Wednesday, 30 July 2014

What did I buy at Hampton Court?

Red Mohican flower heads, I do love it when a plant name actually matches its' appearance



My purse was crying but my bags were groaning.  For the sake of length Im going to split this into two parts: plants, and things that will become plants.  Lets start with things that will become plants shall we?


Aquilegia ‘Pom-poms’- It took me about twelve seconds to decide to buy these seeds, and yet I hate Aquilegia.  They are just so damn virile.  I have spent much of the last two years trying to halt the spread across the garden by the last batch the mother bought.  Yet when I saw these featured on Gardeners World a few months ago I knew in my heart any attempt to resist their frilly charms would be futile.  Luckily they grow very well in the dark spot in the garden where everything else objects to being put.

Sweet Peas- I was very disappointed at the sweet pea fair on offer this year, I could only find one seller: Eagle Sweet Peas, which is perfectly fine but I was hoping to try something new.  Although tempting to buy a great big variety pack full of varieties I don’t want, I decided to go expensive and be selective, choosing just two varieties: Leominster Boy which is a salmon orange, and Charlies Angel; a pretty pale blue.  I plan to buy more online at some point and will probably end up with a terrible combination of colours as I put them together myself.  Oh well.

The beautifully coloured 'Indian Summer' graduating from red to light purple at the bottom.  The Gladiolus look here much how I felt at the time: droopy
Judging by the very skewed nature of this photo I was on the verge of passing out from either heat or the thrill of the purchase, but it does show four of the varieties I bought: Aftershock- a very vivid pink and white, Chit Chat- splodges of a very blue pink on white, Magma- an unsurprisingly bright red and Green Star- odd I know but it works for me 

Gladiolus- Oh gladiolus.  I went a bit overboard here but in my defence they are my favourite cut flower.  Despite having still to get a single flower on the ones I bought this year, the wrong soil and nowhere to plant them, I went and bought forty bulbs.  Yes forty, because apparently im planning on opening a fresh flower shop next year and will need an endless supply.  Thing is I saw ‘Indian Summer’ in the display, knew I wouldn’t be leaving without any and there was an offer on for forty bulbs so just thought screw it; lets just buy the whole stand.  So buy the whole stand I did.  I didn’t buy forty Indian Summer bulbs because that really would have been overkill, instead plumping for a mix of varieties with Indian Summer, Aftershock, Chit Chat, Magma, Green Star and Black Star. In effect all I have really bought is a hell of a lot of work as I will have to dig up most of the lawn and then spend three weeks digging trenches.

Three Red Mohican Bulbs, looking remarkably like rather crusty garlic gloves
 Alliums- As I have mentioned on here before, round things appeal greatly to me, round things suspended high up on sticks even more.  Therefore I am a great lover of an Allium.  I set out to increase their numbers in my garden but had no particular variety in mind.  Luckily the stands are comparable to a pick and mix sweet stand.  It does annoy me when they show bulbs on the stands that they are not actually selling, such as ‘ping pong’ which I immediately wanted but was denied.  Not so the case with Red Mohican which are as the name suggests red and do actually have little hair dos, like a thousand pins sticking upright out of a cushion.  It was love at first sight.  Less so for the ‘Rosenbachianum’ and ‘White Giant’ Bulbs that snuck in during that rather spendy moment when I was ordering a thousand gladiolus bulbs.  On top of forty another six didn’t seem like much of a stretch.  Thankfully the lady who sold them to me wrote on the packets what they were otherwise I would just have two bags of rather large unidentifiable garlic.


Three 'White Giant' bulbs, I know this because the bulbs are huge, and luckily the bag is labelled 

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