My 72 perennials have arrived!

Posted on by Sarah 11 Comments

Just in time for the Easter weekend and my special offer perennials have arrived, those of you who regularly follow my blog know that I am very impulsive over buying plants. When a Thompson and Morgan email hit my in box with a one day special, 72 perennials for £9.99 I couldn’t resist.

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So today they finally arrived, little plug plants a mere 2 or 3 cm tall with with great potential to be full grown flowering plants by the summer.

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All the plants are great for adding lots of summer colour, year on year, to attract insects particularly bees.

My first job was a quick trip to the garden centre to buy multipurpose compost as I ran out only yesterday! Not really looking forward to the prospects of a garden centre on a rainy Easter Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t actually too busy.

Back home and straight to the greenhouse to start potting on. I tend to use pots with 6 or 10 cells and at this stage put a couple of plugs in each cell. This is for 2 reasons, mainly because I run out of space if I have too many pots, but also it uses less compost at this stage and if the plants get too big before the summer, I can always divide them again before planting them out.

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Lovely rich multipurpose compost, put into the cells and watered well ready to receive the plugs.

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I use a dibber to make just the correct sized hole, which means the plug drops in beautifully without too much fuss.

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Once in, press the compost around the plug and onto the next, only 71 more to go…..

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An hour or so later all 72 are potted on, with labels added and another good watering done. Now just to check on them daily, watering when needed (every day) and hey presto by May 1/2 term we’ll be ready to plant them out in the garden.

I’ll let you know how I get on……

Sarah x

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Best Days out – Burford Garden Centre

Posted on by Sarah 6 Comments

Burford is a beautiful little Cotswold market town on the A40 between Gloucester and Oxford. It has gorgeous historic buildings and lots of little independent shops and cafes to visit. Just on the outskirts however is a hidden little gem of a garden centre. Well I say garden centre in the loosest terms as apart from the beautiful displays as you approach,

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it is a good while into your visit before you really see the plants for sale. Not a bad thing in my opinion as there are so many delightful finds which all compliment the plants.

The gorgeous gift and home wares are divided into sections as you move around the store.

Whether it is Art and Antiques & Collectibles;

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Or cosmetics and bath products

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All the items are displayed in such beautiful unique display cabinets. Each area is well defined with the best of products stocked.

Lots of the items are handcrafted by local crafts people and artists.

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The delicious candle section smells lovely and again stocks unusual and often unique products.

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There is a clothing section stocking brands such as Joules, Hunter, and other well known brands along with the more unusual such as these Christys top hatsimg_6843

There is a section selling vintage china, a perfect place for a rummage through all the different colours and patterns to find just the pieces for you. Everything is so beautifully well displayed you can easily find just the perfect thing.

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Finally getting to plants..again so well displayed there is so much inspiration to be gained at every corner. One of my favourite indoor plants is the orchid, here they have a large orchid section and I have never seen them displayed quite like this before.

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Whether its ferns, pots, baskets, house plants there is something for everyone.
img_6840img_6828img_6829And eventually getting outside to the array of colour and variety again you can’t fail to be impressed with how everything is so well displayed.

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Exhausted you will want to visit their award winning cafe for hot meals, snacks or cakes.

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Of course there were many more departments selling lots more individual items, I think I’ve probably only touched the surface here, so I would thoroughly recommend a visit so you can see for yourself just how unusual this hidden gem is….

A quick tip for ensuring summer colour in your garden this year

Posted on by Sarah Leave a comment

I know it’s only February but it’s time to be thinking about the summer garden. I had a little mooch around the garden this weekend despite the strong winds and drizzly rain and was very shocked to see that one or two of my perennials, which were trying to throw up new shoots, had already been eaten! Oh no disaster! if these plants can’t get started we are certainly not getting any summer colour from them.

Tip – get out there this weekend and put slug pellets around any emerging plants. Snails have been hibernating all winter by burying into the soil and slugs which have been dormant whilst the temperatures have been below 5° are suddenly starting to emerge already. If you can kill them now before they lay eggs …..double wammy!Now I know the purists amongst you may disagree with slug pellets, harmful if birds eat the dead slugs and snails. Although I’ve never actually seen evidence of this for myself, I do still go out each morning and pick up any dead slugs and snails and put them in the bin. Result – I put the slug pellets around on Thursday evening, Friday morning I collected at least 10 adult slugs and snails, hmmm maybe my perennials are safe again….for the time being.
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Garden Bargain – Act fast- today only

Posted on by Sarah Leave a comment

“How do you get your garden so colourful” I get asked this on a fairly regular basis during the summer months.

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The answer of course is that I plant lots of flowering plants which attract all the bees and insects which in turn go on to pollinate more and so the cycle goes on. One of the easiest ways of starting this is by using perennials which flower each year, die off over winter and come back healthier and stronger the following year. After a while you have lots of lovely colour from plants which largely speaking look after themselves.

I was so pleased to receive an email this morning from one of my favourite website suppliers Thompson and Morgan promoting a 24hr offer.

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I thought I would share this offer with you as it is the perfect was to get your perennial flowers started.

The offer is 72 plug plants (only tiny when they arrive) of varying types of perennial. There are 6 of each type that will be fully flowering by the summer.

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The offer works out at 14p per plant, which by the time they are fully grown in the garden center they would be typically £2.50 per plant.

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Ordered now the plug plants won’t be delivered until around April time, which is perfect as when you receive them of course there is some work to do.

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Its not as easy as receiving your plants, planting them and hey presto, you will have to pot them on. I put them into module trays filled with compost, both of which can be purchased cheaply from shops such as Wilkinsons and put them in the greenhouse.

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If you don’t have a greenhouse, a sunny windowsill will work just as well.

If you water them regularly, they will be ready to plant out in May. I tend to use the May 1/2 term holiday for planting all my summer colour, that way I know the risk of frost has passed.

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And hey presto, a lovely flowery garden for the summer, and summers to come……