The autumn Sunday Times "plantsdirect" supplement seems to have some
reasonable offers in it. Has anyone here any experience of ordering from
them, good or bad?

I'm looking for some advice on some of the bulb selections they have there -
I presume they're all suitable for planting now since it's an autumn
catalogue! However, I don't know if they are best suited to shade, partial
or full sunlight or what soil types they suit.

I have quite neutral soil and it seems to have good drainage (haven't seen
any floods but it's not sandy at all - hard clay is about a foot down). I
have two flowerbeds in strong, full, all-day sunlight and several others in
varying degrees of shade.

There's a perennial collection I'm thinking of for a slightly shady bed
consisting of achillea, alchemilla mollis, asclepias tuberosa, aster,
astilbe, enchinacea purpurea, gypsophila, incarvillea, liatris, phlox bright
eyes, russell lupin and delphinium.

Then for a border between my front garden and the adjoining one (lots of
sun), perhaps the heather and dwarf conifer collection they have. Hopefully
these would be strong enough to fight back any flowers from the other side
of the decorative fence spreading into my soil!?

I've also got a *very* shady flowerbed to fill that currently has a climbing
rose bush in it and one other flowerbed that traps water with a downslope to
a brick wall so will be very wet during the winter. Any suggestions for
these?



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