Pending Plants and Random Removals…

The Easter break has provided me with ample opportunity to get out into the garden and have a right good old go at my beds and borders. The greenhouse seed factory is in full swing, with every surface occupied with a seed tray of seedlings.

A rather fancy Panoramic view of my 6×8 Greenhouse.

Everything is coming along well, every seedling is a different species of flower.

We are still having the occasional cold snap at night, but so far, with the Greenhouse wrapped up tight at night, nothing has suffered.

I’ve taken the opportunity with the Easter break to address the problem I have of increasing amounts of plants in pots waiting to be planted.

These consist of plants i’ve either bought from plant fairs and flower shows, or plants i’ve propagated myself from either cuttings or seed.

I have an annoying habit of seeing a nice plant, buying it, then afterwards wandering aimlessly around my garden wondering where I’m going to plant it……..  Then there are the impulse buys… I’ll return to those shortly.

Plants in pots waiting to be planted…

Primulas I’ve raised from seed waiting to be planted, and pots of Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ needing a home, and 2 ferns I forgot I bought.

Perennials successfully raised from seed needing planting out now.

And trays of the hardy annual of Calendula Officinalis ‘Indian Prince‘

Calendula.

So far this Easter I’ve managed to plant out most of my pending plants in various locations throughout my garden, but there are some plants that I already have enough of or just don’t have the best aspect for them to thrive. I was able to pass on the Ophiopogon and a tray of seed raised Primulas to a nearby tweeting Gardener who has a most splendid garden.

But during my cogitations in wondering where I could fit all these plants in I began to notice that many existing plants in my garden have really spread out and become a bit of a nuisance.  When I first got my hands on the garden about 10-11 years ago I planted a pack of 20 Allium aflatunense ‘Purple Sensation’, after each flowering about 100 seeds fell from each seed head and in time these became new plants, these flowered for the first time last year and were quite disappointing, small, insipid and watery colours emerged, I had intended to remove some of the plants after flowering this year, but decided to just bite the bullet this week and get it over and done with.

Allium everywhere.

About 50% of the Allium aflatunense with the broad grey leaves in this picture have been dug out, and the 2 clumps of Allium sphaerocephalon which looks like 2 clumps of grass in the foreground were also removed leaving me lots of potential planting spaces.

I’ve also got my eye on thinning out some of these Allium and Helleborus in the below picture.

 

And finally, I did mention earlier in my blog about impulse buys, well sometimes there are occasions when wandering around other people’s gardens that you see a plant that you just must have, and one such occasion recently that happened to me….

I was gazing over the borders of a fellow local gardeners garden when I spotted a most glorious Magnolia in full flower, now I’ve quite fancied a Magnolia for my garden for ages, but have never really found ‘the right one’.

Well I was informed that the glorious Magnolia I had spotted was a  Magnolia × loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’.

After a quick search round on the internet I located a specimen and it just happened to be half price, bargain!!……. duly ordered, the plant arrived a few days later…

Impulse buy.

A lovely nice big plant, which I planted in record time, although a Pulmonaria saccharata was sacrificed in order to make room.

In-fact I’ve made quite a few impulse buys from online Nurseries in recent months, and as a result I’ve planted some very nice plants around the garden, I’ll cover those another time.

For now, happy gardening, and roll on Summer.

oh look…

A tray of Lupins that need planting somewhere..?!

What can I dig out in order to get these planted..?