Becky's Gardening Monthly Subscription Box Experience

Despite only being a subscriber for a few months now, I can honestly say that my The Rose Press Garden subscription box is the post that I look forward to the most each month. There is nothing more exciting than hearing the sound of a small box falling through the letterbox, or returning home to see a beautiful parcel waiting on the doormat. Greater is the excitement of opening so carefully this treasure to see what seeds await, will it be bright and fast annuals to brighten your summer garden, or perennials and biennials to give you anticipation for the next gardening year? Perhaps you may even receive bulbs for early spring colour, or seeds to sow to get a head start on the year ahead.

It is this surprise caused by variation which particularly draws me to The Rose Press Garden subscription box. I love not knowing what I will receive each month, as I am certain that whatever Lizzie chooses will fit in with my wildlife friendly cottage garden. Colour palettes tend to sway towards pinks, whites, purples and blues – with a few brighter colours thrown in too, my exact taste! As a fairly new gardener, I love the exposure the box provides regarding different varieties and kinds of plants. Before taking out my subscription I didn’t know what maanzaad poppies were, I didn’t know that you could have white calendula and pink nasturtiums, and I certainly didn’t realise you could grow lupins from seed!

While this introduction to totally new and exciting flowers may be daunting to some, the helpful (and extremely beautiful) instruction cards provided with each seed packet gives so much more insight into the seeds you are sowing than any other seed company I have previously used. Not only are you provided with clear sowing times and instructions, you are also given helpful information regarding the climate the plant prefers and interesting info about what you are growing. The funny gardening related sayings on the reverse are a bonus too! The how to videos on Instagram and the website are also invaluable, there’s nothing like watching someone else do something before you give it a go! 

Personally, I love The Rose Press Garden partly because Lizzie is such an amazing figurehead behind the brand and its subscription. Her garden is filled with plants grown from seed, the same varieties as are sent out in the subscription box. It is so beautiful, so seeing pictures of it on Instagram makes me just want to grow the same flowers as her! She always gives such great advice on Instagram and her website, and I have asked any questions I have had about my seeds. Always I receive a helpful response, and always she is right! This informal and friendly yet professional approach to The Rose Press Garden is something so rare and so special, and I am a firm believer in her ethos that gardening is for young people too!

I feel it is so important now more than ever to support small businesses, and this subscription is a perfect example of a business so worthy of support. I have rarely received parcels as beautifully packaged and as carefully wrapped as my monthly seeds, you can really see the care and effort put into making each box of the highest quality. While it may seem an extra expense per month, I can honestly say that it is completely justified. (I honestly can, given as I am 16 and still at school!) This is due to the high quality of the seeds; I have never had such high germination rates from any other company. I am sure any gardener would agree that growing from seed is certainly cheaper than buying from the garden centre! An amount of every order also goes to the gardening charity ‘Greenfingers’ and the work they do is incredible, so I am thrilled to be supporting their cause through my subscription.

I garden a lot in pots, and have started for the first time this year a cut flower bed. My subscription has been paramount for the success of both my courtyard garden and my cut flowers, as I have been able to fill my garden with both cottage garden favourites and new, more unusual varieties. Previously, I would have thought that by June and July you had totally missed the boat for sowing seed until the Autumn -I couldn’t have been more wrong! Through TRPG I have discovered direct sowing, which I have done in earnest for the first time this year. It has changed seed sowing for me, things grow so quickly and I am able to plug any gaps in my cut flower bed with fast growing annuals, helpfully provided in my subscription. I sowed some calendula ‘snow princess’ in May as cut flowers, and with any luck they’ll be flowering and ready to pick by August. (Of course, I wouldn’t have known that they made good cut flowers if not for the instruction card provided with the seeds!)

The Rose Press Garden subscription is a brilliant investment to make for your garden, I know without it my garden would certainly be less colourful. And what is more enjoyable or more rewarding as a gardener than growing from seed?