Horticultural Hoard

As some of you may have realised I spend lot of time propagating plants and amass quite a hoard. I've tried many different methods but often the simplest are the best. Plants that self seed like astrantia major and other plants that set out runners and root into the ground wherever they land are just the best for potting up for plant sales.

I was excited to see new growth popping up from our three year old Rhus typhina (sumach) a few feet from the parent plant. Oh goody, another plant. We had been given dire warnings from a friend along the lines "Oh you planted one of these, have you? I remember one in my parent's garden that came up everywhere..... what a nuisance."

Then there are all the plants grown from seeds and cuttings. Just where are we going to put the giant echium or the three horse chestnut tree seedlings which are already four feet high?

The answer is to put them all in a plant sale and hopefully pass them onto a suitable home. In the case of the horse chestnut that had better be a country estate.

Anyway these are some of the plants that are going to be on sale at the Garden Open Plant stall this Sunday. In the cold frame there's a few giant echium (I'm pretending we live in sunnier climes) some melianthus major (sunnier climes again but will do with protection) some abutilons and some grasses.

There are pots of perennials along the sheltered side wall...

and by the fruit cage....

They all have to be tidied up and labelled. The brown foliage and weed seedlings that seem to grow like cress need to be removed from the top centimetre of soil. Then there are some I'm slightly ashamed to say have outgrown their pots and have rooted into the soil below. Oops! So I tend to take these and pot them on one size just to tidy them up a bit.

The labelling this year was done with marker pen and lollipop sticks. I've tried so many pens (and pencils) over the years and still find lettering becomes illegible, the marker isn't fine enough or it's too difficult to clean for re-use.

 Then all the plants have to be moved up the garden for pricing. We've gone for a simple colour coding this time. Each label gets a coloured dot and is priced according to size and type of plant.

And then they're ready to go.

 

 And now the horticultural hoard is gone and I've got a bit of space I can start propagating again. I've got some lovely penstemons that are ideal for cuttings.....