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

It'll be fine Maud, honestly. Just yank up what you don't want.

It has been utter bliss in the garden today

Have planted out all the peas in nice triangle shapes, moved lots of plants into position, sowed purple and blue cornflowers and poppies in the beds under the pear tree and pricked out some seedlings. DH has planted out all the catmint under the roses, weeded the raspberries, added some more to his path in order to make it perfect and planted out some mock orange.

We have both ignored the children

The weather was perfect. I do hope you have all been enjoying your gardens as much as I have.

sorry, meant to say thanks for the information to AintMissBeehiving.

Aintmissbehiving can I just borrow you to come and tell me what to plant where in my garden to get it to look like yours?

All - what's the general opinion on pinching out sweet peas v. just leaving them to do their thing?

In the 'adopted extension' to our garden I have a beautiful carpet of primroses which are just fantastic. Also, woodland anemones everywhere in the wood and are stunning. (We were wondering what they were and up they popped on Gardener's World so can act knowledgable about them at least!)

Planted loads today - just loving the weather.

I am very jealous of your wood anemones - one of my favourite flowers. A carpet of those is a beautiful sight.

Oooh, the paddock (future wild flower meadow and new veg patch) is going to be harrowed tomorrow

Instead of looking at a lot of dead weeds I will get to plant my potatoes! Is it too late for onion sets?

What a lovely day Humph. I weeded my developing border on the edge of our wood which I partially planted last year. The fern fronds were all furry and unfurling. I love wood anemones and want a carpet through the wood.

I had a lovely day - went to a horticultural show and then spent time planting my new acquisitions - dill, hyssop and lemon balm for the herb bed - and tidying up the garden as we're planning a barbie tomorrow.

I have wood anenomes! Well, three, hardly a carpet :o

I planted up my macleaya today and watered the heucheras I brought from my old garden to move them to the new bed. I had a cunning idea last night - the local cats see all the bare earth as a giant little tray and I've put netting over it pegged down with pea sticks to stop them but obviously that won't work once plants are in there. So I made little hats out of a cereal packet for the pea sticks so that the netting is now about 1 1/2 foot above the soil. Cunning eh?

Tomorrow I'm going to lift a really, really horribly crowded pot of agapanthus and divide them into the pots the heuchera were in. Am looking forward to it!

Nearly all the wood anemones I've planted over the years - dozens, huh - have disappeared, but I've noticed that those under the daphne have just emerged. They are so lovely.

::sigh::

One of the reasons I favour dense planting is that it leaves no space for cat and fox poop.

::sigh again::

ChristinedePizan, I have four cats and have developped a whole system of anti-litter-tray devices for newly dug earth! It mostly invloves chicken wire - small raised frames with wire and rolled up balls of it as well!

I never knew how much fun ardening can be until recently and I am loving it, right now everything is bursting in to bloom and growing so quickly.

My next door neighbour has been with his harrow - I now have a beautifully harrowed veg patch and meadow. It looks amazing, when I think how long it takes me to get my soil looking vaguely like that by hand...

Hello to Reveller and Lexilicious. Have a lovely day in the garden.

I am off to play with bits of string and sticks, marking out the new areas. I can put in the potatoes and onions at last. Will hope for the best with the onions.

I love my garden. Its only a year old and I have only a few shrubs in at the minute. But I have so many ideas. I think the best thing about it is it will never be a finished project. My dads garden is 40 years old and he is never done changing/ improving it. It is a constant source of pleasure

Ilsa - I have a cat and she uses a litter tray because I don't want her crapping in the garden! It's got better of late since DS has realised how much fun it is to race outside with a blood curdling scream every time a cat appears in the garden :o The house was empty for three or four months before we moved in so I think they got a bit complacent

Humphrey - hope you've had a very happy day marking out.

Took some photos of the anemones this morning. They don't do them justice unfortunately as they are everywhere through the wood and very pretty. Have put them on my profile. Can't wait for the bluebells.

I've spent the day just enjoying the garden today - helped by some friends and lots of pimms

Pkam, they are beautiful. I am looking forward to my first glass of pimms too. Would have been today, only the DC have either got hand, foot and mouth or impetigo so we are a plague house.

Despite the illness I have had a lovely day thanks, got it all marked out and then planted four enormous rows of potatoes. Two Anya, one Maris Piper and one of the other name for Jersey Royals, when they are not grown in Jersey.

I also planted some French beans, climbing and dwarf, runner beans, four tomato plants in the little greenhouse and some golden feverfew. I then discovered about a million feverfew seedlings left over from last years plants.

I am really knackered now.

Have you planted your french beans straight out? I was tempted to do mine when I did the peas but my packet says May. Sounds like a busy but satisfying day you've had.

