seaside themed planter

[SarfEasticated]

Hi ladies,
I have a bag of seashells that I would like to use in a seaside themed planter. Can you give me some plant suggestions? Planter hasn't been bought yet, so any size, and it will be in full sun on our deck. I'm thinking Whitstable meets Dungeness, rather than anything flash, but planter will be in London so no sea air. Any ideas?
I use to go the BBC website for plant info but it seems to closed down - what sited do you use for inspiration and advice?
Thanks in advance :)

[SarfEasticated]

Ah Maude, my apologies for lack of update about the playhouse - it's up, it's huge, there is no room for plants apart from a tiny window box I will put some gerberas in in the spring. My spatial awareness let me down somewhat, and it is actually takes up much more space on our deck than I thought. Rugosa loves it, and wants her bed moved out there. I might cluster the pot-bound Agapanthus around it in the summer, but my fantasy of a sandy planter will remain as a fantasy. Think that the local cats would use it a loo anyway even if I did.
For some reason I can't quite fathom, our earnings won't buy us a lovely detached house in Hampstead with large wooded garden (Freud's house would be nice - after a lot of decluttering though), so our small garden isn't giving much autumnal colour at the mo. I am feeling rather despondent.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

::Similar apologies for not having come back sooner::

Hmm. We have similar problems. I really ought to be living in a huge Arts and Crafts house with authentic Morris & Co furniture and an immense garden, and yet somehow it hasn't happened.

Could you got to Kew to absorb some of their autumn colour?

I'm glad that Rugosa loves her playmansion, though.

[SarfEasticated]

Can we lodge a formal complaint Maude? Maybe the national trust haven't received our letters? Maybe we should take slightly more direct action and just move into Sissinghurst. I think Vita would approve of a whacking great playhouse plonked in the middle of her white garden! maybe I need to watch 'pride and prejudice' again.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Oh dear, Sarf.

Actually, I have a plan. Do you fancy a job-share? Have you got any experience in the meeja? There seems to be a vacancy now in a large public sector organisation and a 50/50 split on a £450,000 salary will probably see us right. I get the impression that the National Trust only lets its properties to the Right Sort, so if we get the job we'll probably get the house too.

I favour North and South when I need some uplifting bonnet action.

[SarfEasticated]

We wouldn't even have to work the whole year!
I think we could do very well at the beeb Maude. Eastenders would be gone like a shot - far too depressing - Kirsty and Monty would be prime time viewing and I would show some Alan Bennet for our more 'regional viewers'. HFW would be good too, possible some Nigella after the watershed. Ahh you've given me a lot to think about - my viewing favourites... I do enjoy our little chats Maude - did you ever buy any Toast by the way?

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Ah no, I haven't quite committed to buying from Toast. Will it be de rigueur for our working wardrobe once we are running the Beeb? Your programming ideas sound good, although we must also find space and time for Nigel Slater. And create an additional BBC Bonnet Channel for endless reruns of P&P, N&S and Jane Eyre with lovely Toby Stephens.

I wouldn't even mind keeping EastEnders, to remind people of how things used to be before the MN Benevolent Dictatorship came to utterly reasonable power.

[SarfEasticated]

oh maude have just seen 'Rosemary and Thyme' on ITV3 - I feel that could be us! (I would want to be FK if poss but we could swap) - Hilarious. We wouldn't necessarily fight crime, but we could bustle around pretty villages organising things? What do you think?

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

I've never seen Rosemary and Thyme but feel FK's earlier work in The Good Life might inspire and inform some of the MN Gardeners' Government's policies on sustainable agriculture. Should we limit ourselves, though, to bustling around pretty villages? I thought we had rather grander ambitions entailing eventual world domination and Liberty prints all round not least, our Very Important Policy on requiring young men to pull their trousers up.