My garden makes me so happy

[HumphreyCobbler]

I wanted a garden all my adult life, and for the last three years I have had one.

To begin with I was worried it wouldn't be as much fun as I thought it would be, but I soon discovered it was even better.

It was an overgrown, tangled mess when we moved in and slowly we have transformed it. I am still a beginner, but I already know so much more than I did.

Today I came home to find a massive pile of well rotted horseshit waiting for me. It was brilliant.

I don't really know what the point of this post is, I just wanted to share

[Lexilicious]

Here you go!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/1275641-Humphs-Happy-Horti-cult-harvesting-preserving-mulching-leaf-gathering-bulb-dibbing-seed-catalogue-surfing-and-hunkering-down-for-winter

[Lexilicious]

on reflection that title is only really relevant this month and as it took us five of the most active gardening months to get through this one, even if everyone did want to reconvene in thread 2 it should serve us through the winter, which gives me an idea.......

[HumphreyCobbler]

Love the new thread title, although I HAVEN'T eaten courgettes for a week . Runner beans are going to be my next staple by the look of things.

I didn't get a times on Saturday, how annoying. The words courtyard garden are enough to make me happy.

The wind has picked up after a two blissful wind-free months.

[Lexilicious]

Well what an amazing stormy afternoon! Hailstones here at about 5pm. Hope nothing got too battered.

I've done nearly nothing in the garden for two weekends - feels very strange. Last Sunday I held a birthday party for my 2 year old in the garden and it was thoroughly trampled on (but enjoyed!) by all.

I've just been enjoying looking out on it. It's very green and lush. I planted some seeds of carrots, beetroot, cavolo nero and radish which are emerging, and I'm doing some late potatoes (bit of an experiment). Thinking about getting the specialist seed potatoes for Christmas cropping, but I'm not sure it's the best use of space - they're not exactly attractive plants.

Wondering about cutting down /removing some of the nicotiana that didn't really recover from the move. I've been very lax about deadheading calendulas in the front garden border to my path, but those that I have done, I've scattered in the grass so perhaps it will all come up next year.

We are perilously close to needing to start a follow-on thread... title suggestions?
"My garden still makes me smile even after I've eaten courgettes every night for a week" - ??

Lovely garden article in yesterday's Saturday Times magazine - Kate Atkinson (of the Jackson Brodie books) has a lovely courtyard garden packed full of scent and floweryness.

[Pkam]

I've been busy collecting bulb catalogues. Then I am forcing DH to sit with me to decide what to order. In this way I hope he won't faint when he sees the overall cost! Hopefully won't be anywhere near yours though Humphrey but I do want a shed load of aliums for the long bed and we're planning on getting some bluebells out the front in a bit of the garden that we generally just ignore as it's between the shed and the gate. Bluebells will look perfect there though.

[HumphreyCobbler]

My bulb order stands at £186. So far.

300 or so tulips (spring green, princess Irene, sylvestris, 400 iris bulbs (purple sensation), various alliums. The main worry is how much my back is going to hurt after they are planted.

Laid out canes for the new double row of crab apples that are going in, also laid the hose in the shape of the new beds at the side/back of the house so I could see what DH meant. I am crap at visualising spacial things, I have to see it. It is going to cut the garden in half, as we are also adding a purple beech hedge to make a more enclosed space with much less lawn. The aim is to get rid of the massive expanse of grass that dominates the garden atm. I can't wait.

Have also started planning what I am going to do with the enclosed square at the front of the house, which is a total mess now. It is a small space but has no repeat planting at all, just inappropriate shrubs and random mismatched planting. Definitely want to use oriental poppies here as I think they will look good from the road. I do want to avoid a cottage border look. Suggestions welcome, I am after stuff that is quite low growing. In a few years we will try to put box hedging all round here as we look out at it from our bedroom window and it would look great in winter. It will take a long time to do this as DH only started doing the cuttings last year. We have 120 plants surviving so far and hope to do more this year.

Have you all been enjoying the fine weather? Do hope so.

[PfftTheMagicDraco]

Maud - thank you, thank you for the crocosmia! They were fine, the lovely postie put them in a cupboard in the porch to stop them roasting. My mum had another load for me as well, so should have lots of lovely crocosmia next year


Have returned from holiday to find that the weeds have just about taken over. Weeded and dead-headed the front today, will do the back tomorrow.

Am now going to read all the new gardeny posts to get some inspiration.

[Selks]

Wow......have never seen so many snails before, never ever....it's rained all day today but it's just cleared up now. I went outside to get something and there are hundreds - yes, hundreds - of snails on the lawn! There are great clusters of them and they are all over the place!

Crikey. I knew there were lots of snails around, but had no idea that there was THIS many!

I just left them there. I garden despite slugs and snails. I don't bother controlling them as my little garden is surrounded by dry stone walls with fields beyond so I have no chance of limiting them really, and I grow plants that withstand snail / slug damage.

Hmmmmmm.

Maybe my garden has become the local snail refuge......

[HumphreyCobbler]

Lovely. Mine have not appeared yet, but I was very late getting them out. The runners are ready. Harvested a load of broad beans today, will have to get the rest tomorrow as they are looking a bit tired.

