3 little gems

Well, we searched all the local gardens centres that we know of around Weymouth and surrounding areas, we searched for just one decent scented honeysuckle,  wrong time of the year I suppose all we found was the leftovers and damaged plant from the summer season that no one else wanted to buy, all ranging in price from £8.99 - £12.99 well-established plants but all manky. 

I don't know why I didn't think of it before as seeing it was only a few months ago we bought five lovely clematises from our local supermarket so off t we trot, hey presto three lovely healthy plants added bonus one is scented as well, bargain to boot as well £2 each.

I think next time we want plants to make the supermarket our first port of call definitely.

Tomorrow I'm going to pot the scented one, and place a climbing obelisk over it,  the other two in the garden to climb the fence.

Add caption

additional herbs

As I mentioned in my earlier post of more herbs are to be added to my garden this year,  As a pure experiment  I'm planting most of them in a pot this year, mainly to see how well they do.

At the end of the autumn if they look like they have been successful  I intend to bring all I can indoors in the conservatory or, In the gardening shed to see if I can extend there growing season hopefully to carry through till next spring.

Today I purchased these new one's front row, all sage plant, back row from the right are garlic chives, far left a new Rosemary plant to replace the one shown directly behind the table as Its smothering a rose bush that came from  Pam's late mum house, which we very much want to survive.

I bought in the new Rosemary plant as I intend to take a cutting from the old bush,  just in case they don,t take root.  I at least have one new one.

Pots are shown alongside table and bags of soil in the background.

Japanese anemone

The latest plant to join us, all the way from Exeter in Devon, a  little gem,   it came from our friends garden Janet and Dave some five weeks ago.

Japanese anemone

Dave was worried it would not travel well,  or even transplant at all.  Well, how wrong can you be?

After planting, I  have puddled it in water every day since. Early last week  I notice new growth which I left to grow to what you see now,  now trimmed of all old leaves and dead stems to allow the new growth to take over, it's doing fine, what colour the flowers  I have just been told are pink.

Cheap super market plants

In our local supermarket, summer plant was going on sale, we notice a full tray full of various clematis plants they were cheap all in small packets only about 200mm in height.

After a good rummage, we bought five different ones for dotting around the edge of the garden, to help coverup the bareness of the new boundary fencing.

Three at a £1 each and the other two at £0.69p each .  Were they to be a bargain, or a load of rubbish,  well here they are now two months on.  You judge them for yourselves.

Hears the other two both in pots outside my workshop door on both sides being trained to climb up the archway.

blue berries

 Two new additions to our new garden design that will fit in well with our herb and fruit garden.

Blueberry Duke

Blueberry Blue crop

hmm, I feel a nice chocolate cake coming on with lashings of cream and chocolate with a heavy blueberry and icing sugar topping.

Starting over

I have restarted my herb garden again this year for the second time, due to my operation and long convalescent period, this is mainly due to the so-called gardener I employed he didn't know weeds from plants, I have a few mint leafs just showing above ground at the moment scattered all over what was the herb batch, all my thyme, lemon balm along with all of my lilies, planted after Lil's death and all of my tulip brought back from Holland on numerous trips, plus many other valuable plants.

One of the three mint selections

Anyway this time, all of my herbs are going into pots just in case of any other possible illness, so I don't have to lose them all again.

The herbs that I have bought in from local garden centres, I thought if I put them all in pots they can't go walkabout, can they ?.  I did think hmm maybe they won't do too good in pots well judge for your selves, I seeded two lots of herbs one being the Coriander and the other Basil the basil failed miserably when nothing sprouted.

Seen here below the other two mints  in the background   while  to the middle and lower photo two of the three choices of thyme.

Two Mints  & two of the three thyme

The second batch of  Basil is now seeded in its tray now awaiting results. 

All of the herbs   I have planted in pots and old buckets have really surprised me with how vigorously they are growing, it is still early in the year, see how long they last, I  will leave over the winter to see what sprouts again next year.

The third choice of thyme with its first flower just showing It is growing rapidly it was about a third of that size when bought less than a month ago.   I bought an old herb book off of e-bay a couple of years ago stuck it on the bookshelf till it was needed.

Thyme

I have learnt so much these last few days about Herb's things I never knew you could do with them especially in the culinary line, edible flower, roots for vegetables etc.

I only paid a couple of pounds for the book, money well spent.

This book  is filled on  every page with all known herbs  what it doesn't cover is not worth knowing, the back third of the book  is going to be far and away from the best for me, the  culinary recipes,  ooh  delicious

Coriander

Those of you interested in  cooking with herbs  please  keep popping in, I fully intend to increase my  garden with a huge amount of herbs  all to be used in cooking  recipes, follow them here in  Simply Organic



Last for this post  my baby coriander transplanted yesterday appear to be doing well, hopefully, in about a week   I may see  some  green specs poking through in the basil seed tray.  

  

lonicera x tellmanmiana

Honeysuckle.

This was planted at the front of our house, about two years ago in full sunshine. I planted it at the end of a hedge, now long gone, it never did that well really.

I potted it into a clay pot and left it down the garden watering it occasionally, I move it up to where I want it to go in its permanent position a couple of months ago and left it in its pot with plenty of sun and shade.

Not many blossoms, but hey, is this beautiful or what. ?