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

ooh thalictrum delavayii is gorgeous

I bagged up an enormous amount of snails today - enough to be a main course for three. I put them in a carrier bag with a twisty tie on the top and put them in a bin at the shopping centre I didn't want DS to see me murdering them. I cannot believe how many there were - all in my front garden which has a border which is about 10' by 4'!

I have three baby thalictrum delavayi growing in my cold frame. I am insanely excited.

just googles thalictrum delavayi. Looks absolutely beautiful.

Maud - sounds lovely - any advice for a vigorous clematis?

Christinede sanguisorba is like a dream and knautia

phew crocus is pricey need to find somewhere else...

Psst! Humphrey - and its available cheap from Parkers.

Mopsa - If you know what you want, look at Parkers because their prices are very good.

Vigorous clematis, eh? There's clematis montana which is very early to flower, but this does tend to run amok (mine has reached the top of the apple tree beside the fence). Three that I especially love are Niobe, Polish Spirit (an excellent doer, slightly on the rampant side) and Wada's Primrose, the only 'yellow' clematis (actually a rich cream colour). Nelly Moser is good but tends to fade in sunlight so is best in shade. I've just bought Star of India, which has lovely striped petals. Blue Ravine is gorgeous too, but I killed mine when I moved it, so it's obviously not as robust as some of the others. (I tend to treat my clematis mean and keep them keen).

Ha! Crossed posts with Mopsa on the subject of prices.

And I keep saying this, but if you need a lot of plants and money is tight (isn't it always?) then join your local gardening society and find out about their plant sales and seed swaps. At this time of year they're quite likely to be having some sort of sale and swap and that's an excellent way of getting plants that suit local conditions.

thanks again come into the garden - rich cream is goooood!! Will have a recce and check out parkers whilst i am there as crocus is not even that great ime!

lordy, you lot are a bad influence

have now ordered thalictrum from Parkers
and a climbing hydranga for my cold wall
and some anemones

excellent link, thank you Maud

Wada's Primrose. Although this says it is best suited to a warm wall, which implies it is delicate, mine is doing well growing up a fig tree. She must be as tough as old boots, because when the first tree it was growing up died, the gardener who heaved the dead tree out for me left poor old Wada on the ground and it was days before I found her and replanted her.

I have always hankered after this one

Can you tell that I like clematis?

I love Parkers. They don't stock everything but their prices are good and so is their after sales service if you need it.

::Imagines that across the nation, MNing gardeners and gardening MNers will be buying thalictrum from Parkers and the whole country will be going thalictrum-tastic::

humphrey - i have a lovely climbing hydrangea on my cold and dark and high wall and it is

My climbing hydrangea died ::sob:: but my little baby hydrangea quercifolia is a thing of beauty and (I hope) a joy forever.

loving the bad influence of this thread,

Gardening is the new rock and roll, you know!

my whole garden is dominated by lavender and ivy - am GUTTED that B and Q do not seem to have their lavenders in this year - you can get trays of them for 12 quid or so and my hedges have gaps!

I had the morning off today so was able to plant out some more sweet peas using the seeds I had saved from last year. This was pleasing and made me feel like a proper gardener. I also did some sunflower seeds with dd, although she was more interested in putting her pet worm to bed in a flowerpot, poor thing.

Got home this afternoon to find that DH had fixed up a new tap with a hose and an spraying attachment thingy so I don't have to fill a watering can any more. Bliss.

Weeded the veg patch after the children went to bed. I am totally knackered now.

The electricians are coming next week to disconnect the overhead power line and connect up the underground cable we had put in. I am really looking forward to this, it will make a big difference to the way the garden looks.

I hope you have all been enjoying the nice weather too?

We went to the beach and I have a sunburned right arm . Shall be off to the nursery tomorrow though to collect my Macleaya they have put on one side for me and pick up some verbena bonariensis too because I suspect my seeds are going to do NOTHING. Sweet peas are coming up though :)

It's been a beautiful day today, hasn't it? Was going to have a big day out but ended up spending hours mooching around at the garden centre spending ages picking a few plants (DS was happy riding around on the trolley and it was lovely and quiet)

Spent a good few hours in the garden this afternoon planting loads of new plants, herbs, my new red jasmine and spotted my lettuce popping up through the soil.

I'm bloody shattered

have just googled Macleaya - I like it very much. Where are you going to put it?

I haven't had much time in the garden today but did spend longer than I cared for lugging watering cans about, having discovered that the @+*&# foxes had bitten through both hoses and so both now function as sprinklers. It's 48 hours since I planted my seeds and I'm impatient for results!

CdeP has reminded me that I used to have macleaya (excellent architectural plant, by the way). I was warned that it would take over the garden but instead it seems to have withered and died. Hmm.

how nice to see the lettuce coming though. I haven't got any in yet, although I do now have a nice clean veg patch to put it in.

It's going to be the centrepiece of my orange purple and red bed. I've got three red/purple leaved cannas (hopefully) coming up around it, green gladioli, red hemerocallis, orange ranunculus with stipa tenuissima (a very airy grass), alchemilla mollis and lime green and purple heucheras providing some leaf shapes/ground cover.

It's either going to be fabulous or dire :o

It sounds fabulous. It's not a million miles from my red, purple and lime green bed, which is still ::ahem:: a work in progress. You've just given me the idea that if last year's green gladioli reappear (do you think they will? I usually find that everything apart from byzantinus perishes over winter) I could hoick them out of last year's position and move them there.