Gardens Home & Garden

Thank you @Toedtoes, I shall leave them now for a couple of years and see if they grow bigger if the winter doesn’t see them off before. It’s very wet here at the moment as it keeps raining and everything is dying off now anyway but hopefully they should come back.

@Tone Ah, the bushes I have seen in gardens are the third type. The one I bought this year is more like your purple one - but mine is pink and cream with a large double flower. It isn't in soil, it's in a one litre pot, above the ground. Perhaps I should pot it on now, before it gets too cold. The extra compost might give it a better chance.

Yeah I have had them before in pots and lost them, but I put these ones in the ground and they seem to survive better, so it might worth giving it a try

I've been hearing from gardening folks that plants in pots are far more succeptible to heat, cold, overwatering and underwatering. The pots just don't protect the roots well enough. Clay pots are best to manage heat/cold. Plastic pots increase chance of root rot because they hold moisture and heat.

I have one or two clay pots that are glazed , terracotta ones will crack and break eventually from the frost and rain. I have mainly wooden boxes that my dad makes me with a plastic bottom that way they don’t rot on the bottom and you can drill holes for drainage, but I tend to only put annuals in them they seem to like wood as it keeps the heat in them, except for my acers, they are in glazed pots, but I really would like to get them in the garden at some point, but not until beau has stopped his bulling around, unless I put them in my raised border completely out of the way.

Most of mine are in glazed pots. They tend to come in sets so sometimes they have to sit in one that is either too large or too small!
I use plastic pots for annuals and shrubs.
I must tell you about one of my little successes though. I bought a little red/pink daisy early this year from Aldi - it was £1.89 - it grew on well and produced lots of flowers. As I dead-headed, the flowers gradually changed to a paler pink but in September they finally finished. I trimmed the plant to shape and moved the pot to my holding area, only to find it covered in lemon coloured buds this week. It is called an
Argyranthemum, and the variety is marked Pink Lemon. I have looked it up and I think the variety is properly Artemis. Apparently a perennial in mild climates, but best treated as an annual in colder areas.
This photo is from an online site, but is exactly as mine looked in the middle of the year. The only care it needs is water and dead-heading. Highly recommended.

Very pretty!

I haven't done annuals at all. With our hot summers, it just isn't worth putting the money out on them as they'll die in the first heatwave.

So far all my new plants are doing well. The heatwave is over. Today was only 82. Tomorrow I should be picking up my car - they found that the battery was low but not dead and nothing else wrong with it. I'll carry the jumpstarter around just in case and watch for any phantom loads. But it wasn't a complete waste. I got the window fixed. They couldn't get the back door opened to remove the panel to check the lock mechanism. They have to remove the rear seat so they can remove the panel with the door closed. Then they can figure out what is wrong. They're going to shop vac up the dog hair while the seat is out...

I did get the new salvia planted in ground the other night. The ground was hard as a rock so I had to soak it for a couple hours. I'll have to soak the other locations before I plant the others. The grape will go in next as I have that arbor already in the ground. I'm still figuring out the best positioning for the other two arbors.

One of my Christmas Cheer poker plants is already blooming!! The others should start soon.

@CaroleC I do like that, I have found a lot of Aldi’s plant are of good quality as I’ve had a clematis from there and it’s done really well and gladioli aswell and they have been late coming up this year but still done alright.
@Toedtoes i like that also, but then I do like unusal plants that are away from the normal that we get here, but the weather doesn’t help so the frost and winter seems to see them off if you end up with a hard one. But they are both very pretty.

I’m glad your car was nothing major @Toedtoes and fixed your other problems, just lately I haven’t been going very far in mine at all and I do like to walk most local places if I take the dogs, beau is a little travel sick if I go to far with him or he was when I took him to a trainer one day, he was fine going but on the way back he puked all over my car floor, I feel sure it was because the trainer was feeding him treats of liver pate and then travelling back didn’t help him, but he is a little anxious anyway.
But my car passed its MOT with no advisories so I’m happy with that, so it’s out the way now for another year.

I got my arbors up and everything planted.

I put the passion fruit in the front and it seems very very happy. The pink honeysuckle is struggling - just doesn't seem happy. If it dies, I will replace it with another passion fruit.

The grape was happy but may have gotten too much water. I'm letting it be to see if it comes around. If not, I hope I like passion fruit because I'll likely end up with three of those.

Both my pineapple guava trees are doing great.

I did get some fertilizer to add to my potted plants. I'm hoping it will kickstart a few older plants that aren't doing much of anything.

Meanwhile, after walking on peanuts on the my porch for the past month, I got a bird bath to put them in for the jays. It arrived last night and I set it up on the porch. The jays have been coming all day today - they seem happier. They can pick through the peanuts faster and seem to like perching on it.

Punx has taken up a position at Panther's bird feeder window. She sits on the chair underneath Panther's bird perch (it's an actual parrot perch on a stand). She spends more time there watching the birds than Panther does. Panther will sit at the front door to watch the jays even when Tornado-dog is inside. She also likes to look out the back door.

I never seen something like this before. This is so much interesting. May be i should remodel our front porch as well.

Thanks. It was a lot of fun working up the layout. I used the local university's arboretum to select the plants. All are hummingbird friendly and my local hummingbirds come daily to feed on whatever is blooming at the moment. I worked the plants so I pretty much have something in bloom at all times.

You have so many more plant species and varieties in America.

I think that's simply because we haven't had 1400 years to remove everything native before conservation became a thing. We only had maybe 400 years to eradicate everything in a much bigger space - so we failed.

Here in the west, we also have a climate similar to other "new countries" (like Australia) that haven't been able to eradicate native plants in their short histories.

And, of course, we also aren't a small island that needs to control incoming species to prevent destroying out native (or long existing) landscape.

And you have common broom! I so want it.

Well I had a passion flower climber last year, it went absolutely berserk growing but a harsh frost killed it off so I had an empty arch, I have two clematis plants one with tiny reddish purple flowers and the other with big white and purple flowers so I moved the one with the tiny flowers and I am now growing it over the arch which it seems to like in full sun, plus I hid the bird feeders from it so the neighbours cats can’t reach them.

At my last garden I had an arch. I wanted to cover it quickly so planted Clematis Montana. It nearly brought the arch down. That and Russian Vine must grow a foot a week!

I'm hoping these arches won't collapse under the plants but they are pretty cheap. If they do, I'll end up buying better quality ones. If the climbers die, I'll get rid of the arches. They were free so I thought I'd give them a shot.

I just fertilized the potted plants and the vines. The passion fruit is still doing great - very happy there. I'm hoping the fertilizer helps the other two.