Been shopping today

As its been bitterly cold here today, and yet I hate staying in, I decided to do a spot of shopping to cheer myself up.

So off we all went to a big garden centre just a few miles from us. They have a big aquarium shop there too, so the lad got to look at all the colourful fish, and of course we all got to look at the plants and seeds and stuff.

I've bought some stuff in anticipation of spring arriving.

I bought seeds of:
Madia Elegans. This is a new one on me. I'd never even heard of it never mind grown it. It looks pretty in the picture though. Apparently a strongly fragrant member of the sunflower family, tolerant of full sun or part shade, so should be no bother.

Coreopsis Mardi Gras. Had a coreopsis last year, bought as an established plant. It didn't do well where I put it, probably the hottest, driest part of the front garden. Maybe this year I'll do better with it.

Chilean Glory Flower. Again, never grown these before, but I've been looking out for some since I saw them in one of my books. Its an annual climber with very fiery coloured flowers

Sunflower Harlequin. You can't go far wrong with the good old sunflower. This hybrid has lovely fiery colours and apparently grows multiple heads and has a long flowering period. We'll see.

Mediterranean Wildflower mix. Just loads of different wildflower species presumably from the med region. From the picture I can recognise marigolds, gazania, cornflower, possibly chamomile, and loads of sploshes of colour. We'll see what happens.

Chilli, Twilight supposed to be a very hot kind. I like chillis, but I also think they are visually a pretty plant.

Swiss chard, bright lights. I think this is Sutton's version of 'Rainbow chard', which from what I gather is just lots of different colours of chard in the same seed packet. Never grown it before but had my eye on it in the books. On paper it ticks two boxes. It fits in with my kitchen garden plan, and is also pretty enough to be in the flower beds. For that matter, the same can be said for the chillis too I reckon.

We also spotted a nice little touch as we walked in. All the gladioli bulbs were out, along with a load of brown paper bags. The deal was to fill the bag with glad bulbs for £3.49. Sort of a pick-n-mix of gladioli bulbs. So we got a load of them too, in stunning fiery colours. You can't go far wrong with glads. Stick em in the ground and leave em to it.

Now I just have to work out how I'm going to deal with them all if I happen to get a good success rate. I still plan to get loads of veg on the go yet too.

 

Clueless I grew Eccremocarpus Scaber , Chilean glory vine , last year from seed. Germinated in 18 to 41 days quite a slow starter then grows to 6 feet . Nice tube flowers and will last until the first hard frosts - January here. Its a very nice climber

 

I've grown Eccromocarpus scaber for years - the true species is hardy as hell (came through last winter ok, was blooming from the sixth of April right up to mid December((less profusely at that point admittedly))), but I've never grown the Trescoe hybrids so not too sure about them..........

Keep on top of the dead heading though or it will self seed everywhere!

Which reminds me - if anyone wants seed for it, I have several thousand going spare!! That is not an exaggeration either!

 

Now onwards really.
They germinate easily - surface sow, place in placcy bag on the window sill by a radiator and make sure that the surface remains moist. I prick out pretty much as soon as they germinate. I use bamboo skewers from the Asian s/market as support.

I grow mine against a west facing fence.