Brilliant baskets but a few disasters too

I’ve been planting up pots and baskets and I’m particularly pleased with my wheelbarrow and the box by the front door, which are mainly purple and silver. I’ve used purple verbena and calibrachoa, cineraria and a very pretty petunia named ‘Sweetunia Starfish’. The two drainpipe baskets are full of begonia ‘Illumination Apricot’ and lemon-coloured ones, and the other baskets have double pink and amethyst trailing geraniums. The four baskets on the side walls have pink begonias and ‘Tom West’ fuchsias. The front patio will be full of pots of my favourite plants including dahlias, amaranthus and nicotiana.

We’ve had a few disasters with plants – my beautiful ensete ‘Maurelii’ was fine all winter in the frost-free greenhouse but then I noticed the newest leaf looking very poorly. Barry’s cut the plant down a bit and I’m keeping my fingers crossed it’s going to be okay. I think it was wishful thinking on my part that my tetrapanax was going to survive because what I thought were new buds on the stem just didn’t amount to anything. The final disaster is with some of the tomato plants, proving you shouldn’t go against your own rules. I always pot the tomato plants on from three inch to five inch pots before they go in their final position, but as I was a bit poorly this didn’t get done and the plants went straight into their final pots. Within a few days five were starting to look very sick so I removed them and potted them into smaller pots. They didn’t recover but luckily I had spare plants to replace them. Lesson learned!

Plants catching my eye in the garden are the single and double deutzias, which are both bee magnets. Ferns are looking fresh and I love the different variations of their foliage. Roses are flowering and my favourite Allium christophii looked amazing after a shower of rain – the flowers really sparkled.

I’ve planted my four dahlias outside Auntie’s greenhouse and have also planted some sunflowers in big pots.