Penstemons and Pinks

Taking penstemon cuttings is a job for my spouse.  In my opinion he does it well. The current situation with these and other plants is as as follows:

•  About six 'struck' first time and now are out in the back looking healthy.  We (husband) have just moved the original plants to a hole made available by the removal (husband again) of a rather sick shrub.  More cuttings were taking prior to this and are in the potting shed under cover.  Husband is hopeful these too will strike. The garden centre originals looked good for a season and then failed to thrive as anticipated.  So from now on we will be propagating our own penstemons and accustoming them to the realities of life. (I am also hopeful that the ones moved to the border will recover.)
• Pinks: a bargain buy from the superstore.  Lovely scent.  Recovering after a hard winter in soil which husband has devotedly enriched.  He has taken about a dozen slips and is hopeful.
• Hollyhocks from seed: collected originally from a gardening customer in Chingford, sown last year and collected again.  Being nursed in the potting shed.
•  Sweet Williams: a great plant.  Why buy a bunch in the local emporium when you can grow your own?  Sown by me from saved seed.  Original plants a gift from our neighbours.  Pricked out carefully by my husband (another rescue job) and now also recovering in the potting shed.  
•  Hellebores: my next project.  I have just collected seed and am drying it out in the shed.

When I look back to our former life in the south-east I can see how my gardening priorities have changed.   We took on three allotments in various states of disrepair and it was in the autumn of 2008 that I first felt like growing flowers on our allotment and planted out some miniature daffodils by the shed.  But the need to keep adding to cultivated space always took precedence.  Flowering plants were given or scrounged and wedged into odd corners.  Now the situation seems to have reversed.  We grow a limited amount of our own food and, in the mature garden that we have taken over, we are adding the flowers we like.  It is all very satisfying.