze

After wandering around a little more and thinking about the water-feature / bird bath idea we found the maze in the middle of the garden centre and lost ourselves in it for 10 minutes!

Water Feature

We then formulated a plan and started spending money! The idea was to buy a pot that the twisted column water feature could stand in. The pot would act as a pool that would fill with water then overflow into a sump below. This would mean that when the pump was on the twisted column water feature effect would be seen in all it glory but even when it was switched off there would still be a shallow pool of water providing a water source for garden wildlife.

We picked a pot and asked staff if it would work. They were very helpful, understood what we wanted to achieve, told us about the pitfalls of such a plan and said that it should work. They then priced up the necessary equipment for us, let us think about it and then when we decided to go for it headed off to get all of the components ready for us: Sump, grill, grill access cover, tubing, pump, bowl and the twisted column of stone.

Value For Money

When it came to time to pay, they threw in a piece piping for free, knocked off 5% from the total price even though we didn’t ask them to (although to be fair the only twisted column water feature that they had was the one that had been assembled and on show – so maybe that was why), and then helped us load it into the car. Well, they were going to, but the guy who was going to had gone for lunch so we had to go back in and get someone else to help. At this point they gave us 3 Penstemons for free as well for ‘keeping us waiting’ – despite the fact that we hadn’t been waiting at all!

All in all we were very impressed. Yes we spent more money than we had planned to, but not huge amounts in the grand scheme of things and only because they had a nice selection of products at reasonable prices and were very helpful. They also went the extra mile and made you feel like a valuable customer – not something you always get at garden centres. We will be back and fully recommend it to anyone else.

Of course, now we’re back home have dug the hole for the sump and started assembling the water feature, it hasn’t been all plain sailing, but I’ll save that story for another blog post – The water feature isn’t ready for public viewing quite yet as we need a longer electric lead and some concrete to make it stable.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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