Sorry about the DC - we did hand, foot & mouth a few times (don't believe it if anyone says they can only get it once!) and it's really miserable for them.

No, into pots in the greenhouse.

They can get it more than once That is really unfair. I am just relieved about the timing, last week was DD's christening (during which she clutched a carrot, not letting go even at the crucial moment ) and I had eight other toddlers in the house. I would have had to cancel if they had come down with it a day later.

I am so pleased with the triangle shapes I have planted the peas in, I keep going out to have another look

Humprey, I have also planted the peas in lovely pleasing triangle shapes. I took a picture of them and had to stop myself from sending it to my Mum.

(she'd be oddly proud though,I think)

go on, send it!

Hello again (thanks for the welcome Humph!)

I have had a WONDERFUL weekend in the garden and I am there again today because I am on leave from work. Tomorrow I fly to Cyprus so I am going to fret about things drying out until I come back on Sunday and give them some love.

In the past year I have:
-planted bulbs - snowdrop, fritillaria (dwarf), anemone, iris (big and dwarf), alliums, daffs, tulips, colchicums
-plants (spares/dividings from my mum) - geranium, heuchera, alchemilla mollis, euonymus, hebe, parahebe, cyclamen, 3xblueberry from bare roots in autumn
-made a fence around the pond, a deck outside the extension (well really that was my dad - for my christmas present!), and dug up one of the two gravel borders which had really compacted clay soil underneath.
-over winter I grew brassicas, onions and garlic in the dug-up border (I call it the evening bed because that's when it gets the sun). I also overwintered tansy seedlings because I grew too many. However I lost the comfrey and yarrow by not watering them, oops.
-I made a compost heap out of a pallet and lined it with delivery box cardboard.
-For my birthday in February my mum bought me a thornless blackberry, evergreen honeysuckle, three rosemary, three lavender plants, and two scented shrubby plants I've already forgotten the names of.

In the past month I've:
-got a ton of soil improver and a ton of topsoil delivered.
-dug over the 'morning bed' and added soil improver
-moved things on the rockery around the pond
-used almost all of the old garden's 'architectural stone' as lawn edge and the really big ones will make the beds a bit raised bed
-pruned an acer over the pond (and I am very proud of the result)
-started shallots in my four tier plastic greenhouse thingy
-started coriander, tarragon, chives, from seed in greenhouse
-still waiting for the sweet peas to emerge...
...and the salvia oasis

two weeks ago DH rotavated the very sad, mossy and compacted lawn and turned the topsoil into it.
this weekend I dug another couple of sections of beds and used nearly the last of the soil improver.
-put a spare bit of MDF on a cheap kitchen cabinet in the shed to make my potting bench under the window.
-tidied said potting shed, put up hooks for tools, stacked things on old ikea pine shelving.
-transplanted into the ground a couple of potato plants which I started ridiculously early in an inside out compost bag. Hope they don't mind being moved... we'll see. They weren't proper seed potatoes, just ones from the veg drawer that were sprouting a bit.

today I'm going to put some of the shallots in the ground, clean the shed window, finish the stone edging (it's so that I won't have to walk on the grass at all in winter), and dig in chicken manure pellets around my brassicas and onions.

Oh and most of all today I will enjoy my very wildlife-friendly garden - yesterday's new butterfly was a holly blue, today I have been watching an orange-tip. I have about five different types of bees. We have tits, nuthatch, woodpecker, blackbird, songthrush, starlings and (possibly) chaffinch in the woods out the back.

wow - you have had a very busy year so far Lexilicious.

I have a potting table now, SO satisfying not to scrabble around dropping compost everywhere. Hooks for tools is a work in progress, though I do have those in the old privy that we turned into a tool shed.

The electricians are taking the power lines down at this very moment, I can't wait to see the holly, horse chestnut and cherry sapling without the annoying post and wires in front of it.

Impressive Lexilicious!

Due to the evil lovely linking on here, I discovered Parkers (yes, I'm a total novice) and bought these 3 acers which I think was a total bargain. They'll probably be about 3cm tall when they arrive now

Also got some aquilegia which will look lovely in one of the beds. Got some free dahlias and butterly gladioli mix, which I think will do much better in my Mum's garden, all for £40 which I think is rather good

thank you both, thank you

I went a bit mental in the winter with buying stuff. Later this month and in May a huge amount of young plants will arrive, half flowery half edible. I had planned to bash up the hardstanding at the bottom of the garden and make lovely tiered vegetable beds but I don't think I'm going to have time.

today I planted out 24 Jermor shallots, started just a few more seeds, nailed plastic trellis to the fence (a homage to Ronseal which I am going to cover with scented climbers), and chicken manured my brassicas. I also screwed a useful drawer thing onto the shelf of my potting bench.

got to do my packing for hols now!