Tidying up.

I'm not talking about housework; that's gone by the by. We are hosting a friend's birthday tea here tomorrow so it'll be all hands to the deck but we still have a day to live in the mess till then.
The tidying has all been in the garden with several renegade plants sprouting up under our very noses.
How did the sunflower get there?




Why did I let Luke plant the BLUE salvias in the black and white border? So yesterday it was time to sort these things out. I know people say you shouldn't move plants in flower, especially in full sun but I have seldom had a failure when I've done this and the secret is in the preparation. I dig the hole I am moving them to, puddle in the hole (pour water into it and let it drain away), water the plant itself and then dig it up quickly with a decent amount of it's own soil around the roots and plant it in the required place, firming it in and watering again.



The leggy sunflower I moved yesterday, along with the Japanese anemones and blue salvia are all thriving still.
When I had my first garden Mum and I, out for a walk, found a cast off conifer and dragged it all the way back to my house. It had lost all the soil around it's roots, dried off in the sun, and was going brown but we decided 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' and planted it up, with lashings of water for days. Until a previous boyfriend's over enthusiastic mother decided to prune my garden whilst I was at work one weekend that little conifer thrived. Unfortunatly I returned home from work to find six black bags full of prunings and a space where my rescued conifer had been.