After the Auction

A typical day after I've been to a garden sale!

10:00

A late start. Last night's auction was for my garden club so I stayed to help tidy up, and it was rather late by the time I got home. Catch up on emails and pay some invoices.

11:00

Make it outside. My purchases from yesterday are still in my car boot and I can’t exactly remember what I bought. Haul them round to the garden to find I’ve got:

· 1 compost bin

· 2 garden chairs

· 5 tomato plants

· 9 trailing plants

· 2 chillies

· 1 bush rose

· 1 variegated bamboo

· 1 small container of busy lizzies

11:45

Time for some serious pot washing. Decide to wash the bird feeders at the same time. I love my bottle brush from Happy Beaks with the smaller brush which hides in its handle!

12:50

Tomato plants have been planted into clean pots, with sticks harvested from my bamboo (ready for when they need staking) and topped with the pots they came in. Usually I group my tomato plants together but over the past couple of years they have suffered from a variety of diseases so this year I've separated them in an attempt to prevent any spread.

It's almost lunch time but I spend a few minutes inspecting the leaves on my container plant. I pinch out some greenfly from a rose and spot some problems on my citrus - woolly aphids? - so remove a few leaves.

13:00

Sit down with a mug of soup and watch the second half of an episode of JAG which I've been saving.

13:30

Out again, decide to tackle the trailing plants next. I have an old, broken water feature which I picked up from the local recycling centre and use as a planter. In a nod to its original use I like to plant this with blue flowers. Among my haul I find 3 Petunias Fanfare Sky Blue and 3 Verbenas Enchantment Violet Eye so I will use these. Unfortunately it seems that over the past year the water feature has rusted and when I try to fill it its basin collapses to the ground! I still think it looks nice, however, so decide to leave it like this.

The remaining trailers - 3 Calibrachoas Cabaret Cherry Rose - fill up some gaps in an old bird bath which became a planter when it started to leak.

14:15

Darling daughter appears and invites me to pop out to the Polish shop. It's nice to spend time with her and should only take half an hour so I agree. No time to shower so I just rinse off the obvious dirt and change into clean clothes.

On the way we stop off at the local artisan bread shop so that she can grab a sandwich, while I have a latte. We leave with 2 loaves of bread. Having visited the Polish shop we decide to pop into the antique and craft emporium opposite for a browse. Then home via a charity shop and Aldi.

Slightly shocked when I get home to find that 2 hours have passed! But I did get a nice turtle planter from Aldi which will do for my chillies.

16:45

I had to add a few drainage holes to the turtle planter but the chillies are now planted.

17:40

After the chillies I moved on to the bamboo. I want this on either side of an existing clump of mixed bamboos, so I start by splitting it in half with a sharp knife. The lady at the auction yesterday recommended planting this in a pot to prevent it from spreading, but I know that some types are clump forming and it's lable simply says "ornamental bamboo" so I decide to check first. I find a couple of varieties - it could be either of them - and one of these is a spreader so I play safe and plant it in pots.

18:00

Just one more plant to deal with for now (I'm going to keep the busy lizzies in their pot as a gift for my mum-in-law): the rose. I have an area where roses seem to thrive, but the only space left there at the moment is rather shady so I relocate a pieris to give the rose a sunny spot.

18:15

My 2 existing compost bins need shifting a bit to make room for the new arrival. I empty the contents of my "live" bin into a wheelbarrow, move the bin over and refill it; very messy work as you can see from the photo of my arm! My "decaying" bin proves surprisingly easy; a few hard shoves and I manage to move it over without removing its contents. I now have space for the new bin to slot in between them.

19:15

Refill the bird feeders, water bowls and bird bath. Water anything I didn't water when I first planted it (luckily it rained yesterday so the rest of the garden and pots are OK). Take the pot of busy lizzies inside, make space for the chairs in the shed and put them away, tidy away tools / hose / garden waste bag. At long last my lawn is empty again!