Last Autumn we spent a weekend laying new turf in our garden and re-shaping the flower beds.

In the beds, we dug out all the bulbs and plants (regular readers won’t be surprised to hear that 80 per cent of the plants were rhododendrons) with the plan that the following weekend, once the soil had settled, we would re-plant everything we liked in a more pleasing arrangement.

Except, the following day the builder we had waited nine months for to start work on our house, told us he was free to start in a week. So, instead of gardening, we packed all our possessions into boxes and moved out.

When we came back again this February, six weeks later than planned, we’d spent all our renovation budget and hadn’t finished decorating (we still haven’t). With a wish list of plants as long as my arm, I decided I had better grow everything from seed to save money.

I had plans of creating amazing borders this summer, entirely with plants I had lovingly cultivated myself in our gigantic greenhouse.

Three months later, this is how my seeds are looking.

 

Glorious, no?

And the beds are mostly just a great big layer of mud and weeds…

Finally accepting my limitations as a speed propagator, we headed to a garden centre on Bank Holiday Monday to stock up a little.

(We went to Croxted Road garden centre, a little gem I’d not visited before in Herne Hill. Highly recommended for any SE Londoners reading this…)

This is what I got:

A beautiful Scabious, aka the pincushion flower. I have grown some seedlings of these too, but they are yet to look anything as wonderful as that…

Some cheerful daisies, which always make you feel summery.

This delicate erysimum (wallflower) called ‘Bowles mauve’ — I had seen this variety spoken of in lots of gardening magazines, so was excited to see it in the shop. I hope for great things!

Stunning bright blue salvias (again, I have some seedlings just waiting to turn into something as wondrous as this).

These lupins will at some point boast huge spires of flowers, but at the moment the leaves are rather attractive and perfect for collecting little rain drops…

Some colour at least, for this summer.

And next year! Next year, I tell you, my borders will be overflowing with glorious plants I have grown from seed and with cuttings I plan to take from this original stock too. Dream big, I say…

Joining in with Mammasaurus and How does your garden grow?