Clivia do well here, but only bloom for about a month and then that's it. Fuchsias on the other hand, thrive here.
We all seem to have a "problem area" no matter where we live ! Right ?
Annie's Annuals is about 8 hours north of me, so I've never been there. One of these days I'll make it up there. The only good cottage nursery we had here closed recently. They carried a lot of Annie's plants but they were defintely "pricey" to say the least.
Traditional cottage garden plants USED to be easy to get here. That's before the big box stores came along and started selling the dwarf varieties of everything. It's terrible.
Back in the day, when I worked at nurseries, annuals came in wooden flats and you bought them by the dozen or half dozen. NOTHING had blooms on them so you had to know what you were buying...unlike now where everything is already blooming in 6 packs and the selection is abysmal.
Giant stock, love in a mist, tall rocket snapdragons, agrostemma and a myriad of other good old fashioned flowers were commonplace back then. Before the term "cottage garden" became the buzz word, we used to call them "old lady gardens"...because old ladies always had the best gardens with the best variety and style. We need more old ladies !!!
