More Plants :D

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Well since the last (and first) blog I posted about the sunny border, things have certainly changed. As a quick reminder by the end of the last blog I had cleared the sunny border and dug a fair amount of fresh (well as fresh as it comes from the tip :P) compost into the border and planted a dianthus, two salvia’s and aster and a plant I had from my nan whose name escapes me. S something is about all I can remember lol.

Since then I’ve been shopping once or twice :D. First time was with my mum, she told me she’d seen 3 Hebe’s in B&Q for £5! She said she didn’t buy them because she thought I might get upset! I may have pointed out that there is no way I would get upset at someone buying plants for me :D but I may be a little unhappy if I didn’t get to plant them lol. Well anyway I went back with her one night and we (or should I say my lovely kind and generous mother) picked up:

3 Hebes and a Gentian Septemfida

Echinea Rubinstern

Phlox Flame Purple Eye and an Astible Ellie

Picture me a very very happy girl. The following week I spotted the plant man on the market by work and he had a nice little Cordyline Australis. Despite the fact that we have now lost two Cordyline’s I couldn’t resist and it came home with me :D

A week later off I went to Homebase for some ericaceous soil to give the Rhododendrons. Yeah, probably should not have let me out as I came home with 30 Violas (£2.80!!!!!), 5 New Guinea Impatiens (it was a flat of 6 but the 5th one was mush – well they were 50% off), a White Cosmos (also reduced), Curly leaf parsley, sage and Oregano

Hehehe have you spotted the thing I missed?? Yep you guessed it, the soil lol. Oh well I guess I’ll have to go back wont I :P

I had such fun planting them all up. All but the herbs and cordyline were planted in the sunny border and this was the result:

Since the Violas were planted the one plant gave me a lovely surprise when it flowered:

Two colours in what looks like a single plant. Love it.

The Cordyline I planted in the big pot that housed the last cordyline and the herbs went in a smaller pot, which I think had previously held herbs. The pots were a complete mess:

so I cleared them out and refilled them with fresh potting compost.

Since there were a number of ferns and a grassy things growing in the big pot I potted them up as well into some of the plastic pots my new plants came in to see how they got on, so far so good. I also saved a bit of another plant that we think may be marjoram to see if it picked up. Have to say its not looking too good at the moment. I’ll have to see how it goes.

After all the work (fun) planting my many plants I turned my attention to the trellis on the deck. I’d been slowly working on trimming the ivy back a bit so it stopped trying to climb in our house or my neighbours and also started getting the dead clematis out. I also started removing the dead and particularly bad bits of honeysuckle. Unfortunately I clipped a branch or two I hadn’t intended to remove and its not looking quite as bushy (albeit an unwell bushy) as it used too.

Ooops. Hopefully it will come back and better than it has been. Since I posted a question about what ailled my poor plant I wont bore you again.

Last Thursday we took my nan out for the day to celebrate her birthday. Much to my delight we found a lovely little garden centre at the craft place we went to and there I brought my mom some more herbs (she’s always wanted a herb garden – she’s planted one before but it died):

Rosemary, mint and thyme.

Everytime I see all the herbs together I can’t help but sing “sage, rosemary and thyme. remember me as one who lived there, she was once a true love of mine”. Lol well I suppose some people do tell you to talk to your plants :D.

I haven’t been able to plant them yet as I ran out of compost with the big pot. I am hoping to get chance to pop to Homebase after work on Saturday to get some. I may also go in search of another blue pot to go with the first herb pot. We do have a couple of pots that will work, but I like the idea of matching pots for the herbs.

I’m thinking about getting some hyacinth bulbs and some annuals to plant in one or two of the other pots. I thought it would look quite nice with the annuals now to brighten the deck up and the spring bulbs comming up next year. I can then plant some more annuals (which I plan to grow from seed) once the spring bulbs die down.

On a slightly seperate note, I gave people something to stare at Sunday morning. My nan had told me on Saturday that her cousin who lives just round from us had been commenting on nans japanese anenomes. Nan offered her one of the plants she had at the bottom of the garden. Its grown to about 3 foot hight. I didn’t want my nan or her cousin struggling to dig it out so popped round in the morning to dig it out (only chance I would have for a few weeks – if I left it I’m sure nan would have struggled with it). Cor blimey you wouldn’t believe how tough it was. I was litterally stood on the spade jumping up and down (a little wobbly) trying to dig in the earth. We finally got them out and free of tangleweed, only to find the pots weren’t deep enough :S. Never fear one plastic fruit bag (the type you get in the supermarket for loose fruit and veg) and the hessian wrap from the new tree later and we had a makeshift, not very good pot. The roots had some soil but no where near enough. So rather than risk leaving it, nan phoned to check they were in and I walked round with it. Lol the plant reached about a foot above my head. How often do you see what looks like 7 foot of plant walking down the road lol, not to mention the gardening gloves stuck in my back pocket. As you can imaging I got some very funny looks. Wish I’d thought to get a photo. Nans cousin was very pleased and rather excited at getting her new plant. Just hope it survives the transfer.

It was so nice to see someone else getting excited by a new plant. My family think I’m bonkers getting excited over a new plant, or spending so much time with my plants. Ah well at least its only my brother actually telling me I’m weird lol.

Oops this turned out to be a pretty long blog, hope I didn’t bore you.

• 23 Aug, 2011
• 7 likes

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