An Outing to the Forest and a Garden Centre Visit

(Please excuse the formatting in my recent posts, for some reason blogger is altering the first few paragraphs automatically in my current browser and I can't seem to change them)

 

On Saturday, OH and I got up relatively early to head out for the morning. Our first stop was Epping Forest to walk the dog. OH has been doing this walk most Saturday mornings for a while now and loves it and he's been nagging me to go with him for a while, so I finally agreed and off we went.

The forest itself was glorious and it is amazing to see old trees and ancient iron age settlements whilst walking the dog.  There was the added bonus of lots of shade for the dog and not too many people around, although you still did have to social distance at times. I can understand why he enjoys it. I'm afraid I forgot to take any photos.

After a good hour of walking, we bundled the dog back into the car and headed off 10 minutes down the M25 to Crews Hill in Enfield, to visit a couple of garden centres.  There's a whole road full of them here, so if you can't get what you need at one, you can go to a different one. I was very excited about visiting a Garden Centre for the first time this year, but wasn't sure how busy it would be.

Needless to say, they were pretty busy. OH stayed with the car, as it was too hot to leave the dog in it, whilst I went into the garden centre. There was no queue for the first one, which was lucky and I managed to find a trolley to put a few bits and pieces on. I was wearing my usual mask and gloves, but very few other people were doing the same, save for the cashiers.

I was looking for some bamboo plants, but at the first garden centre they were £80 each for a very large pot.  Not really within budget at the moment. I did buy a couple of other plants though, namely this lovely spring flowering mimosa.

It's an Australian plant, so it likes full sun and is very tender, so I'll need to bring it inside in the winter, but I've wanted one of these since I started watching a couple of YouTube channels about sustainable gardening. It is apparently one of those plants that you can chop and drop to nourish your soil. It's not really big enough to chop as yet, but maybe in the future. I love the foliage of this plant though.

 

I also bought this lovely little Maple called Anne Irene. I have to admit that it's name did sell it to me, but it is a pretty little thing with pale yellowy leaves. This plant doesn't like full sun, so I'm thinking of putting this one in the border when the forget me knots die off, which will be very soon. I am very happy with it.

 

Other than these two items, I just bought a couple of pots for some houseplants that have outgrown their current pots, but I couldn't get any compost or grow bags for love nor money, as they had none in stock.

The next garden centre we tried had a longish queue of 8 people waiting to get in. I'm afraid I'm not prepared to wait in a long queue to get into any shop, so although they did appear to have compost outside, you had to go all the way through the shop to pay for it, so that was a no go.

We then went on to one more garden centre, here I managed to get some chicken manure for OH, a fencing cover panel for the end of the garden and some birthday cards for my sister in Australia. The bamboo in this shop was more reasonably priced at £43, but didn't look quite as good and once again was a little expensive. 

 

Maybe we're just being unrealistic about how much they cost, as we've never really bought them before. Once again there was no compost or grow bags, which was annoying, so we returned home without them. I have to admit that despite a supposed one way system in this second shop, it was a nightmare in terms of social distancing, with families of up to six people all shopping together and people standing around in the aisles waiting for one thing or another. No one seemed to think to step aside into the shop floor space, so others could pass by.

We were both pleased to get home afterwards. That itch being scratched, I don't think I'm too bothered about making another visit in the foreseeable future. It's strange that even the things you normally really love doing are spoiled by the spectre of social distancing, rendering them not really worth bothering with for the moment. I wonder if we'll ever have that care free feeling whilst shopping ever again. That said, it was good to get out for the morning and have a change of scenery so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

 

Today, when I was getting some lettuce from the greengrocers, I noticed that one of the shops down our high street had re-opened.  I was so pleased, because this particular shop sells plants, seeds, compost, hardware, kitchenware, stationery, so much useful stuff that has been really difficult to find during lockdown.

 

 

On my way back to the car, I stopped off to buy some compost for OH and was struck by the beauty of this lovely rose bush.  At just £9 there was no way that it was not coming home with me. It's a standard rose and I have no knowledge of roses, so it will be interesting to see how I go with it. It will be something new to learn during the rest of lockdown and beyond. Seeing this shop open again made very me happy and I said as much to the owners. Virtually everyone who came out of the shop were buying plants, so I don't think I was the only one.

 

Talking of plants and lettuce, here's an update on the growth of my lettuce stalks. They are slowly getting bigger. It'll still be a while before we'll be able to eat the leaves though.