A Trip to the Garden Centre

Mark and I wanted to get some plants to make our garden prettier and hopefully brighten up our balcony as after being here a while and having been invited to other peoples houses we started to feel like we weren't taking advantage of our patio.  I had seen the garden centres on Thomson Road from visiting the RDA and Polo Club so knew that we'd have a good choice of shops.  We drove there, but I think its quite close to the yellow line, however I imagine you'd want to get a taxi back.

 I quite liked gardening in the UK if I had plenty of time to potter around.  However in Singapore I hardly know the name of any plants at all.  I really loved looking around and fell in love with some outside furniture, although I would never pay some of the prices they were asking.  Some of the sales assistants did come over to try and sell me some patio sets and they all said (with the more expensive sets) that if we moved they would sell them again for us unless we were bringing them back to the UK.  This seemed like a good option if Expat Auctions wouldn't do it.  So I guess it really is an option for some people.

We walked down the road popping into all of the garden centres on the way down.  Mostly they were full of things for Chinese New Year, but that made them all the brighter.  I do miss garden centres in the UK.  When I go looking for plants I want to have tea and scones and come home with a yankee candle.  Here they just seem to be into plants...in a plant shop?!  (I'm sure it can't be us that's wrong?)

Everyone was helpful and left us to have a walk around and the prices seemed reasonable enough and comparable to the UK. I don't like being followed and bothered to buy things, but people were on hand when we had questions about what light plants would like or where they could go in our garden. 

I have no idea what this plant is called but I love its papery petals.  There are loads of these tree's around our area, so I am going to have to linger outside someone's house just to strike up conversation and ask them...   

Unfortunately we got rained out so rushed back to the car with only a couple of seed packets.  If nothing else it's quite nice to have a walk around and plan what you want to do in the space you have.