I love weekends… Weekends are for doing the things you love, or doing nothing if you are that way inclined, I love the combination of the two, or should the two be considered as one if you love doing nothing?… What a silly question! Hmm, anyway, I got to do something I love over the weekend: I got to wander around the beautiful Summerhill garden centre that is not too far from us (a real gem!) and admire the beautiful flora. It is truly amazing to see what the mother nature and people are able to create!

Be warned: there will be a lot of pictures of various plants and flowers in this post. Some of you may find it boring but I hope you will just take some time and admire the beauty I have attempted to capture just with my phone’s camera.

Welcome to the world of wonders of nature! The first section of the garden centre we got to explore was the indoor plants area and it was amazing to see some very common and not-so-common plants. I do not remember ever seeing a monster this impressive, a carnivorous plant from the Nepenthes family.

Carnivorous indoor plant Nepenthes copelandii

I really love orchids and have a white Phalaenopsis orchid in our dining room (actually, I have three now as my old plant has produced two keiki which I have planted into separate pots now). But I love other types of orchids and Miltonia never disappoints – always so colourful, so I could not resist snapping this one:

Miltonia orchid

I loved the white phalaenopsis that was simply covered in bloom, so beautiful! I don’t think I have seen quite so many flowers on one plant!

Multiflora Phalaenopsis by Willd Orchids

Some beautiful hibiscus flowers caught my eye too…

I am a big fan of Saint Paulia or African violet, so I was drawn towards the stall with African violets and Streptocarpus blooms. I could not resist the Purple Polka Dot variety and bagged one of these beauties.

Streptocarpus Purple Polka Dot

Some very pretty cactuses!

I have no idea what the plants are on the next picture, but they are so pretty and bright! They were really tiny, and would be perfect for miniature plant combos!

There were many more amazing plants in the indoor section and I was so tempted to buy other indoor plants but knew full well that I can’t: I am short of window sill space already! So we have headed outside to see what we could get for the garden.

I have no idea what plants there were but the aroma emanating from them was simply stunning.

I took a sneak shot of the area – a small part of this huge garden centre.

I think this picture needs no explanation: petunias in hanging baskets rock! I was so impressed by the cute heart-shaped baskets too!

A beautiful mist of white flowers I am also not sure what the plant is.

A delightful splash of pink

I do have a weak spot for clematises too! They are such amazingly beautiful plants… The pompon variety is now growing in my garden by the garage.

I adore the way the Summerhill garden centre is laid out, it feels more like the garden to visit and enjoy (like Kew Gardens), but with the advantage of being able to pick up a plant and make it your own! I was quite impressed with how well all the plants looked: clearly the staff is looking after them well!

One area of the garden centre I was drawn towards is where the roses are. I love English tea roses in particular, what can be better than a gorgeous elegant beauty of an English rose! I headed for David Austin roses section and for ages was admiring his creations. These are a mix of David Austin’s roses and others but they are equally beautiful, would you agree?

There were so many other amazing plants there I could not stop myself, I had to click away taking pictures of them. I have never seen a Pineapple broom and was quite taken by its simple beauty.

Cytisus battandieri or Pineapple Broom

The bright colours were really captivating, I was giddy with excitement and Simon must have been thinking I have gone mad! I was smelling, taking pictures, kept repeating the words like “oh, it’s so beautiful!”, “such a pretty flower”, or “I wanna buy this one”… I had to argue in my head that I cannot possibly find the space in my garden or that slugs would it them. But I ended up putting the pots of white and blue campanula persicifolia into our basket, it was a many-years-old-dream of mine to have those in my garden, but I have never seen hem sold anywhere, so today my dream has finally come true!

And then I saw these beautiful blue flowers – no idea what they are, but they are stunning in their simplicity.

The peony is one of my favourite flowers too, and this one was winking at me so I had to snap a shot. While it is so pretty to look at, I prefer fragrant peonies and this one did not smell at all!

Beautiful peony

And then we watched the ducks in the pond – what a nice little pond it was too!

We left the Summerhill garden centre after about three hours and it was one of the most pleasurable shopping trips I have had in a long while! I am still buzzing and cannot wait to go there again!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them!