Pricing the earth

The bright sun early this morning tempted me to believe I might have a springtime gardening session this weekend. I wanted to buy a few odd stocks of staple gardening stuff so I chose to drive the few miles to a good garden centre near to Cheltenham. Whenever I've purchased young plants there they have always proved to be in excellent condition and to grow perfectly.

The sun was still shining when I arrived and I had a walk around all their various greenhouses and outdoor sales areas.  My trolley began to fill rather more quickly than intended but I'm sure I will appreciate the resulting flowers and many of them are perennials so should be good for some years.

I took a few pictures of the extensive swathes of plants which are colourful and rather too vivid and I have put one of various types of pelargoium in the 'Extra photos', so you can see what I mean.  These weren't the type of young plants I actually bought.  Instead I have some potting on to do over the holiday weekend and then a great deal of preparation of the actual garden beds.  That is not such a pleasant prospect having been rather remiss for some years, partly because of a series of ailments.

After loading the car I drove past this part of the car park having spotted a view over the far hedge towards the rather interesting view up to the Cotswold escarpment.  My eye was caught by the sign as I rather liked its handmade quality.  The rocks were individually priced ranging from £25 to £50 which I though quite steep really. Mind you I quite like to have lumps of stone in the garden but I like to find them for myself.  Some of the stone in our garden actually comes from similar rock types but have been used in old buildings before being recycled. Perhaps it is time to establish the rockery at last.