Temptation!

This morning I took a walk over to the garden centre to look to see what sorts of plants they had that might be suitable for a large tub which I will be planting up for the elderly gentleman round the corner. It will fill up a space on his patio which doesn't get a lot of sun even in the summer.
Although it's very early in the season, the garden centre has a good selection and throughout the year they bring in plants as they are coming to their peak or at the time appropriate for them to be planted.
Oh how I wish I had a large garden and a large pocket to go with it! Every time I go there I look at the various plants and mentally arrange them in the 'garden in my mind' but sadly, I'm the only one that can see it and there definitely is not enough room in my tiny back yard.
At this time of the year they have a really good choice of spring bulbs which are planted in small pots ready to be put into containers and these are all beginning to come into flower. This is a great idea because you can actually see what colours you are going to get. I made a mental note of what they had and all the colours then came home.
This afternoon I went round to see the gentleman and I described in detail what I had seen. I suggested that we put in a small slow growing conifer and an ivy plant that he has in a pot in his kitchen. These would give us greenery the whole year round. Then I told him that we could put in summer flowering annuals in a month or so and when these finish flowering in the autumn, I could get some ornamental cabbages to give colour through the winter. Then next spring, I could get some of these little pots with the bulbs in and once planted they would come up year after year.
I think I described all these bulbs far too well because he said he would like some of every variety and colour! Then I had to tactfully explain that the tub wasn't big enough for everything to fit in but at least we have a year for him to decide which colours he would really like.