What I've bought for my garden this weekend. Plus: Part 2 of building a Chelsea Flower Show
A shopping list of plants and accessories to buy now, and we go backstage again at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show
Have you been inspired by the sunshine?
A bit of warmth and light changes everything for me: I become far more productive and get a lot more done, galvanised into action by the heat, and basking in that feeling of those warm rays sinking in.
So for once, it’s a two-email weekend, as I really wanted to share with you my garden purchases in case you needed inspiration. Have a pause when you’ve finished reading that, as later in the post, yesterday’s story of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show cliffhanger continues.
Their scrappy leaves and flowers that last for just a day have always seemed a bit of a waste of time to me, and I’ve always been a bit harsh on the common range ones that refuse to leave my beds. But ages ago, I saw a photo in an Italian magazine of them growing wild as a kind of meadow around apple trees, and this idea has been bugging me ever since.
This week’s garden purchases:
I recently went on the hunt for the perfect wisteria, and whilst at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival this week, I passed the Frank P Matthews sweetest-smelling stand, where there were loads of wisteria of different sizes, and most importantly in flower.
Wisteria can take a long time to flower after first planting them, so if a plant is in flower when you buy it, you can be pretty sure that it will flower next year. I know this goes against everything I’ve previously said about buying plants in flower, but I promise you that this is the way to do it with wisterias. Also, as well as being able to choose the ideal-shaped flower for you, you can carry out a sniff test and see which one does it for you.
Doing it this way meant I found the perfect wisteria for me and my garden: I shared a 4-hour car-drive with it, and every minute was a scented joy. The one I chose is