Plantaholic’s season

Oooops, I did it again! I have been putting aside money for a while to buy plants, now in the winter, when they are cheap and on sale, and a few days ago I sat down on the Internet and put in my orders. But I just can’t seem to restrict myself, there are so many plants I would like to have! So I ended up ordering more plants than I had intended – again. Not a problem in terms of my garden, after the complete overhaul last year I have room for quite a few new plants, no, this is more a problem for my bank account I guess….although I must admit all the plants I have ordered are really good choices for my garden, they are really good offers and plants I have researched and wanted for a long time. I can sacrifice a lot of other things for some new plants for my garden, which I will have to do this spring I suppose :-)

Since my orders have yet to arrive I can’t show you any pictures of the plants yet, so you will need to Google each of them if you want to see exactly what they look like, but here is the list of plants that will arrive in my garden the next 3-4 weeks.

Roses (from David Austin Roses):

1 x Wildeve - bare root – English rose collection, medium scented, soft pink

1 x Scepter'd Isle - bare root - English rose collection, strongly scented, pink

1 x Susan Williams-Ellis - bare root - English rose collection, strongly scented, white

Evergreens:

1 x Rhododendron 'Christmas Cheer'    

2 x Helleborus niger

   

Semi-evergreens (at least in my garden):

1 x Penstemon 'Strawberries and Cream'

1 x Fuchsia 'Mrs Popple'

Deciduous:

1 x Dwarf Forsythia 'Mini Gold'

Perennials:

1 x Hemerocallis 'Burning Daylight'    

1 x Lamium maculatum 'Beacon Silver'

1 x Dicentra 'Valentine' (red)

3 x Dahlia 'Striped Vulcan'

Bulbs:

8 x Giant Oriental Lilies Mixed, height 1-1.5m

3 x Lily Miss Feya, height 2.5m

I was just going to have a white scented rose, a rhododendron, the tall lilies, Miss Feya and a scented daylily. That was it, oh, and I also had decided to buy 2 Berberis thunbergii ‘Helmond Pillar’, but no-one had them in stock at the moment. Well, as you can see, I ended up with a bit more than I was supposed to, but they are all very suitable plants for my garden and I can’t wait to get them planted and see the results by the end of this summer. I have a space available for all of these plants, I don’t need to move anything to plant them, although I always put bare root roses and dahlia tubers in pots first before planting into the garden. I don’t know if that’s strictly necessary, but I have this idea that I can take better care of the new fresh plants when they are in pots lined up in my nursery area than if they are planted straight into the ground in between other plants. Once the plants have put on a solid growth, usually by June/July, they will be moved to their permanent places in the garden.

Speaking of planting out….if my plants had arrived today, there would not have been any planting out happening; that would have been impossible as we have a hard frost here in London today! When I went out for a (very) quick stroll in my garden this afternoon, all my pots had frozen solid and a bucked of rainwater I collect for my orchids had a thick layer of ice. Everything have slowed down in my garden as the cold weather has taken hold lately, the mild winter is now just a bleak memory and my radiators are groaning under the pressure of trying to heat my house. However, the days are getting longer and the plants notice this, just look at my daffodils today. They aren’t really ready to pop just yet, but it’s the 3rd of February and they already have buds so spring is on its way, even if it is minus 2 and bitterly cold!

I will have to get back and order the Berberis at some point later, and try not get too tempted by all the other plants that would look great in my garden, even though I probably won’t be able to resist completely! I’d love to have a Sarcococca 'Purple Stem', a Mahonia Cabaret, a Hypericum Orange Flair, a rose called Caroline Victoria, a rose called Ingrid Bergman, a Magnolia liliiflora 'Nigra', a….oh, my wish list is so long and one reason I redesigned my garden was to get all the container plants out of the containers and in to the ground, where they have a better life with regular access to water. If I buy too many plants this spring I will need to keep some of them in containers again, as there won’t be room for them in the ground. But there are so many plants I would like to have….!!

Have you planned any new plants for your garden this year, perhaps something special, new or rather unusual? I’d love to hear about it, and if you bought or got a new or unusual plant last year and is particularly happy or unhappy with it, please share it with us! Perhaps you are planning to get my ‘unusual plant’, the Dregea sinensis, which I have written about several times before here on my blog, it is available in the US too, from what I have heard, please let me know if you do.

Until next time, take care :-)