Garden help and ideas please

greenbee

Mexican fleabane/erigeron spreads like crazy, so it might be worth asking neighbours. I'm always giving it away!

Flugelhorn

greenbee said:

Mexican fleabane/erigeron spreads like crazy, so it might be worth asking neighbours. I'm always giving it away!

absolutely - we had more than we knew what to do with, it is  easy to dig up and split at almost any time 

Farway

Katiehound said:

It will probably pay you, not quite literally! to check all the local gardens and see what is growing there. Then, chat to the owners, talk about what they have, admire plants and after a chat or two maybe ask for a small cutting of a plant or a few seeds.

 Generally gardeners are only too pleased to give bits away especially if a vigorous plant needs a trim: rather give away than throw away. They might also make suggestions & say 'sorry' that one was expensive... in which case take a note of the plant and put it on your wish list. You might want to ask for garden tokens in the future....

One that just occurred to me is Salvia "Hot Lips" it would love your hot & dry, and grows very easily from cuttings, plus it looks nice, carefree needing as much or little care you as you want & bees l love it

Flugelhorn

couple of other things that seem to grow wherever they can are fennel and verbena bonariensis, both good if you want a bit of height

Watty1

Love verbena bonariensis but for some reason it dies here. I've tried it a few times with cuttings from the WI and plant sales on garden safaris and every time it looks fabulous for a very short period then vanishes to never been seen again.  Odd soil I think

Just googled that salvia and that is one I'm going to try. Looks fabulous

Farway

Watty1 said:

Love verbena bonariensis but for some reason it dies here. I've tried it a few times with cuttings from the WI and plant sales on garden safaris and every time it looks fabulous for a very short period then vanishes to never been seen again.  Odd soil I think

Just googled that salvia and that is one I'm going to try. Looks fabulous

Snap with Verbena, no matter what how I try, mine die . Must be one of those plants that only grows where it wants to

The salvia, they grow readily from cuttings so no need to spend a fortune on buying loads of plants, it's one of those snap a bit off and poke it in the ground type of plants, plus they put on quite a bit of growth so smaller / cheaper will soon get you going

These are my Hot Lips cuttings, using some twiggy trimmings from Autumn pruning, just into a pot with a poly bag over the top. I have since moved them onto the window sill because it was so cold in my conservatory & I want to get them ready for splitting come Spring

twopenny

I've picked up verbena b in pots outside odd shops, morrisons etc for £2 a pot. 
Fennel grows wild here so potential for seed. So pretty and lovely to run your hands over and sniff.

If you want to go really dramatic echium that our devon friend loves. You can collect seeds if you find one and they are hard to miss being tall in summer. Evergreen foliage.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/6290/echium-candicans/details

One of my favs i can't grow is sea holly. Really unusual flowers and retain decorative foliage.
https://auntiedogmasgardenspot.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/sea-holly-eryngium-maritimum/

Flugelhorn

Must have had a bit of luck with the VB - got loads of self set seedlings in our gravel garden and also on a neighbouring path - most got transplanted and are doing OK.

Salvia is lovely and does fine from cuttings.

Agree re looking at Morrisons £2 plants they are often v good and  am sure that is where my VB came from originally 

Farway

twopenny said:

I've picked up verbena b in pots outside odd shops, morrisons etc for £2 a pot. 
Fennel grows wild here so potential for seed. So pretty and lovely to run your hands over and sniff.

If you want to go really dramatic echium that our devon friend loves. You can collect seeds if you find one and they are hard to miss being tall in summer. Evergreen foliage.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/6290/echium-candicans/details

One of my favs i can't grow is sea holly. Really unusual flowers and retain decorative foliage.
https://auntiedogmasgardenspot.wordpress.com/2013/06/26/sea-holly-eryngium-maritimum/

Another one I can't grow , tried seeds, plants and everything in between.

The gardeners' curse, struggle to grow stuff that just won't while ignoring beautiful stuff that pops up everywhere

Paspatur

I have grown Sea Holly from seed easily
On the other hand my garden 'eats' Salvia Hot Lips, it just vanishes without a trace
And zero success with Erigeron even germinating, how strange