As I write this, it’s D-Day, 6th June 2016. I’ve spent 2 weekends repotting and sprucing up around 50 pots and baskets. They don’t look very spectactular at the moment but in a month or so they should be looking pretty good.

I’ve bought plants from three different sources – Ferring Nurseries, Homebase and Newbridge.  Specimens include double petunias – both regular and trailing, trailing fuscias, double begonias, both regular and trailing, pink antirhinums and geraniums.

Of course there are quite a few other plants in there too.

There are some that survived from last year, including quite a few of the geraniums (pelargoniums). There’s also a trailing plant with yellow flowers that hangs in a cone-shaped basket on the front of the garage. It came through last year and is still thriving. It doesn’t look anywhere near as good as it did but given that it’s a dark corner without much sunlight, it brightens up the area. I’ve trimmed back all the dead branches and watered it profusely. It doesn’t bear close inspection but from a distance it gives some good colour.  I’d like to add a couple more plants into the basket, but unfortunately there are so many roots that it’s impossible to plant anything more.

I bought 8 New Guinea impatiens from Newbridge, 2 packs for £10, which is pretty good since I’m sure they’ll grow into big plants in a few weeks. They had more expensive specimens which were bigger, but since they grow so fast there didn’t seem much point in paying more. I’ve planted each one in its own container to give plenty of room to spread and I’m hoping for lots of blooms in varying colours.

One of last year’s disappointments was a ball crysanthemum I think I got at the old Water Gardens. In fact I bought one for myself and one for my daughter and they were fantastic. I can’t remember the price but they were certainly very reasonable.

The disappointment came this year when both of them were completely dead. I can only presume that they aren’t bred to survive more than one year. I shall definitely look out for more this year though.

Oh and I just remembered that I bought 2 packs of 6 double petunias at the village shop this morning, just to fill up those remaining pots.

Of course I’ve still got the odd spot to fill, but that always seems to be the case. I’ve bought a couple of new shrubs and will report back when I’ve found out their names. The idea is to build up a nice collection of shrubs that go from year to year and save me buying quite so many bedding plants.

As well as the freestanding pots, I’ve refilled the heavy ones that sit at the front of the house. Of course the deer will probably eat half the plants but the beauty of this blog is that I’ll get a reminder which ones they like and which ones they leave alone!  At the moment the only ones I can remember that they don’t touch are hydrangea and antirrhinum.

Back soon with a little more detail.