I decided to go and get another couple of bags of multi purpose compost on Saturday and popped into a few charity shops (nothing found) in my circular trip round avoiding road closures. The Age Concern charity shop just out of Stowmarket has a Poundstretcher store next door and out the front was a load of fruit trees for sale and somehow I found myself buying a good sized Bramley Apple for £8.99. Worth a go at fitting it in somewhere at that price.
The garden centre had primroses at 99p each - so I got 3 of those (primroses and primula are another plant nearly absent from the garden) and a couple of packets of bee-friendly wild flower seeds too. Never had any luck with growing wildflowers from seed before but I'm ever hopeful. I've also got some that came with the bee identification chart from Friends Of The Earth last year. I'm thinking to sow all these seeds in the bare earth under the Minarette apple trees. They won't take a lot of nutrients from the apple trees and I'll know exactly where I've sown them.
From the garden catalogue, which I've been happily perusing, I'm not going to get Alstromeria after all
The sunniest border in the back garden is the bit under the living room window which is still full of Hebe-geebies. Next year I'll concentrate on replacing at least two of the three with something I like better.
Garden catalogues are a disaster on the bank balance - what a good thing I'm not also addicted to clothes, make up, handbags and house furnishings.................but"only" books and plants!
Back Tomorrow
Sue
As addictions go, it's a very useful one! I'm addicted to getting things for the caravan....but in my defence, they are almost always second hand.
ReplyDeleteI just can't resist planting things!
DeleteThis year I'm concentrating on learning to grow veg. I've planted a few spring bulbs, but I'm not sure I can manage flowers as well. We got three cheap fruit trees a while back. The plum died-but the apple and pear have been good.
ReplyDeleteAfter 40 years I'm still learning how to grow veg!
DeleteI love Osteospermum, just for the whirls of colour the plants create. Someone gave me a birthday card with wild seeds embedded but like you have always had not much luck with growing them.
ReplyDeleteThe previous owners must have planted some small plants in early spring last year and they just grew and grew with a mass of flowers.
DeleteBuying plants is good for the soul Sue, and for health tending them. I think Aldi may have their cheap fruit trees in this week so I shall have to venture forth in between storms to go and stock up for my wee orchard. My 3 Heirloom birthday apple trees have arrived, but I would like another pear, and a couple of plums and of course more apples. I persuaded a friend NOT to have one of her two apple trees chopped down because it had no apples on last year - she's just moved there and didn't know we had hard frosts well into May, plus it needs a good pruning.
ReplyDeleteI think I got the Achillea Summer berries last year. It was a Boot Sale one but just said Achillea, but it's definitely a pinky sort.
The wild seeds need bare soil, so you have chosen the best place to put them so they don't have to try and fight out of the grass.
Oh I must go out via Aldi - and maybe Lidl too to see what they have - even if there isn't room for anything else!
DeleteI reckon it is a very healthy addiction and definitely good for 'the planet'. I can think of far worse things.
ReplyDeleteImagine - a bramley apple tree in the garden - fantastic!
xx
The Bramley might get round to producing apples in my lifetime - hope so.
DeleteI agree with Joy...you are being a good steward to our earth. So what if you spend money. (I tell myself the same thing)
ReplyDeleteThank you - will have to remember that!
DeleteGardening is the perfect hobby. Buying for the garden is productive and seeing everything grow gives great pleasure. The catalogs are arriving daily as Spring approaches. You found some good buys. Like you, I can always find room for one more plant.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy gardening and it's so easy to get carried away with the pictures in the catalogues
DeleteThere is not a plant in my garden that has earned its keep as well as Osteospermum it is still producing the odd flower.
ReplyDeleteI hope the ones I get will do as well as those here last year
DeleteBooks and plants are excellent priorities! It sounds like a good round trip.
ReplyDeleteThat's just what I think too
DeleteFor a few years some of our motorways had wild flowers planted along their edges. It was so pretty, but they seem to have stopped doing it now. I hope your sowings will give you a pretty display :)
ReplyDeleteWild flowers used to be around field edges and meadows but not so many now
DeleteGreat buy on the apple tree and the primula/primroses.
ReplyDeleteHow lovely that you get to plan your garden already.
God bless.
I do enjoy planning for the garden and it's so easy to buy things in hopefulness for summer!
DeleteThey say when we buy things it actually changes our brain chemistry and makes us feel good. Supposedly if we go online and put things in the "shopping cart" but don't buy then it does the same thing. not that there is anything wrong with buying things for real.
ReplyDeleteBuying plants and books has a very good effect on me that's for sure!
DeleteI love Alstromeria - once it gets established it's so generous. We had it under a big Magnolia in a difficult corner of the garden and it solved the problem. Now, in our small garden it is flowering and spreading so much we're having to control it. A problem I like!
ReplyDeleteIf your worst vice is buying for the garden, you're doing pretty well!
I've tried Alstromeria about 4 times in the last 6 years with no luck so I shall give up - sadly
DeleteBooks and plants are two of the very best things to be addicted to, one is good for the brain and the other for the planet. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.
ReplyDeleteExactly right!
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