Seaside garden centre

Another brilliant day today, and though I would like to have gone back to Lismore I decided to stay at home and do some planting and tidying.
 
I planted three trees on the steep slope which passes for my garden - firstly Betula pendula 'Tristis', a graceful weeping form of our native silver birch quite unlike the contorted and grotesque cultivar 'Youngii' which passes for a weeping tree, but which looks more like a shredded mushroom!  Secondly a multi-stemmed specimen of Betula utilis 'Snow Queen', a white-barked selection of a Himalayan birch and finally Sorbus ulleungensis 'Olympic Flame', a columnar selection of a rowan from Korea, which has flaming red autumn colour. I also planted an azalea, Rhododendron 'Persil', which has scented white flowers and brilliant autumn colour - I picked this one out in the autumn as I wanted an azalea with autumn colour to team up with the white-stemmed birch, a lovely combination which I tried at Arduaine.
 
I then went out to buy some plants to put in pots by the front door. Homebase in Oban has a good selection, but I'm fed up with complaining to the staff about the number of plants which are shrivelled and desiccated for lack of water. I did so again today and was told that they were already watered morning and evening and they couldn't do more - they don't have the staff! Well they certainly don't have the staff with the right knowledge - if they were watered properly each evening even in this warm weather they would last happily through the day - I've been doing this for years! If in a batch of 25 primulas there are three which are completely limp, then it's plainly bad watering! A potted rosemary doesn't dry up to the point of floppiness in a day, especially if its neighbours are fine! While I'm ranting, I do the same with Lidl and Aldi - I just hate to see plants which have been carefully grown, dying as soon as they're put out for sale!
 
Anyway, though I bought a few plants in Homebase I went on to Poppies Garden Centre, on the seashore with a background of Connel Bridge. This is my Blip today - though before someone picks me up, without the bridge! In the picture you'll see a plume of smoke - in the next twenty minutes this had grown to a huge black cloud - a big fire somewhere to the north-west. I found a beautiful but unpriced primula in an ornamental pot, Primula 'Dark Rosalee',  which was more expensive that I liked, but I was satisfied when I persuaded them to knock a pound off. It was a large plant, obviously several years old. When I got home I checked it out and found that it was actually 'Dark Rosaleen', bred by Joe Kennedy in Ireland and named after the poem by the Irish poet James Clarence Mangan. If often has a mix of primrose and polyanthus stems with bronze-coloured leaves and  burgundy striped pink flowers. Lovely! I also bought a Primula 'Gold Nugget' and a spectacular silver laced polyanthus, among others. I put this on as an extra. 

Tomorrow I will write a maximum of ten words - I'm beginning to suffer from  prolixity!