My container garden was doing well but the gaps bothered me.  They bothered me but the birds loved them; magpies especially like to dig the open spaces mining for worms.  I don’t mind the big tuxedoed birds but they were spilling my precious soil between the gravel below and exposing the roots of plants.  It was time to fill the gaps.

My container garden was doing well but the gaps bothered me.

I made my way to the garden centre by two buses only to find that it was shutting down—going out of business.  It’s the only one anywhere around me.  They had loads of discounts, though not on the bedding plants I sought but I didn’t mind. I was after dianthus (Sweet William), wallflowers and pansies—that’s exactly what I found and in the colours I wanted.  I like several colours of pansies but have found that the snails don’t favour the orange ones as much so they fare better in my garden.

I planted and planted but gaps plus two large empty pots and two smaller ones remained. The remedy? A friend and I made a day trip to some gardens attached to a garden centre and restaurant.  The garden centre had plants in every category including some I’d never seen before.  My friend kindly folded down her car seat to make room for a bag of compost and loads more plants including more pansies(!), asters, bellis daisies, ornamental kale and a yellow green heather-like plant.

Amazingly, I planted them all the next sunny afternoon, at last, filling the gaps.