Half price buys.

I do love a bargain. Of course, that doesn't always mean I get one as if I'm buying because it's so much cheaper than it should be I can be a little blinded to the product itself. My wardrobe is bursting with EBay buys which I probably wouldn't have bought if my heart ruled my head. They are almost right items but to me, almost right is pretty much wrong. A bargain is when you get something you love for a price you adore.
I got these bargains recently and will make you mad with me for my good fortune. Sorry!
Whilst getting a pint of milk in Waitrose two weeks ago I chanced upon a check out lady with a manic look in her eye and a price gun in her hand. What luck! I even checked with her that she really was pricing them up correctly!
Well, to cut a long story short I walked away with two good sized hydrangeas (one pink, one blue)which had been selling for £14.99 apiece and which I got for 99 pence each! Yes, you read that correctly. How much of a bargain was that?! AS I was leaving I spied two butterfly lavenders for 49 pence each (having been £4.99 before the manic lady had got to them). So I left with four plants for under three quid - and of course, my pint of milk.

Last Sunday we succumbed to our usual Sunday treat, a trip to the local garden centre.
There I found two Scabiosa barocca half price. Yes, they were out in flower - blackcurrant pom poms swaying in the breeze and yes, they were a little floppy but a quick deheading of scruffy fading flowers and a little staking up has given them a new lease of life. For another six weeks of colour they were well worth the three pounds I paid for them. I then found a lovely Hosta - Tangoo with grey-green leaves and creamy edges. It had been a penny short of ten pounds but I paid £3.00 for it. It will last for years and long after I've forgotten what I paid for it I hope to be enjoying it each spring and summer.
If it makes you feel any better, I did then pay full whack for a replacement lemon tree for Luke (I binned his last one after last year's particularly cold winter) and spent an hour cleaning every mottled leaf and mended a broken branch with a little masking tape (improvisation rules when the shops have shut). A darn good drink with summer citrus supplement and the jobs a good one!

I also spied a lovely Leucanthemum (Shasta daisy). I already have one in the black and white border but this one, Broadway Lights, is a lovely lemon colour on great long stems. I put it in the long border running up to the greenhouse. It's just behind the tree so you have to walk up the garden to get a look at it and it's like a little ray of sun infront of the border shrubs. The two Scabiosas I purchased have gone either side of the climbing rose and for little money have brightened up the border no end.