Sunday 14 June 2009

Hot Lips


Last year when I went to the Harrogate autumn flower show I saw a Salvia 'Hot Lips'. When I got home I regretted not buying it. I have been looking around for one ever since, but haven't come across it again. That is, until yesterday when I went to the Gardener's World Live show at the Birmingham NEC. I snapped it up! It has aromatic foliage and can have flowers in red, white, or a mixture of both. I don't really go for red flowers but I think it's just so pretty. I also bought a Nymphaea Pygmaea Helvola - Water Lily, which is a small specimen and ideal for my small pond. It already has a flower bud on it so it shouldn't be too long before it opens up.


The show was great and I really enjoyed it. The weather was fantastic so we didn't have to dodge any rain showers. It's the first time I've been to the show, but I have to say it was really well organised. The show gardens were lovely, there was something for everyone with 'grow your own' gardens, cottage gardens, herb gardens and even a nursery rhyme garden with a cat peeping out of a well (ding dong bell, pussy's in the well), roses in a ring (ring o ring of roses), you get the gist. This was my daughter's favourite. The floral marquee had some stunning displays in it and there were plenty of plants on sale. There were lots of areas where talks were held by the Gardener's World team and my daughter managed to get a photo taken of herself with Joe Swift. We all enjoyed the day.


My pond has a new resident. My hubby spotted a frog in there the other evening, but it was well under the water and hiding in the plants so we didn't get a good look at it. I'm really pleased that the pond is doing the job for which it's intended.


Disaster has struck my pepper plant. Three fruits have formed but each one has a hole bored into it near the stalk. I need to look up what may have caused this. Does anyone have any ideas?

8 comments:

  1. What a lovely day for going to the Garden show. I would love to have gone there but we are going to RHS Hampton Court Flower Show in July.
    I hope you sort out what is damaging your peppers. Your leeks look great. Mine are in very large seed trays all spaced out and growing well, like you I am waiting for a bed to be freed up before planting them out.

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  2. We had a hot lips in a container for a while and then gave it to a friend. Our hummingbird was furious with us and boycotted our garden for a while so we had to get another. I thinks its our hummingbird's favorite flower.

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  3. Love the Hot lips! Our local garden show wasn't very big, but it was enthusiastic. I took several photos and will probably put them on next weeks post. Have you ever been to the Chelsea Garden show? It was wonderful in the 80's and got better each year.
    Congrats on the new tenant for your pond.
    Kat

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  4. what a pretty flower! and fragrant too?

    that's great you have a frog :) i saw a frog in my strawberry row and the same day we saw a slow-worm. wildlife-tastic!

    sorry about the peppers :(

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  5. Hi Jo,
    Your salvia is lovely and it's easy to see where it gets its colorful name ;-) It would look good with my salvia black & blue! I'm not sure what's wrong with your pepper, but I had a few tomatoes on one plant have big brown circles near the stem before and I think I read somewhere that it was due to irregular watering... Anyway, I was more diligent after that and it didn't continue on future tomatoes, so the problem may just clear up as you get more peppers. Cheers!

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  6. I've heard the Hampton Court Flower Show is lovely, I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time Maureen.

    Thank you for visiting my blog, Ryan. I'm so envious of you having hummingbirds in your garden. We've visited the Caribbean a few times and seen hummingbirds there. I remember the first time I saw one, I thought it was some kind of insect, they're so small.

    No, I've never been to the Chelsea flower show, Kat. I always watch it on TV though. I love local garden shows, as you say, there are always lots of enthusiastic gardeners there and you tend to pick up bargains or great snippets of advice.

    I've never seen a slow worm, Steph. I've heard lots of people say that they've seen them on their allotment so I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

    I still haven't found out the cause for the holes in my peppers, Avis. I think you're right about the brown patches on your tomatoes though. Irregular watering or calcium deficiency causes blossom end rot, however, this usually occurs on the bottom of the tomato rather than near the stem. The holes in my peppers don't look like this though, they're pronounced holes so I think it must be some kind of pest which is causing them.

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  7. I've had problems in the past with little green caterpillars eating into my peppers, but I haven't really pinned down which species they are.

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  8. Thank you for visitng my blog, fluffymuppet, and for your suggestion. I haven't seen any caterpillars on the plant itself, nor have any of the leaves been eaten. I will certainly see if I can find out anything about pepper-eating caterpillars though. I would love to know what's causing the holes.

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