Susie’s Garden
Get plants for free!
When a friend was raising money for a school allotment, I gave her a load of seedlings and divisions of plants from my garden. By the end of the year, she was delighted that the plant sales had made over £500. Having a plant stall is a great way of fundraising for a charity or a local project by making plants for free.
This is the time of year to save seeds, either for sowing now or in spring. I harvest far more seed than I can use, and then give it to community groups and friends. Having reached the point where my alliums have self seeded enough, I’ve collected a mass of seed. In September, I fill
envelopes and paper bags with seeds of cosmos, nigella, calendula, and other annuals. I harvest on a dry sunny day and store in a cool dry place until next spring, labelled with the plant name and date. Some seeds, like hellebores, are best sown immediately as they don’t store well. It’s also a good time to make new plants by dividing perennials. Alternatively, you can do this in spring when new shoots appear. Hardy geraniums are perfect for this. I chop off and lift a third of a clump using a spade and pull it apart into as many pieces as it wi ill go, easily getting thirty new plantlets. When dividing hostas, I take a sharp spade and slice the clump into sections. It looks brutal and you cut through lots of roots, but the divisions take easily. Hostas look wonderful in pots, their large undulating leaves curving gracefully over the edge – perfect for a shady spot in a town garden.
I grow two types of agapanthus, the evergreen sort which needs to go in the greenhouse for the winter and the hardier type whose leaves die back. The latter I split last year so I could increase this lovely blue flowered plant – and the new agapanthus bloomed happily this summer. A satisfying example of “plants for free”!