Show Us Your Recent Purchases 2019

Well, I was looking for a good spot for it. I found one, but it was already occupied, by this...

 

Ah well, it’s a nice plant, so I now have one out front. Been thinking of converting it from a flower border to perennials anyway

 

I went to Diss auction this morning and as usual was attracted to the plant section on the meadow. The plants are sold before the outdoor lots which include everything from bikes, garden equipment and tools, reclaimed artefacts and the usual tat that goes for a song.

I bought three large phormiums, 8 pink gaura and 20 Bishops Children dahlias. When I got them home I re-potted the the gauras into larger pots to overwinter. I know it's late to buy dahlias but they were such a bargain (20 for £6 I couldn't resist). They were too big for their pots and top heavy so they've been re-potted and pinched out. I'll either enjoy them in their pots or maybe plant out to give late summer colour in the cutting patch.

I then walked round the garden looking for suitable places for the phormiums. I like the shape of them and being evergreen they add structure to the winter garden.

I enjoyed my morning at the auction - the sale grounds have been refurbished recently and the cafe has been gentrified so having the obligatory tea and bacon roll is a pleasant experience now. The characters haven't changed and the diversity of the people at this unique country auction always astounds me. Overheard by a lady loading a large amount plants into her 4x4 "I don't know what my gardener will say when he sees this lot but we do have 15 acres to plant up".

Phormium "Jester"
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Sounds like a fun as well as a rewarding morning out, @alana - I do love a good local auction!

 

Nice Alana.
Jester is good one ..I have a few phormiums here too....Dazzler, Yellow Wave, Tricolour, Cream Delight, Sundowner, Bronze Baby, Alison Blackman......so clearly I like ‘em just a little bit
The National Dahlia collection is down here, not far from me, and I usually go there at the end of August for bargain dahlias.
Always meant to visit Bressingham Gardens ....near you, isn’t it?

The lady with 15 acres! A friend of mine with just 6 acres would go to the garden centres, nurseries etc., and buy the lot. Everything she fancied despite me saying not to. “Never had money, always had to extend her overdraft” etc ......

Plant order arrived today incl Alstromeria Rock n Roll (courtesy of Marley, thanks Marley, who published a picture of hers and tempted me)...... too wet to take a picture as it is potted on and left outside. I need now to find a suitable place for it; it’s not exactly a shy retiring thing

 

We bought this fountain today from a discount warehouse. It was reduced from £55 to £18. Being plastic it looks and feels a bit cheap. Also there is always the worry of whether the screws are going to thread properly without snagging. It came with an extra bit which is supposedly a support bar. There is no logical place to fit it and it works perfectly well without it.

The cable is ridiculous short which means I can only put it where it us in this picture.




I was hoping to stand it somewhere near the elephant. Assuming that I have to leave it where it is, I'll have to see if I can landscape around it somehow.

G.

 

I thought I’d better show my box full of delights from last week.

They are having to stay in their pots and packing box for a little while longer, until i get to return to Belgium, but looking happy!


16 Secret Garden plants, minus the 3 festucas (which are now sporting a leaf each, so progress!), plus 3 herbaceous perennials from Aldi (an agastache, a salvia and a verbena boriensis)

 

Nice to see the agastaches Sian.....should be planted more I think

 

Ooh, the pollinators are gonna love you, Sian! ;o) Which Verbena bonariensis did you get, the species or the dwarf? Love that plant, first I grew from seed as an adult.

Nick

 

Ordered this one today...

Eupatorium cannabinum | hemp agrimony/RHS Gardening

Have heard so much about these being butterfly magnets and should do well in my heavy clay with the addition of a bit of coarse grit. :o) Was hoping to grow a Choisya ternata there but sometimes you just have to give up with adapting the soil and just go with what it naturally loves.

Nick

 

It’s the species. I have a few plants slowly establishing, including some plants popping up in the compost on the veg bed. I wanted to boost the numbers.... I also have a dwarf one, and I’m wondering whether the two will hybridise?
Glad you spotted my desire to keep the insects happy!!

 

Put it this way, have never had it happen here and am growing 'Lollipop' and have many stray ones of the species popping up, despite it being many years since I grew it! Lazy sod here, so I think I'd notice with all the 'weeds' being allowed to do their own thing!

Nick