After reading Gill Regan's article, entitled, ‘self-seeders, love them or hate them', in the spring 2013 edition of the HPS Journal, I sat and nodded. ‘yes, they are a pain – spend minutes planting them and then years trying to get rid of them. Although I love the flowers of Geranium nodosum, it is a nuisance for self seeding right into the middle of other, more precious plants, making it difficult if not impossible, at times, to remove the seedlings without wrecking the innocent host plant.
On wandering around my garden a few days after reading the article, where Gill stated that she would be delighted to see other, more prized plants seeding around. I was over the moon when I noticed a little spotted leaf of a Dactylorhiza seedling in a hosta pot on the decking of my pond.
Combine this with the fact that I had just repotted three of the hostas on my pond, to make them less inviting to slugs -green, cheap looking, plastic pots, which I have decided was a moment of madness. The pots are standing in tray of water, have copper bands around them and finally topped with chicken grit -all in my declaration of war on slugs!
Then, through this chicken grit up pops an orchid seedling. What sheer luck. Perhaps I need to repot my hostas more often.
Maggie Duguid
Text and photos by Maggie Duguid, who is a member of the HPS North East Group.
