Cheerio Wilko

[David Pilling]

"Wilko (Wilkinson) is a British high-street retail chain which sells homewares and household goods."

Today all hope of saving the chain has been lost and all 400 stores will close. Wilko sold a huge amount of gardening material, tools, seeds, compost, greenhouses, seed trays and plants.

In particular they sold bulbs, and boasted of having used the same Dutch supplier for 60 years. Some years there were enormous quantities of bulbs which they'd sell off at low prices at the end of the season.

What interests me, is that the business has been in administration for a month, suppliers would not allow new stock to get into their hands. Wilko would typically have lots of bulbs of their own specification and packaging. Where have those bulbs gone?

One Wilko bulb even made it on to the PBS Forum:

https://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbsforum/index.php?msg=781

So it may be that if you're in Europe you'll find "blue parrot" tulips appearing in Aldi or Lidl.

It's a bit like Woolworth (UK version) (which went bust in 2008) if you could you'd find that a large proportion of the plants still in gardens in the UK originated from Woolworth.