All the gladioli for cutting are coming out, I wish I had staggered the planting and got the rest of the bulbs in. They are fabulous.

DH and I have been planning what to do next year. Is there anything as absorbing as planning what you will grow next year? It exists in perfection in your head at least. Gardening without effort or mistakes....

[Pkam]

They have a pink spikey thing which looks fabulous. Am building up the courage.

Was particularly impressed this evening with the ingenuity of the butterfly who has laid its eggs on the netting around the veg plot. It obviously decided as it couldn't get to the broccoli it would leave its babies as close as it could get! Can't get the eggs off either - stuck on with super glue I think.

Also, I've been watching the tiny french beans on the top of my plants develop very, very slowly. Then tonight I've discovered that in the mean time they've been growing like mad underneath the leaves. Hoards of the things! Hiding. Rapidly rethinking the menu for this weekend....

[HumphreyCobbler]

I would go for it. Imagine if someone did that to one of us, wouldn't we be DELIGHTED to show them?

[Pkam]

Ooh. In my dreams I have a walled garden.

There is a house I pass which has a fantastic front garden that I get a tantalising glimpse of everyday. I so desperately want to walk around it I am very tempted to knock on their door and ask for a chat about their planting scheme. Would that be strange do you think?

[HumphreyCobbler]

I want mulberries How lovely.

Went to Knightshayes today, their walled garden is sublime. Fantastic.

[Pkam]

It's mulberry time! So excited. I just wish I could find a way to pick them that didn't make me look like I've been in a bizarre machine-gunning accident. When I came in today I had blood red spatters all over my face and shoulders, stains running up my arms from my hands to my elbows and, the best of all, a dribble running down my cleavage. Nice.

[Pkam]

I have some - it did nothing for a couple of months and then grew three spikes. Not looking very 'fabulous' at all. Might try moving it though as yours has given me hope. The spikes I have are very pretty though .

[Selks]

hello all. Great gardening weather these last few weeks, isn't it? (Well, hope it has been where you are anyway!)

Was out doing a bit of weeding earlier. My borders with their perennials are thick and lush at the moment. We've had a fantastic growing season around here (Yorkshire) this year.

I'm particularly pleased with my lovely clump of Linarea Purpurea (Toadflax) 'Canon Went'. I bought one three litre pot in late spring and popped it in a dryish corner of one bed and it has been fabulous...it's formed a huge mound over three feet tall and wide and has flowered for weeks now with gorgeous delicate spikes of pale pink. I really recommend it...here's a link, although the pics don't do justice to the lovely big clump it makes.
Anyone else grow this?

[ChristinedePizan]

Hello everyone :)

I have decided to dig up some more of the grass for veg next year (poor DS is going to be left with a patch the size of a postage stamp by the time I've finished ). The fence behind where I'm thinking of has a monster hop growing in it which is v invasive - spreads by layering. Do you think if I sink some of that cheap plastic lawn edging into the earth, it will keep the hop at bay?

I'm losing hope of getting an allotment before I'm too decrepit to work in it.

[HumphreyCobbler]

Thanks, she is on the mend now.

We have got a friend who is married to a proper gardener coming to visit tomorrow. Hence the tidy initiative. It focuses the mind

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Croup? Poor dd and poor you too, I imagine.

My MIL's garden was infested with that persistent weed caper spurge.

[HumphreyCobbler]

Sweaty Betty.

I am very tired, DD is recovering from croup..

[HumphreyCobbler]

Petty spurge is a fantastic name.

Only realised yesterday that the vernacular name for clary sage is sweaty better. Brilliant.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Petty spurge may have a purpose. What makes it so annoying is that it is pretty - I like all euphorbias/spurges and was very sad when I got rid of the last honey spurge - but it is so invasive and so quick to take hold.

My sweet peas are now growing two inches a day and we have a few flowers. Way-hay!

[HumphreyCobbler]

god that euphorbia weed would take over my whole garden in a week. You can't get at it very well when it is tiny either. It annoys me more than the bindweed.

Had a good go at general tidying today, all looks much better. Sweet peas are finally arriving, the white ones in front of the pigscot are growing up all the willows and give a fantastic scent as you walk past. Sadly there are large gaps in the round veg patch as the dwarf french beans have entirely failed to thrive, DH trod on my cucumber plant and the courgette plant died. I have planted two more cucumber plants but they are doing nothing. Last year one plant took over about a third of the bed so don't know what I am doing wrong this year. Still, I am pleased with the circle bit in the middle of the bed (it is three beds with paths through) as the white cosmos and blue cornflowers, flanked by the sweet peas growing up the arches, look nice and cottage-gardeny.

[Lexilicious]

It's called petty spurge, that euphorbia-like stuff.
What a super name.

I could "look after" some alpines if anyone had too many, you know. The paving around my pond needs to be colonised.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Ha! at Pkam's plant-napping. Fiendishly good thinking, Moriarty.

I have just been shocked by the quantity of that little euphorbia weed I have pulled out of the tiny bed in the front garden.