BLOOMIN’ GREAT – Your easy to understand phrase book if you’re heading to the garden centre this Easter bank holiday

WANDERING into a garden centre can feel like arriving in a foreign country without a phrase book.

As part of its Make It Bloom campaign, British Garden Centres wants to change that by sharing knowledge and language of the garden centre floor.

Annual: A plant that completes its entire life cycle within a single year. Annuals grow, flower, set seed, and then finish.

Biennial: This type of plant takes two years to complete its life cycle, growing leaves in year one and flowering in year two.

Deciduous: Put simply, this is a tree or shrub that sheds its leaves at the end of the growing season and grows them back the following year.

Ericaceous: A plant that thrives in acidic soil, which has a low pH. Blueberries, Camellias, Azaleas and Rhododendrons are all ericaceous plants.

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Half Hardy: These plants can tolerate low temperatures, but they need protecting when hard frosts arrive.

Hardy: The gardener’s dream: plants that can handle even the coldest British winters without any extra help from you.

Herbaceous: A plant that dies back down to the ground over winter but pushes up fresh new growth each spring.

Perennial: Comes back year after year, season after season. Unlike annuals, you plant a perennial once and enjoy it for many years.

Tender: Plants that will not survive a frost outdoors, like dahlias, begonias and bananas. Tender plants need to come indoors or into a frost-free greenhouse before the first cold snap.

Shrub: A woody plant that is smaller than a tree and typically branches from the base rather than from a single trunk. Hardy shrubs need little attention once established, making them one of the best investments you can make in your garden.

Understanding plant labels

Every plant in a British Garden Centres store carries a label that tells you at a glance what that plant needs to thrive. Here is a straightforward guide to the ones you’ll see most often.

Full Shade: This plant can survive on minimal direct sunlight, making it ideal for shady corner spots, and east or north facing gardens where the sun rarely reaches.

Partial Sun / Shade: Thrives in early morning or late afternoon sun but needs shelter from harsh midday rays.

Full Sun: Perfectly at home in dry, hot conditions.

Bee symbol: Plants carrying this symbol will attract bees and butterflies into your garden.

Grown by Us: When you see the British Garden Centres ‘Grown by Us’ badge, those plants were nurtured from the very start in our own nursery.

Julian Palphramand, Head of Plants at British Garden Centres, said: “We want every person who visits one of our centres to leave feeling more inspired and more confident than when they arrived, and that starts with making our world easy to understand.”