MuseLea's blog: April 2021 - Plant rescue

We brought just 6 plants with us to this house:

1. A hellebore that I've had for more than 10 years. Back then we owned a little garden and this was one of the stars. I love it's deep purple flowers every February that persist on the plant well into April. A growing family meant we had to sell up our teeny house and rent for a while. We dug this beauty up and took it with us (well, half of it. I gave half to my mum as it needed dividing). It was planted in the rented garden and too late we realised the garden was riddled with bindweed that tried to strangle everything. We rescued it into a container where it lived for the next 6 years. I will not put it into the ground here for fear a tiny piece of bindweed root lurks in that pot somewhere. After 6 years battling that weed that seemingly grows a foot overnight I'm not keen for a repeat performance.

2. Heuchera can can. This was bought to brighten up the rented house border but suffered the same bindweed fete so was potted up and now lives quite happily in a terracotta pot. Again this has a DO NOT PLANT OUT order on its head because of the bindweed.

3. Honeysuckle Rhubarb and Custard. This is a short growing variety bought from a garden show we attended in 2019. It was supposed to be good in containers - we had abandoned all hope of growing in the ground at this point. In reality I have found it to be quite sickly in a container so we have just planted it in the ground here. It is on its last chance to prove it is worth keeping.

4. A shocking pink patio rose. I wish I could remember the name of this lovely rose we bought at the same flower show in 2019. It lives in a container and absolutely flowered it's socks off last year.

5. 2 potted Japanese acers. The largest red one is about 15 years old and is my husbands pride and joy.

With only these plants our garden looked a bit sad early last year. In the rented house there were a lot of mature shrubs we had gotten used to. Our new garden looked very stark in comparison. On the way back from school one morning I saw the house builders starting to demolish the sales office and surrounding landscaping ready to build the last couple of houses on the lot. They were digging up plants with a JCB and dumping them on the pavement ready for the skip I asked if I could take some home. 10 minutes later I was back with a wheelbarrow. Here they are potted up and hanging out in the pegged out garden design. Already looking more like a garden!


2 x osmanthus heterophyllus goshiki were the star finds. These evergreens have looked lovely ever since. Also got a choisya sundance, some sort of cistus, a viburnum and a spindly looking euonymus. You can see all of them in this picture.

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