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.

thompson and morgan email

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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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.

thompson and morgan logo

thompson and morgan email

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.

perennial offer

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.

perennial offer description

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.

plug plants

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.

module trays

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……