Retail Therapy

Plant buying like haircuts has been rather sparse on the ground so far this year. I realised recently that is has been five months since I have had my hair cut. My tresses are the longest they have been probably for thirty years or more. My fringe had all but disappeared when I made the fatal mistake of asking himself if he would trim it. Say no more! Although hairdressers are open for business once more I will not be rushing to make an appointment so will have to do something with the headband I've recently bought to improve matters.

Anyway back to plant buying. Most of my plant buying is done in May at plant fairs and plant sales supplemented by trips to nurseries, the odd garden centre and open gardens. There have been none of those enjoyable activities so far this year although now that the weather has perked up after a really miserable spell plans for a couple of excursions are now being made. I occasionally buy plants online but really prefer to see plants close up and personal. Initially I thought that I would be content to make do without any plant buying and perhaps concentrate on planting all those plants screaming to get out of the cold frame. However there were one or two losses during the winter. I had peeked and peeked at the twiggy remnants of my lemon verbena plants willing them to sprout green but gave up all hope when it got to the end of May. I usually take cuttings of this but all my autumn routine went to pot when I injured my hand last September. Some years the odd pot left out over winter has re-sprouted the following spring but I think this year they probably were probably polished off by all that rain back in February.

I thought that I might be without lemon verbena this year and was resigning myself to that fact. However luck was on my side when I came across some positive feed back last month about Pepperpot Plants via my Twitter timeline and decided to look them up. Pepperpot Plants are a Hampshire herb nursery selling not only online but at some retail outlets too. Sadly lemon verbena was not available on their list at the time but I was still tempted and sent off for three scented pelargoniums, a couple of purple leaved perilla aka shiso plants and and a pineapple sage. I was delighted with the quality of plants, the speed of delivery and the sturdy packaging that the plants came in. I was also really pleased to see that there were a couple of plants in each of the pots of perilla.

The nursery updates their list of what's immediately available weekly and guess what ..... lemon verbena was listed a couple of weeks later! There was no hesitation and a second order was made for three lemon verbena plants, a couple of plants of African Blue' basil and a lavender. I have been restrained since but would have no hesitation returning to the same nursery. What about you - has it been a plant buying feast or famine during the lockdown? If the former any recommendations would be welcome.