SHOW US YOUR RECENT PURCHASES 2018

It looks delightful @Sienna's Blossom .

 

Thank you, I love anemones, we have some Japanese
Anemones, but I thought it would be nice to have these lovely ones for Spring.
The colours on these ones in the photo are so gorgeous, very pale lilac, looks whiter in the pic, and then the lovely mauve centres.

 

@Sienna's Blossom I have Japanese Anemone here (pink ) They are very pretty but quite invasive and do nothing about providing food for the pollinators. I dug up a large clump of them last year when I made my new border. I thought I had removed them all. They started regrowing. I dug them out and again thought I had got it all. I hadn't . After my third attempt they are still regrowing, so have given up for time being

Do you find yours are wildlife friendly?

 

We only got ours in September, we got the pink September charm ones, I had already heard they can be invasive but I fell in love with them nonetheless. I think I did see some bees on them, but it'll be interesting to see how they do this year in terms of attracting wildlife.

We also have a very beautiful white swan anemone in our front garden, which we've made into a cottage style garden, where we already also have lots of good wildlife friendly plants.

 

Also, just noticed online they have been given the Rhs perfect for pollinators symbol, so assume they must be reasonably good, especially going into autumn when there's less available to them.
We have clay soil which I think helps slow invasive species, what soil type is yours @luciusmaximus ? I wonder if mine are going to be prolific! Time will tell.

 

Your rose will struggle in the small pot @Loki, it would be better in something the size of a half barrel, but deep to allow for it's root spread.

 

Thanks @Sheal. Would it do for now? Then repot next spring? I could just go and buy a bigger pot if need be? What size should I be looking for? And any ideas for where to get one from that wouldn't involve me taking out a mortgage?
I'm not sure if we're allowed to mention suppliers anymore but i.e. Supermarket, internet etc might give me a clue

 

Roses takes two to three years to settle properly so I would choose a bigger pot now. Planting it in the smaller pot means more disturbance next year. Ideally full size shrub roses are better in the ground as they are hungry and thirsty plants and need the nutrients. Even then they would need feeding at least once a year.

Yes. you can mention suppliers on GC. I noticed that Tesco were selling reasonably cheap plastic half barrels yesterday but theirs weren't really deep enough. Retailers such as B&Q, B&M usually have something at prices that won't hit your pocket to hard. You may even find it's worth a look at Lidl's and Aldi. I would suggest a pot a good 24in/60cm across and at least 30in/76cm deep as a minimum, basically as large as possible for the rose to be 'comfortable'.

Make sure the pot has drainage holes and put some broken crocks or stones in the base to aid that.

 

@Sienna's Blossom I do have some clay here but also patches of loam and patches of sandy soils. The clump I dug out was just in loamy type soil. There's a clump in the front garden, which I haven't got to yet. They may be in clay as they don't seem to have spread as much.

I googled the shrub you bought as not heard of that one. It looks very pretty. Is it wildlife friendly?

 

@luciusmaximus It does look pretty doesn't it, we didn't know what we wanted, but the requirements for that spot were that it was evergreen, compact and flowering. So when we saw this one, it ticked all the boxes! Lovely long flowering period too, 5 months of the year, with the added bonus of interesting foliage colour in Autumn, so a good all rounder really. I can't say how wildlife friendly it is at the moment, although we do try to make sure we think of wildlife as much as we can. It has replaced two euonymus shrubs that had outgrown the space, they've now been relocated elsewhere in the garden, not particularly wildlife friendly although we have a little wren who likes to hop in and around them looking for insects.

One of our plans for the summer is to expand our border and put in lots of nice berry producing shrubs for the birds, maybe Berberis, Skimmia, Pyracantha....

We already have several buddleia (butterfly heaven in the summer!), lavender, verbena bonariensis, scabiosa, and one of my personal favourites, geranium Rozanne, which was covered in bees all summer last year. We also have a sedum, which was good for Autumn pollinators. Oh, and a crab apple tree, was another new addition last year - so fingers crossed that will be good for pollinators in spring and then the birds in Autumn/winter.

 

Today's purchases consist of:

Brugmansia Arborea
Brugmansia Suavolens
Paeonia - Sarah Bernhardt
White Onion - Mamouth Improved
Moroccan Mint
Sage Tricolor
Korma Curry

 

@Sienna's Blossom your garden sounds quite lovely and your planned work very exciting . I look forward to more pics

I have blue, pink, white and burgundy Scabiosa. Recently bought a ' deep blue ' Scabiosa but it may turn out to be just the usual pale blue variety. Time will tell. I also have Roxanne and a couple of others whose names I don't recall off hand. They are pink and purple Geraniums and also good for Bees and Butterflies.

 

Admittedly it' a bit of strange way to arrange a photo. 6 x primrose for £2.99. I should have gone to this place last week.

G.