Bargains!

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Always one for a bargain when it comes to plants, I can’t resist a reduced section at the garden centre or a table outside someones house selling plants. Mind you the latter is usually not the bargain you might think. The plants that get potted and sold are often the ones that will take over the garden given the chance! But having said that I have bought some beautiful plants on the side of the road in the past.
Long before the lockdown and enforced stay at home, our local Garden centre was selling off their bulbs for a £1 a pack. Now when faced with packs of Tete-a-Tete, pink frilly tulips, Hyacinths and Anemone Blanda so cheaply, it would be wicked not to indulge.
They were all shooting and probably destined for the compost bin, so an awful lot had to come home with me! Put in really late, but with the flowering stored from last year, they just put on their show later, now I will have to feed them up in the garden for next year.
These are the Tete-a-Tete and some stunning dark purple Hyacinths.

These tulips were super but going over now, they were amongst pink Hyacinths and a real bargain.

The pink Hyacinths that flowered earlier.

And these ones are from previous years and now live in the garden.

Poor sad little Polyanthus plants that were in a broken section tray and cost £1 for a pack of twelve.
The bulbs were not quite so successful, they were lying about in a flowerpot and got thrown in with the plants, but all look blind this year. Into the garden for next year to naturalise and flower if they want to. The Polyanthus are also in an old metal wheelbarrow and looking good.

Other bargains are of course the plants that you grow and split into new plants, Dicentra – sorry it will always be Dicentra to me!

The glorious blue of this, is it a Veronica? It has been split so many times the garden is overflowing with it!

All of these are self-seeded in the woodland-ish path and will have to be moved, apart from the nettles which might have to go! This is quite shaded and all the books tell you that Cowslips like full sun and light soil, but these seed like mad on clay and are quite happy, though I have sat on a Derbyshire hillside (in the distant past) amongst Cowslips growing on so little depth of soil it’s amazing. So what do they really like?

Two I did indulge in as though I have have hundreds of Foxgloves, most are purple, and though I don’t mind that and the fact they seed everywhere, I thought another colour would be good. Not sure if these are going to seed or if they are hybrids, not checked that bit!

This plant, what we always called Cineraria, but now a Senetti apparently was one of those impulse buys a couple or three years ago. I seem to remember someone wrote a blog on them saying that they never stayed alive. Mine didn’t either, it succumbed to the different temperature in the house to that it was used to in the plantsman’s greenhouse. It got put outside and survived the winter, then last year it got planted (stuffed into) the small bed near the back door, shaded all afternoon, and ignored. Of course it has thrived like these things do when ignored and has spread and is flowering happily. Not sure it would survive a bad winter, which we haven’t really had.

Now for an indulgence and a mystery.
A few years back we went to Wisley for our wedding anniversary outing (more my treat that OH’s) and saw the Hosta White Feather. Naturally it was a ‘I want’ plant and eventually I got two, possibly from Parkers, but not sure.
They grew happily in their pots but then got eaten by slugs! When they re-grew they were green. Last year they got put in the bed near the pond and this year they are the cream they are supposed to be.

This blog was started to prove to all the people who ask the question “Can I plant old or shooting bulbs?” The story is you can, they might not flower as early as the rest and might have a rest the following year, but I bought packs of bulbs that were originally between £3.99 and £6.99 for £1! Now to me that’s a bargain and they will come again some time.

I can’t end this blog without a picture of one of the boys, firstly in full show-off mode, even if all he has to pose to are pigeons! And one of the boys again on some logs which I put against the Greengage tree to stop him sitting on the garden and my plants – and it’s working!

Thank you for reading this far, once I get started I do tend to ramble on!
Have fun in the garden, balcony, patio or flowerpots and may you and yours stay safe.

• 1 May, 2020
• 7 likes

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