I knew getting a trolley at the garden centre was a bad idea...
☙❧
I've been out today. Yes, I know. Anyway, I popped to Sainsbury's in North Walsham to get some essentials - you know, gin, tonic, chocolate etc. etc. - and then drove across town to Hadfields garden centre (the one with the tearoom - you remember!).I deliberately walked in without taking a trolley, but within five minutes, my hands were already full, so I doubled back and got one. Ten minutes later my purse gave a resigned sigh and unclenched...
These rather gorgeous triffids are the result: a couple of perennial foxgloves (yes, I know I've missed some of the flowering season, but I love foxgloves and couldn't resist these. In fact, I used to have the pink one - Digitalis x valinii "Illumination Pink" - but the exceptionally cold winter did it in), two beautiful irises, a small Philadephus x lemoinei "Belle etoile" the small white flowers of which made Car smell heavenly on the way home, a Fatsia japonica "Spiderweb" (with the white splayed hand-shaped leaves), three small ferns, and an Acanthus spinosus.
The green rosette of leaves at the front is a Digitalis parviflora (another foxglove which will have small chocolate-coloured flowers - I used to have one of these up my Back Passage!) that came home with me not from Hadfields, but from The Old Vicarage Garden in East Ruston. Yes, I made a return visit there and there will be photos.
So many photos...
We have so much Digitalis x valinii here! You're shopping list sounds a lot like mine! This morning I went to support a lovely little new coffee shop that opened and they had Cardamom sticky buns. I don't usually eat sticky buns, but I LOVE Cardamom! Then I went and got myself a heavy duty string trimmer while shielding my eyes from the garden center because I just don't have time to put things in the ground right now. I'm both sad and proud of my steely resolve.
ReplyDeleteI love watching all the cute little bee butts hanging out of the digitalis flowers. It makes me so happy! I'm a person of simple pleasures.
Ooh! Cardamom sticky buns sound delicious! A worthwhile reward for your steely resolve. (I don't think I could have done it - I'd've had the bun AND the plants!)
DeleteApidae arses* hanging out of foxgloves really are delightful, aren't they! Except, of course, when one is trying to get the aforementioned foxgloves into Car while attempting to discourage the extra passengers.
* I couldn't possibly say that b-word, not being American, so I had go for something British. Except that as I type this, I realise I could've said "bee bums". Ah, well...
*Clears throat*
DeleteActually butts is British English. In the 15th century, Edward IV made it compulsory by law to practice archery on Sundays and every town was obliged to set up butts, bank things behind the targets.
Don't thank me.
What if the arrows went through? Ouch! Who were these poor people bending over with targets on their bums? Butts, I mean?
Delete(Actually, I do have a couple of water butts, now you come to mention it...)
Our foxgloves have all but finished - the "little bee butts" have had a feast! Sounds like a great shopping day, indeed - I look forward to seeing what you do with them, and what floral delights they give you. Jx
ReplyDeletePS Philadelphus is a heavenly (if fleeting) scent. If we had a garden proper, it would be on my shopping list, too. We have to "make do" with the scents of the Gertrude Jeckyll rose, the lovely little pinks, the last of the Hesperus - and the Nicotiana alata 'Grandiflora', which are truly overpowering every evening!
It was a lovely shopping day. I'm half tempted to go back and buy more! Fortunately, it's raining again - and is forecast to do so all weekend - so even if I did empty more of my bank balance at the garden centre, I wouldn't have time (never mind the space) to do any planting.
DeleteWith that array of scents, it's a wonder you don't float through your Back Passage, borne aloft on the wafts like a Hanna Barbera/Tex Avery cartoon character when they smell something enticing.
Oh....takes a very deep breath, closes eyes and whispers "Philadelphus...."
ReplyDeleteI'm not one of those women who love to go shopping for handbags and shoes and frippery...but I think if I went to a garden centre with you we'd need two trolleys!
Dinah, Shoes and handbags are over-rated anyways. The garden center is where its at!
DeleteYay! adds a third trolley...
DeleteI can manage two at once, so let's have four!
DeleteOh. I could never compete with you. I have limits and no luck... not much of a green thumb, I'm afraid. I keep trying... I blame the soil. The only thing it seems to like to grow are the weeds. Sigh. Kizzes. Can't wait to see what you've done this time!
ReplyDeleteCompete? May I remind you (all) that the Garden Photos Event is NOT a competition. (I must put up a GPE reminder soon, actually)
DeleteYeah, I know this isn't part of the GPE - I'm just practicing ;)
If the weeds like your soil, perhaps try some mildly cultivated versions? Foxgloves seem to grow anywhere, and I recall you mentioning that you had to do a lot of watering, so I'm guessing it's quite dry? Maybe go for some Viper's Bugloss - both giant (Echium pininana) and small (Echium vulgare) - and Hawkweed (Hieracium or Pilosella aurantica). Actually, while lookin gup the latin name for Hawkweed, I've just discovered that it's classed as an invasive weed in some U.S. states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, so maybe not...
Gin? tonic? chocolate?
ReplyDeleteWas this the night we planned to meet? Your such a dear.
An evening picnic on the paysho, Maddie!
DeleteYours is the only garden centre I know with its own tea room.
ReplyDeleteOur local garden centre has one, too. We're a civilised lot, us Brits. Jx
DeleteI think MJ is referring to a different type of tea room. Fuengirola bus station toilets, I'll put it no stronger than that. Purses lips.
DeleteAhem.
DeleteOh, that kind of "shopping for bulbs and stems"... Jx
Delete* clutches pearls *
DeleteHang on... I don't remember putting my pearls on before going out. Where did these come from? Oh...
A Garden Center with a Tearoom, how Divine, I'd go down in flames too... that's the most beautiful arrangement in a back seat of a vehicle I've ever seen!
ReplyDeleteMost garden centres here have some sort of tearoom. Probably not the sort that The Very Mistress and Mitzi were going on about, though. Probably...
DeleteYou know that I am absolutely useless regarding green stuff. I ony wonder about the names, every second seems to include digitalis. Isn't that something pharmaceutical ?
ReplyDeleteDigitalin (and Digoxin), which is extracted from foxgloves (or Digitalis), is indeed a pharmaceutical drug. And quite toxic!
DeleteYep, I'm another who's flipping useless with greenery, and thus feels a little left out of the collective drooling. BUT, my garden thrives from neglect - I just don't know what all the plants are called. I have naturally occurring Foxgloves and ferns. And bum bees.
ReplyDeleteSx
I must say, Ms Scarlet, that I am envious of your 'garden-as-nature-intended'. Before someone plopped my house on this bit of ground, there were ferns and foxgloves, and now I am having to reintroduce them (albeit different varieties).
DeleteI wouldn't go as far as to bum bees, though...