We all chose the plants for the hanging baskets
Back in June, a quick survey of the hanging baskets and tubs dotted around Mudville, resulted in Mud deciding that most of the 6 or 7 year old baskets had well and truly outlived their usefulness and many of the herbs and plants, needed repotting into larger tubs or pots. So we all piled into Annie and headed off to the garden centre on the first of many trips, to replenish the baskets and plants. One area that we really wanted to address, was the corner near the barbeque which is almost entirely in the shade for most of the day, due to the gazebo and so that first trip was mostly dedicated to finding a selection of shade loving plants, with which to dress the covered well.
First layout of ‘Prehistoric Corner’
Prehistoric Corner after some changes – just needs a dinosaur egg to complete the look!
An hour or so later we returned with a selection of hostas, ferns, a spikey grass and our favourite plant of all, the Fatsia Japonica Spider Web which is the tallest plant towards the back of the well, with the variegated leaves. We all loved the final, almost prehistoric look of the well corner but you will notice from the two different pictures that we had to make a couple of changes, swapping the hebe for a Pachysandra terminalis and removing the little red flowering plant, both of which were obviously not as shade loving as the labels indicated. In the opinion of the Mudlets, there only remains to be one more addition to make the prehistoric corner perfect and that is the purchase of a ‘hatching dinosaur egg’ ornament from the garden centre. We also had a selection of fuschias, verbenas and petunias for the new hanging baskets.
Another Fatsia sits nicely in the shaded corner at the back of the house
Another Fatsia Spider Web was bought for the shaded corner of the patio area and together with the rescued ferns, reclaimed ivies, rediscovered vinca and relocated hebe, the whole out door living area has been vastly improved. The hanging baskets on the back wall of the house are now home to some of the herbs favoured by slugs and they have done unbelievably well, although the dill and coriander got slightly out of hand and had to be cut back!
We are really pleased with how colourful the hanging baskets are this year. We decided to just go with what we liked rather than a theme and yet over three shopping trips for plants we all managed to chose the same red flower, Calibrachoa Cabaret ‘Bright Red which is the most beautiful little plant, with stunning small red flowers. Another favourite is the Lysimachia ‘Midnight Sun’ which is the yellow one in basket 5. I’ve listed the contents of each basket as far as I can in the following sequence of pictures but one or two of the plants were lableless and the little purple flowering plant in basket 3, is one I bought four years ago and it has come back every year since but I have no idea what it is:
The Land Rover Owners Ex Wife 