Temptation, oh temptation...!

Very nice. Like you, I say every year that I won't have as many pots this year but O think I still have about 25 .some with perennials, some with annuals, others with veg etc etc....But, I have gien up on hanging baskets be ause no one ever waters hem well enough for me whe. I'm away!

Thanks Paul. I have to agree I sigh a little when I realise that I'm letting myself in for all that watering again! I have slightly fewer baskets these days, and like you, my pots have gradually filled up with other things, so that I'm tucking one or two plants into odd spaces just for the season. I do so love all the colour pots provide, and the freedom to be able to move them around.

Give them a good drink, and cover the surface with Bark Chippings, stand on a plant saucer. Retains moisture.
Saves work.

Thanks for the tip, Diane :-)

oh so pretty - I too can never resist when I walk through the garden centre, I am hopeless, it is an addiction with plants, there must be a group we could join to get us through it, oh yes I know it is GoY we belong to it already, afraid it didn't work. lol I must try harder. lol :O)

The problem - as with most addictions, I suppose - is that we enjoy it too much!

With regard to moving the pots around, Melchisedec, I do sometimes use pots to cheat and fill gaps in the borders when things like my early Oriental Poppies are finished! I already have some pots of Lillies sunk in the borders which will be replaced by other pots when finished flowering!

Garden looking lovely and lush! Many of us here make the same resolution every year, quickly to broken on the first visit to the garden center or nursery. GOY is only making my addiction stronger! :) I saw your Heuchera and thought, 'I should get different coloured ones too. This one will surely brigten up that space more than the maroon one!"

The garden is looking lovely and I bet the wildlife love all that lush growth. I am glad that I am not the only one that leaves some of the Herb Robert to flower, it's so pretty, both the leaves and the flowers. Sadly I do forget about it and it seeds everywhere, but easy enough to pull up, if you can bear it! Lots of the wild flowers (weeds) get left in my garden as it's so sad to see that they no longer have a place in the countryside, being blitzed out of existence. All those tiny flowering plants that used to creep through the corn and feed the insects are gone, no insects, no English partridge to hide in the corn. Not that I am expecting a partridge to call, but the bees seem to love the tiny flowers as much, or more, than the big blowsy ones.
I agree with Paul, I try not to do much with pots as I forget to water them - can't even blame anyone else!
You asked for some sun, but would you really just sit? I bet you would be up, just weeding this bit, moving that plant or seeing where you could cram yet another plant!

Lovely garden. All looking lush and healthy.....and I love your baby bath pond.:)

Sending sympathy Susanne . . . we're obviously all as "bad" as each other. But we love our addiction really! Superb blog :))

Lovely blog, your fuschia hanging basket is very pretty. We're all plant addicts here aren't we, or we wouldn't be on GoY! Fun though isn't it;)

I like the different parts of your garden.
I'm glad you bought lots of plants. It's like me lol but it does one good to buy plants :o))

Thanks Anujag, Honeysuckle, Cosmosjane, Sheila, Louisa and Hywel! I didn't think I was alone in succumbing to temptation!

With regard to moving pots, Paul, last year I put my almost finished baskets at the back of one of the borders. The containers and the rather ragged plants were disguised by foliage in the beds and I got another month of colour. But I suppose you can only do that if the backs of the borders are a bit jungly. Mine are thanks to ivy, small hollies - and weeds!

I got sun today all right, Honeysuckle, and no - I didn't sit much at all! I had a lovely time, and found homes for all those plants. All I have left to plant now (until next time of course!) are a couple of dozen cosmos I have grown from seed. They are in pots, quite ok, but I'm a bit wary of putting them in the borders just yet in case they are eaten by some of the wildlife I am so keen to encourage! The bees definitely prefer the small flowers and as you say, some of them are so pretty. My garden is full of wildflowers - I just love them. I just have to keep on top of them though, or they'd take over! I am currently attempting to develop a meadow on my two smallish front "lawns". I am careful to mow a border round the edge so that people don't think I've just given up. I've never tried it before, so I shall be interested to see how it goes. Watch this space!

You're quite right Hywel - plant buying definitely does one good!

Thank you, Homebird. I am currently developing two meadow areas on my smallish front "lawns". I am interested to see how they evolve. I have experimented with not mowing (except the edges, to show that I am taking an interest!) for about three years. It's quite surprising to see what pops up. It's not exactly conventional front garden management, but as there are walls at the front, even though they're not more than about 3 ft high, nobody sees anything until they're on top of it. I rather like it, and no-one else has made any remarks, so we shall see. Next door on one side is gravel with a border on two sides, and the other side is concrete paving with a border on two sides. We are the only house in the whole road without a driveway.

I will put a photo up, even though it's not terribly interesting at the moment (well - it is to me - you know what I mean!) One of the problems is that one of the lawns is really deep in mossy thatch - about two inches. I have scraped it up in a few places and sown some mixed meadow seeds, but I'm not very hopeful. I have transplanted a few things from the back - poppies and herb robert among them, and they seem to have taken quite well. On the other lawn, there is less moss and herb robert has seeded itself. There is even a cowslip which has just appeared all on its own. It is setting seed at the moment, so I'm hoping some will take. There are also some bluebells which have seeded from the narrow border under the wall. It has bluebells in the Spring and montbretia in late summer. Nothing much else will grow there.

Terrific blog & very informative for the likes of me, Melchisdec.
Much obliged. :-)

I am glad you enjoyed the blog, Mouldy, and glad you found it informative. At the moment, I'm just concentrating on keeping the most vulnerable watered! The water butts are almost empty, so soon I'll be filling the can from the tap - I no longer possess a hose. I even wash the car with rainwater ( actually that's a lie : now we have a Zafira - only since May, so forgive the untruth - I can't reach the roof, so I go to the car wash!)

We're lucky, in Scotland...water's free.
Rather than clamber up the stairs I just knock on one of the ground floor flats to fill my buckets.
Very handy.

We aren't metered, Mouldy - "only" pay a water rate. I try very hard to save water, though. My plants have got used to digging deep for it, I guess. I just have to watch the annuals - and the containers, of course. I think you deserve to get your water from the neighbours!

Beer, wine & vodka, too. Lol

Oh, yeah...! ;-)