What is the best value/ bargain plant you have bought.

I've planted clematis through all my climbing roses now, usually buying dejected plants and nursing them for a few months before planting them.
Your colour combination sounds wonderful J52 x

Loopylou, snap, we also have golden showers climbing up the front of the house. Planted with blue Ceanothus and pyracantha with white flowers at the moment.
x

I've got Golden Showers growing up the front of the house, with a dark plum coloured clematis growing through it. It's a beautiful rose, and as you say whitewave it flowers its socks off, the first one out and it was still flowering at Christmas last year. Mine was a real cheapy from Woolworth years ago.

Not sure how much it cost as have had it for donkeys years but Yellow Showers climbing rose flowers from June to often December and has done so so for at least 15 years so far - excellent value. Also another climbing rose whose name is now lost is one of the most beautiful - it only flowers the once but is an old fashioned pink with the most glorious scent and is breathtaking when out in all its glory.

Aren't they beautiful jane? Ours has taken root through the pot and into the wall so it is there for life. My sister (who is very green fingered and a much more experienced gardener than us) bought one at the same time but hers died ages ago, so we are even more smug about ours now!

I did that on a coal bunker! 'Pink flower carpet', they flower and flower. Now I buy some more whenever I move. I have a white one in a huge pedestal urn too.

We bought a carpet rose about 15 years ago. DH decided, after reading the instructions etc, that if he put it in the ground it would take over and be unmanageable. We weren't very experienced with plants at the time, not realising that a 'carpet' rose meant that it would spread like a carpet.
He decided to put it in a large pot and keep it on a little wall in our back garden. It has been magnificent. It is huge and gives a fabulous show of bright pink blooms twice a year. Everyone admires it and we show it off with pride, of course not mentioning that it's magnificence is purely accidental

Sorry everyone, to return to OP:
I am a sucker for feeling sorry for neglected plants. I bought a pathetic, unlabelled clematis plant that literally was on its last legs, for 5p three or four years ago.
It's a magnificent 8' high now, and I've just been out to count the number of buds/flowers on it = 45!

I've no idea of its name but the double, frilly flowers start lime green and then turn white.

Definitely a bargain. I also by pathetic roses and nurse them back to life - they're remarkably tough plants!

I'm speechless!
Those cakes shysal..... Amazing

And very envious of your beautiful garden, and having badgers

Thank you for sharing your cake shysal, virtually anyway, it was brilliant. I am not a cake maker myself but have a couple of friends who are, so I will pass on the cake topper info.

Here you are Caz, pictures of cheat's cake on my profile. I can recommend personalised cake toppers from Ebay, only £3.73 with free P&P.
I will disappear now, J52, and stop spoiling this thread!

Don't worry cake and plants go well, with a nice cup of tea! x

Sorry, J52, for going off piste on your thread.

Like you, caz, I thought the musical would be about Elvis, but not so. It is set in Memphis at the time of segregation of blacks/whites. DGS went to the West End on Friday for his treat. I cheated for the cake design by copying a photo from the theatre site and having a personalized icing topper made. It is A4, so cake is huge!

Shysal put a pic of the cake up please so I can drool over it. Will it have an Elvis on it? (will drool even more!)

Back to the bargain plants. I bought 4 extremely tatty pansy plants last August for a small hanging basket outside my back door. They have been in flower continuously ever since, 10 months, all for the princely sum of £1.00.

My prize specimen in my garden is a very beautiful, delicate purple acer. We have had it for almost 20 years and it is much admired. Even more so because we picked it up for £1 in our local nursery as they said it was not fit for sale! I am very worried today though as I am not sure it will survive the gale that is blowing!!

You're a clever lady shysal. Your cakes look amazing.

I was just about to say - forget the guerrilla gardening, look at those CAKES!

Yes caz, in a very amateur way, just for close family. Doing a Memphis the Musical themed one today for DGS1's 16th tomorrow. It will have his initials through the centre of the cake.

Love the garden photos too but I see you other interest is cakes, lots of them !!

Shysal I love your guerrilla gardening photo. There needs to be more of it to make the world prettier and encourage wild life. Beautiful garden, as well. x

A neighbour and I have filled a bit of rubbly ground in our car park with freebies and plants from garden centre 'sick bays'. The most successful have been some purple perennial wallflowers for 10p each. They flower all year round! I have posted a photo on my profile. It is difficult to see, but the aquilegia and other perennials from free seed, naturally occurring ox-eye daisies, border geraniums from division, (not to mention dandelions) etc. are a picture!

I wanted a yellow hellebore, and they can cost around £30. I bought one on eBay for £3. There have been loads of good bargains, but that one thrilled me most because I had been looking for a good lemon yellow for years.

When we moved to our current home I had a large overgrown garden to sort out and very little money.

I happened to look into my local Woolworths when they were having an end of season sale of all the plants that were left. I bought 23 roses and shrubs for £24. I nurtured them and planted them with care and 18 years later, all but one or two I removed later when the border got overcrowded, are still doing well.

Just recently my local Lidl had some indoor house plants on offer.
I bought a Gloxinia for £1.99, but it didn't look particularly lively or thrilling but had several buds. Now they have opened it is definitely the best house plant I have ever had, with the most gorgeous reddish-pink flowers with frilly edges, absolutely beautiful. And so many buds forming that there isn't enough room for them to open, so I have cut off some of the bigger leaves.
Definitely a bargain.