Sizzling Summer Plant Deal - Page 2

Id love a hedgehog to move in too but dont know what our two wee terriers would say! I have a black bird in our garden who scatters the bark all over the grass but as you say you can forgive him but a slug no chance..I will try Alliums again and will use grit and sand thanks for that tip Julie, I do love Alliums

Tree lillies are my thing.  We don't really get on with our next-door neighbour, so I'm getting rid of the blackthorn hedge (which is on our side), and putting tree lillies in, along with some roses and honeysuckle.  I like my scents!   The only reason I'm getting rid of the hedge is it's suffered from *I think* woolly aphids for years, and it's so bad it's disfigured all the branches, and they have really unsightly knobbly growths all over their branches.  I was out this afternoon and disturbed two frogs (the garden has been neglected for ages whilst I've been ill), so must make sure I leave an area where there are some logs.  This explains why I've not seen as many slugs this year I think!

I've used the grit/sand thing before (before I got poorly), and never had any problems with bulbs, so it's worked for me in the past.  I hope it works with your alliums, there's nothing worse than putting in some of your favourite plants and finding them decimated by slugs!

I have not seen many slug just lots of snails.

But when my new plants come do i put grit sant in the hole with the bulb on on the top with the manure?

Thanks

@pash2 I do not think you will get any bulbs in your offer. if you are planting in containers and the plants are a good size you should be ok. If they are going in the ground I would use  some slug/snail prevention.

Thanks, I have ordered some more plants from an email i got from this site.

What are they?

Pash, what I normally do is dig the hole a bit deeper than you need to, pop some fertiliser or some compost mixed with slow-release fertiliser, then the sharp sand, then the bulb, then sand to cover the bulb, then top up with either topsoil or compost.  Most bulbs will benefit from being fed twice a week with a soluble fertiliser when you water your plants (QVC do a very good one).  This has the benefit of giving you more flowers and feeding the bulb so it gets bigger.  Always let the foliage from bulbs die back, as some of the nutrients from the leaves will go back into the bulb if you leave it alone.  There should be some instructions on the pack of bulbs you bought.  I take it the site is T&M, the plants I've recieved from them have always been top quality.  If you shop at Tesco, did you know you can swop clubcard vouchers for either specific products (I've had apple trees and lillies in the past), or for a T&M voucher to use on anything on their site.  It's even better value if you go through a cash-back site (such as topcashback), as you get a certain percentage of your spend back.  Always good to save the pennies!

Each collection includes 6 plants each of

Delphinium Pacific Giants Digitalis Excelsior Echinacea Primadonna Geum Mrs Bradshaw Lavender Hidcote Penstemon Tubular bells and 36 lavander plants.

 12 plants each of ‘Munstead’, ‘Hidcote’ and ‘Ellagance Sky’just paid the P+P all from T&M

I agree on saving the pennies that is why i alwaya get my manure by the trailer load free from the local stables, i even nearly bought a lavander plant for £3 ish from lildi at weekend until i got the e mail.

You may need to read this,

http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/plants/t-and-m-offer-for-may/3023-2.html

I have ordered the mixed perennials but I am no longer expecting flowers this year.

Right, out of that lot the delphiniums are perennials, and the digitalis (or foxgloves to mere mortals like me) will self-seed.  The delphiniums and foxgloves are quite tall and will go nicely at the back of a border, the echinacea and penstemons in the middle, and lavenders at the front.  Not sure about the geum.

I get my hanging baskets (the easy-fll ones) from ebay, and shops like aldi and lidl are great for bargains - I got 6 fuchsia plants for £2 per pack from aldi, a fraction of the price of garden centres, you need to go in on the day to get the best bargains.  I also got a selection of planters from there at reasonable prices.  I love the T&M offers, sometimes I have to delete the email before I open it, though, it's just too tempting.  I did get a massive bargain, I ordered the 'lucky dip' lilly bulbs along with my strawberry runners, expecting to get half a dozen standard or day lillies, imagine my amazement when the postman turned up with a box of 15, yes, 15 tree lilly bulbs (my favourites!).  Never had any complaints (so far) about the quality of their plants, which is more than I can say for suttons and I won't buy anything else from parkers bulbs after I bought an offer from the mirror, the perennials were half-dead (some have revived with a bit of TLC), and the pack contained 2 free slugs.  Unacceptable!!

Must agree with you Julie I just love the T&M offers. To get 15 tree lily bulbs was fantastic as were some dianthus I got. The only problem is getting too many plants, 52 begonias for the price of 1 or 2 elsewhere. I really look forward to their e mails but as you say it is just too tempting.

Arrrrrgggghh!  I opened the flipping email from T&M, and I've ended up buying the same 'free' collection, just paying for the p&p.  We're meant to be on an economy drive at the mo, and I've bought those, plus some flower power & root booster from QVC, plus their novatec secateurs.  Knickers.  Will have to hide purchases from Hubby until he buys some bits of car we can't afford!

I give my son the cash and i can then use his bank card so my hubby doesnt know the half of what i buy ha ha between killing slugs and doing things behind my husbands back this gardening lark can bring out a dark side

Well, Daniel is only 3 and Rebecca just 1, so will have to wait a litlle while for that one to work, weejenny!  Hiding the stuff and waiting for random bits of car will have to suffice for a little bit longer!!

I agree that there's something very satisfying about eradicating weeds and pests from your garden and allowing what you want to grow to get on with it.

I thought Gardening would be a nice innocent pastime before I started, I didn't realise that such things as pest war, garden envy and plant gluttony existed!

Still awaiting my April order of trailing begonias from Thompson and Morgan.

Supposed to have been dispached by end May, but when I phoned to chase up this morning they claimed they had only been dispatched yesterday (14 June) but needless to say didn't arrive today. Very disappointing as I have spent a lot of money with T&M this year and their service has been fine otherwise.

This is a salutory lesson to me regarding time-sensitive plants ( for baskets etc) as I could have got these locally several weeks ago - perhaps not as cheap, but if plants arrive too late to grow on they aren't cheap regardless of the price!

Excitable Boy, you must live 'down south' somewhere, as I've had to dodge raindrops to get my baskets planted up!  Got to set off in a minute to pick the boy up from nursery, and it's started to Thunder, so I'm going to get a tad wet.  That is if I can get the GSD off my lap, he's a big jessie when it comes to Thunder!

Yeah, I live in the wet, wet, west!

I'd wanted to get the troughs planted up and grown on for a couple of weeks before putting them out on our bay windows, but no such luck.

The plants arrived today. Not the plants I'd ordered (upright instead of trailing) and very small (less than 1cm) - I could easily have grown them in 6 weeks without the aid of commercial facilities. To be fair this is the first time I've had a problem with T&M and they refunded the £20 straight away, but I don't think the troughs are going to happen now which is frustrating.

Will buy corms next year!!

Crumbs!  It's always disappointing when you order something expecting it to be bigger than something that could have been grown at home.  At least some of the DIY stores have offers on bedding plants now, so you may be able to get some bargains this year, and grow on your microscopic begonias for next year!  Have you tried some of the bargain supermarkets for these?  I get a lot of my basket plants from Aldi, they're good quality (if you get there early enough, I don't think the staff have time to water them).  I'm sure you'll think of something to get your troughs flowering this year.