gift from Shirley Tulip

Fran your fuchsia shape has the making of a Bonsai Fuchsia.

Wonder if your heuchera is Sweet Tea

thanks Scot, ST didn't know, she bought it at a fete years before. I'll check it out. Not sure how big the Fuschia will get, I suppose that depends on the size of hte pot it's kept in until it's big enough to be planted out - and once I find the right place for it

Lovely generous collection, and I do like your little newt!
By the way did you get the mint roots?

it came this afternoon, Stera, thank you so much! not in the ground yet, it got dark before I realised, but it'll go in first thing tomorrow. and htanks for the bulbs, too!

Lovely selection Fran, I was told withwater lilies to put them at the correct height for the leaf to be on the surface and move it deeper as it grows until it reaches an optimum depth.
, it will go dormant soon and I'd be careful if we have a freezing winter, drop it to the bottom of the pond or if really bad remove it to a bucket in a frost free place.
I wouldn't normally suggest this but its just a baby in a very shallow pond

There's so much to learn, Pam! A pond is new to me, and plants in a pond a virtually closed book - I have a Garden Expert on Garden Ponds, and it does say to stand the new plants on bricks and move them down as the plant grows.

This water lily was just a stem, no foliage, so I wasn't sure - and my pond is only eight inches deep, so that's another problem - whatever I do is bound to be wrong!

The books exacly right, the plant is probably dormant.
Try to pop it in a bucket if its a deep frost and put it somewhere frost free, we did with a young reed last year then put it back in early spring, what you don't want is for it to freeze solid it would probably kill it, all gardening I think is trial and error?

good idea, thanks, Pam. I had thought that if the pond turned out not to be deep enough, I'd try a taller bucket-pond.

I'm hoping that the silver floaty ball will also act as an air-space if it freezes over - remember mum putting ping-pong balls in her goldfish pond, not sure how well that'd work.

It didn't freeze here last winter, but that might have been an esceptionj. I've already put some plants in the greenhouse, maybe I could add this in a bucket, that should be enough protection - so long as i keep checking the water level so it's not feeding all the other plants by evaporation!

How kind of Shirley to send you all those plants! You must be very grateful to her for giving them to you.

I have an Heuchera, also given to me by a friend this summer, that looks very similar to yours. It's the first time I've had one of these plants & I hope it will survive our winter out on the balcony. There is no room in the flat for any plants that are not hardy enough to spend the winter outside in a protected corner.

The only exception is the 100s (well, almost!) of Amaryllis I have! Less than a month now before they make their return journey from the allotment back home! There are also at least 20 pots on the balcony as well of my Anglo-American hybrids to take into account as well this year!

I can't believe how nice GoYers are!

I bought my first Heucheras at Lidl; one didn't survive the winter (we had snow in East London, not a common thing!) but the other was able to be saved; now got two of them as I split it last year; Dorjac and CottageKaren had also given me various baby Heuchera, only one of which has survived.

Have you seen the Plantagogo site? So many varieties, all wonderful (and affordable). I can see myself having a whole Heuchera bed, if not a complete garden!

It's a prob if you odn't have "winter storage"; even a small mini-greenhouse would help, but then you've got to make room for it. I don't suppose there's any chance of making some kind of "curtain" for the balcony front of transparent plastic, to help keep off the wind at least??

Heucheras usually do very nicely in the garden earth Fran. They are very tough and also more free from vine weevil attack in the open soil. The five small leaved heucheras I planted at the front of the big bed are in fine fettle...much better than the ones in pots. They bloomed for ages and take up little space. Nice selection of plants from Shirley.

thanks for the tip, Dorjac, I reawlly need to plan the garden, but most of all I really need to get it measured and mapped, so I've got some reliablly accurate plans to work to!

Hi Fran, I am pleased you like the plants ... I was in Devon last week so am playing 'catch-up' on GoY .

Measured and mapped? Goodness, how organised. Mine just sort of happens, which probably explains a lot...

Thanks for the info on the Plantagogo site, Fran! I went along for a look & was surprised at the amount of plants they have! They all look so fabulous I could wish for a big garden & the money to buy them all! LOL!

I'll upload a picture of the only plant I have to my photos page when I finish here.

I've seen a few of these plants around town in the last few years & they have always interested me. I grow very little in the way of perennials on my balcony as I mainly grow summer & spring bedding plants/bulbs which I change twice a year.

In fact we are coming up to the change over in the next few weeks. I've already started making plans for the winter/spring flowering!

@ST - how was Devon? lol not been there this century, maybe not even this millennium!! hope you took lots of pics.

@ Stera - there's bits of bed and slabs of concrete all over hte place with no apparent rhyme or reason: for eg, small bed behind 1st shed, then concrete, then 2nd shed, then another tiny bed, then more concrete ... I want to shift the sheds, but I really need to have dimensions of slabs worked out in advance so that I don't find that they won't go where i want them half way thorugh the move.

And I want to break the garden into "rooms", each with its own theme, so I need to know the dimensions for each; and with my new "chill-out" building project I'll definitely need to know how much room i've got to play withj. the bottom bed has a caurve on the inner side, so the lawn's not a straight line there, and it's all very confusing!!

@ Balcony - Plantagogo is the National Heuchera Collection. the prices are quite reasonable, considering what some others charge, but that makes it easier to spend more (lol i always spend more in pound shops!). They have a dozen or so mini Heuchera, which might be a good place to start; it's where I intend to start, at least - next year, when we've got winter over with - Augst, maybe!.

Wow Fran, what are you going to be doing in your spare time???

lol what's that??

Devon was lovely Fran ... we were in the East part of the county and were fortunate to have had sunny days ... just posted a blog about it.

will scoot straight over!

LOL Fran! ...