Thompson and Morgan Babies

Back in June I ordered these plants from Thompson and Morgan.  They promised delivery before the end of August!

True to their word they arrived while I was away on holiday!!

Fortunately most of them survived as you can see from these photos. It looked like I had lost four but I planted the stubs in hopes there was still life in them.  Sadly not.

This was one of their regular 'free plant' offers. This time there were 36 plug plants; all perrrenials and all in my border colours so I thought I'd give them a go.  I sent off my £4.90 for post and packing and settled down to wait.  Truth is I had pretty much forgotten about them until, as I said we got home from France and there they were.  they were a bit sad looking as they had been awaiting some TLC since leaving T & M's tender care days before.

I moved them on into these trays and they have put on some growth in just a week so they must be doing OK.  I have them in the greenhouse with the door open every day just to give them a bit of protection at night and from the hurling rain.  I want to get them to grow at a rate of knots and hopefully need moving out of these trays by the end of September (?).  We leave for Florida at the end of October (late this year) and I want to get them in the ground and ready to face the winter as I won't be here to take care of them in the greenhouse.  Ideally they would be great potted on, kept in the cold greenhouse and planted out next Spring.  I am probably just being super optimistic but it seemed worth a try for less than a fiver.  If I end up with two plants out of the three dozen I will have broken even on buying two small plants next year.  

They are made up of six of each of the following:
Geum, Lavender, Delphinium, Penstemon, Echinacea, Digitalis.

The dividing line in each tray are cuttings of pinks I took a while ago.  Again some are clearly doing well and others not so much.  These too are going to have to take their chances in the ground by the end of the month.

I'll keep you posted on their progress or their demise.