Stopping at my favourite garden centre
It’s the ideal time, here on the West Coast, to plant garlic in the garden, and so I popped over to Southlands, one of my most favourite garden centres, to get a few bulbs.
There’s nothing quite like fresh, homegrown garlic. Anyone growing it? This year I harvested a few bulbs, (it was a trial year and I only planted a very small amount), but the flavour of my homegrown garlic has been amazing. This year I went to three different kinds, including a Mexican variety which promises to be potent.
I guess I just have to make sure everyone eats it along with me, or there’ll be no talking to me face to face…lol.
I got my garlic bulbs and had a stroll around the nursery.
Look at these amazing vintage pink flamingos! I’d say they’re right past kitsch and out the other side into the chic area of garden decoration. π I love them.
One trend I’ve been noticing lately here in the North West is a huge import of all sorts of semi tropical succulents. They’re becoming the easy, must have of the garden.
I love them.
I’ve always loved them, even before they were “fashionable”.
I tend to do really naughty things, like import a little leaf or piece of branch or tiny rosette from San Francisco, my friend Catherine’s plant in Oxfordshire, a random front garden in Mexico. No succulent is safe…lol.
But can you blame me? They really are so very lovely.
Clove thinks they look like land-bound sea anemones.
I was absolutely stopped in my tracks by this one reaching its flower up to the sun. How spectacular is the geen pinkness of it?
It’s part of this spectacular arrangement.
But it’s normal for the wonderfully artistic team at Southlands, and what would you expect from a nursery who find and bring in land-bound sea anemones.
Ida P. Krause
Wow that was some Succulent display. I don’t think I’ve every seen one that large before. I have some Hens n Chicks but that’s about it. Although I do think they are really neat plants and don’t require a tremendous amount of care. I liked the Pink Flamingo’s.
Veronica
It’s all so cool, isn’t it? And, the best thing is I can almost stop “importing” bits of succulents from all over the world. π
daryledelstein
my mother was a fairly good cook but she only used garlic for seasoning .. one evening i asked if she’d included garlic in our dessert and she said ‘garlic is good for you’ and i said ‘but mom everything begins to taste the same if you don’t use other seasonings’ .. did she try new herbs? yes but β¦.
Veronica
Ha ha! Good mom. My grandmother used to put garlic in the yummiest things, like potato and nettle pancakes, and sometimes she would make a fried-on-butter toast, usually some kind of dark rye, and rub the toasted sides with a fresh clove of garlic, and pass it to us hot and garlicky. Oh I loved that! π She called it a “topinka” in Czech.
Deb @ Frugal Little Bungalow
The succulents are beautiful! Have never grown garlic here…I should do so one year! π
Veronica
I tried last year Deb and it turned out to be really easy and the taste is wonderful. Apparently you want to plant it now in the autumn for a late summer harvest. Good luck, I’m going to plant some right now. π