A grab and run session...

 A striped variety we call Bengal Tiger.
Canna Leaf

After thinking and planning and writing lists for weeks, I finally zoomed off to the home and garden center to spend some of my vouchers. Left the lists behind. Didn't even think about locations. Enjoyed one of those wonderful grab and run sessions. Hee hee...

Grab and run...

First of all I scooped up three Hydrangeas. Hydrangeas! Pretty silly - I never, ever put these on a list, since they are reasonably easy to propagate. Then a white flowering daisy, variegated Hebes, tidy little red-black Phormiums to go in pots, Lavenders, yellow-leafed Choisyas, striped Cannas...

I bought tennis balls for lovely Winnie the dog. Oh, and a hand scraper (bought a couple only months ago, have lost them both).

Giddy with optimism?

Giddy with optimism, I loaded everything except the Lavender into the wheelbarrow, and trundled into the Pond Paddock. Crammed the daisy and the cannas (striped gold and green ones) into pots by the cottage, then dug a few random planting holes. Yeay! I would create an instant shrubby garden!

 Finally flowering after four years, after being shifted from my friend's garden.
Gifted Camellias

Stopped. Needed to clear and prepare the ground first. Lost my nerve. All the white Camellias with very disappointing tiny flowers should move further back. This will be their third shift (they were dug out of my friend's garden). Then the Hydrangeas could take the front of the border. They would enjoy that, and the big irrigation would reach them. By now it was time to cook dinner. Oh well.

Hydrangeas? Honestly. Nothing wrong with Hydrangeas, did I hear you say?

The happiest garden tangent...

So I've left mess all over the paths. I have bags and bags of horse manure which need to go on the garden. I have a bonfire to - ahem - process. Campion and Alkanet have run amok (more amok than last year, I'm sure). And so off I go on the happiest garden tangent - I buy new plants.

Tuesday 12th December

Today it is raining heavily and thundering. The dogs have already checked me out - I'm OK, dogs, so that means that we are all OK. A truly torrential five-minute downpour dumped down on us as we were walking back from the road. Sloshed past a spouting waterfall (oops). Got rather wet - my thirty-year old Goretex jacket has lost its oomph. Hmm...

 Hydrangea, Daisy, Hebe.
Some of my New Plants

It's far too wet to start shifting the Camellias in that Pond Paddock Garden. And definitely too wet to plant my new plants or clean up my mess. Make that messes.