A few weeks ago I stumbled across racks of plants outside Waitrose. It was this that kickstarted our efforts with the front garden. At the end of last year we dug up the manky grass in the front garden to prepare the soil for this year. It sat bare for a couple of months but now we have some plants in and it’s looking more like a garden. Hooray!

We bought a Snake’s Head Fritillary with purple and white flowers. I really like the unusual pattern on the petals.

This is a Scabious (horrible name for such a nice plant) from our local garden centre. It’s a bee friendly plant and I thought the purple would look good with our yellow rose bush.

This lime green Saxifraga is evergreen so we’ll still have some greenery over the Winter.

The Arabis is so bright, has lots of flowers and is a good food source for bees in the Spring.

I bought a Lupin from Waitrose. It’s a traditional cottage garden plant and the flower stems grow up to 50cm tall which will give us some contrast in height compared to the other plants we’ve bought for ground coverage. I’m looking forward to seeing this flower.

This Lithodora was another plant from Waitrose. I picked this one up because I love the bright blue flowers and it is bee friendly.

Our Hutchinsia will form an evergreen carpet full of dinky white flowers in the Spring and Summer.

This Erysium has tall flower stems and apparently flowers nearly all year round. Win!

I love the blueish buds and deep red flowers on this Dianthus.

And the last plant we picked up from the garden centre was an Aquilegia. Another traditional cottage garden plant that has big white flowers.

I nabbed a bargain with this Christmas Rose. Bought for £3.40 at a church plant sale I randomly walked past on my way to work last week.

Elsewhere at home, all the seeds have sprouted and many are ready for planting out. The seedlings below are basil. I want to grow LOTS of this to turn into pesto.
And that’s what has been happening in our garden. It’s so nice to have some colour and greenery in the front. I hope this post has given you plant ideas for your own garden too.
Everything is so colorful and fresh! #HDYGG
I love planting out new plants and seeds-it’s just so exciting. You have a lovely selection there too 🙂
Thanks 🙂
Oooh, such a great selection — loads of my favourites in there! You’re making me want to head off plant shopping as well…
Wow, you have been busy! Some of my fav plants. I agree a Scabious is such an awful name for a delicate plant. I adore lupins but for some reason they just will not grow in our garden.
Mine appears to be growing but whether it will flower is another story. I think they need quite a bit of sun.
Fabulous! I look forward to hearing how the basil grow, I have sadly had little success growing my own, but I love copious amounts of garlicky, homemade pesto!
Me too! *tummy rumbles*
You have lots of lovely variety growing in your garden. I have bought lots of plants from my local supermarket, they’re such great value #hdygg
They are! All the ones I’ve bought have been really healthy too. Having plants at the supermarket is a bit dangerous though – it’s a bit too easy to pop in and pick more up.
so many beautiful flowers in such an array of colors!!!! and you are right, that snake’s head is amazing
So many pretty flowers! I was only admiring a Snake’s Head Fritillary last weekend, and I want one now, too!
They are lovely flowers, but I wish they lasted for a bit longer before shrivelling up.
I love the new Waitrose plant section! I have so wanted to buy some things, but I’m terribly un green fingered and I’m afraid I would kill them all!
I love all of your choices! I’m glad you posted a picture of the lupin because I was staring at ours earlier today and couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of it… ha! that scabious is gorgeous, what a stunning blue! x
*wonders if my local Waitrose has a new plants section too*
Aceness! Spring pretties galore, I’m uber-envious of your plant buying. I have pulled out my finger and started weeding and preparing a big patch in my front garden now so in a few weeks I’ll be buying some too. Seeing yours makes me very impatient!
Lovely photos as ever, thanks for joining in again – hope all is well your end xxx
These pics are lush!
We haven’t even started on our front garden yet – it’s not enclosed but we were thinking of digging a boarder for some pretty flowers under the living room bay window. This has definitely inspired me to get on with it this weekend!
The snakes head Fritillary is actually kinda creepy but gorgeous colour!
Such beautiful shades of purple! I have enjoyed looking at our lupins this week with the dew droplets on 🙂 #HDYGG
Oh your Garden looks Lovely!!! I really love the first one, Snake’s Head Fritillary Ive never seen those before… MUST GET ONE 🙂 #HDYGG
Oh wow Gemma so many gems there, I love all of these! I must get better at learning the names of flowers and plants although I do remember Lupins from my childhood. Sounds like you’ve been a busy bean, hope you’re good 🙂
All such beautiful plants, my favourite types too, all cottagey. I need a spending spree now and we have a new Waitrose in town so must check it out.
Lovely spring flowers – I love this time of year when everything starts blossoming (winter always seem way too long!) #hdygg
Lupins are just gorgeous and will really help attract the bees. We lost ours in the freeze last year – I must get some more
Amazing! Lithodora and Scabious are perfect for my cousin’s lavender garden. The color blue and blue are definitely going to be a nice tandem. I am still currently working out my garden at home, and I’ve got few concerns with landscaping so I think it might take a while for me to buy these wonderful plants. but i wonder, Are saxifraga have their own blue version? =)