Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Seeds are indeed a bit hit and miss but why does that matter? For a few packets of seed you can still get hundreds of plants.

Perennials that grow easily from seed include lots of grasses, penstemons, echinacea, verbena bonariensis, achillea, rudbeckia, agastache, salvia nemorosa etc.

Then sow some self-seeders like alchemilla mollis, poppies, cerinthe, nasturtiums, lychnis, erigeron, foxgloves, angelica and marigolds which will spread around adding rhythm and filling up empty spaces.

Save your money for the more expensive plants that will add structure and winter interest - shrubs and evergreens.

You can also use these guys for lots of plants at £2 each. Selection changes a lot from week to week.

https://www.secretgardeningclub.co.uk/collectionsall-plants

I used the perennial collections from j parkers to get initial plants in the ground, got something like 100 plants for 100 quid, and am going round as suggested above to fill in gaps.

Edit, link - https://www.jparkers.co.uk/72-border-collection-complete-2-x-8m-border-1000890c?fo_c=193&fo_k=57ce33f3d85637026bedc17b0903c75a&fo_s=gplauk&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI_pXX-LWW-QIVxYFQBh1jrw5nEAQYAiABEgIl4_D_BwE

^ hard agree - i put a decent amount of effort into growing many of those listed from seed last summer, and this year they have mostly done really well (for some reason all my echinacea and rudbeckia failed massively, but you win some lose some). Gaps are being filled all over the place with minimal effort. If anything I now spend more time removing stuff (looking at you nasturtiums) than putting it in.

We did blow a few hundred on more structural plants this spring, which has made the place look pretty ok, but ground cover and gap filling has been v cheap.

Oh yeah and I would add naturalizing bulbs - crocosmias, daffodils (I prefer the white ones), botanical tulips like 'lilac wonder', alliums, fritillaries etc. These will all grow and spread into nice big clumps without taking over the world.

Avoid muscari and bluebells as they will take over the world

Jparkers is great but thanks to brexShit no longer ships to NI... However eBay still has vendors and I'll get some hardy geraniums there.

I'll get some of the seeds mentioned. I might just have picked the hard plants to start with.

So far lonicera (has to be cold stratified but fridge ftw) borage and California poppies came up fine, along with yearly plants but lavender I only got two.

The big Tesco and Asda are also not too close, another two buses journey.

EDIT: There is just one gardening club in Belfast. I am not sure my "jungle" counts, but may check it out next year once I have something to show & ordered the seeds mentioned.
And one neighbour offered cuttings, so there's that.

Bear in mind you might plant seeds that do nothing for a year and then bam, garden full of things, even if they weren't sold as biennials

Yep I had some seeds come up after a year and a few months. Seeded last year, nothing and then this spring I ended up with this.

Not a very big problem a I recognize the weed saplings by now ;)

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The tension is palpable

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Peony? :)

Looks like a dahlia? The wind has hammered one of mine, it does have nearly 30 flower heads though, so pretty hefty.

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Dahlia - cafe au lait. It’s the first time I’ve grown them so very exciting

One of them went very limp and snapped in the heat. It’s still hanging on and green but you can tell it’s struggling.

And like magic I scored 2 golden raspberry, 1 red raspberry, and a blackcurrant at a wallet busting 64p each. Love it when Asda yellow sticker plants.

Amazing

It's my first year having a go at growing Rudbeckia (Fulgida var Deamii) after seeing it at Wisley last summer and impressed how its coming on. Provides lovely colour and is pretty low maintenance and the snails and slugs haven't shown any interest which is a bonus :)

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Homebase have a £1 seed sale, includes some big packets https://www.homebase.co.uk/garden-outdoor/plants-seeds-bulbs/grow-your-own/seeds.list?pageNumber=3&IFP=true

From that I can recommend Rose Champion if you want a tough as nails long flowering plant.

I lifted some from cracks in our street tough little plant. They will spread.

Halfway through digging /enlarging the border on the left hand side of the garden this morning. Tough going especially the area which was previously lawn. 3 rubble sacks and a couple of hundred kg of pavers/ bricks etc so far. Going to dig 200l of hot bin contents in and ultimately plant a climbing hydrangea there. I'm mourning the loss of my strength and the ability to work physically all day as I near 45 and sit in an office all day. :)

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It's hard graft, a large hoe is easier than digging with a spade I think.

What colour did you for? I bought a white climbing hydrangea.

We have two climbing hydrangea and the flowers are really disappointing, sort of green saucer sized florettes that have sporadic small white flowers. Grows really fast though. I guess you have to pick one with nicer flowers :)

Was entrusted with these bad boys to do some cloud pruning today at gardening school

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cloud pruning

I'm sure that was a Sarah & Duck episode?

cloud pruning today at gardening school

Awesome!

Was very meditative, would recommend

Ha, it was sticky London clay combined with rocks, concrete, plates, old tiles etc so nothing but a spade and taking it down to undisturbed soil then removing all the detritus would work here unfortunately.
Finished up about an hour ago. Hopefully will sleep well tonight. I'm bit sure of the colour yet. It's a freebee from my mate who is a professional gardener and he's not said. It'll take a while for it all to settle back down to ground level and for the worms to do their thing with the compost. Today marks the 10 time in 2 years I've emptied the hotbin. Such an amazing purchase.

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