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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

Original poster

My garden makes me so happy

981 replies

HumphreyCobbler · 24/03/2011 20:08

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 Smile

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ChristinedePizan · 28/04/2011 22:05

Ta-dah!

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 28/04/2011 22:06
Grin
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Selks · 28/04/2011 22:11

Oooh, a lovely gardening thread...yay! Just marking a place so that I can come back on here when I've got a bit more time.

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 28/04/2011 22:13

when I posted that grin there was no profile, as if by magic...

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Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 28/04/2011 22:21

Beautiful. It looks gorgeous.

gardening is a long term endeavour, isn't it? I am going to have to wait about ten years just to SEE the roses I have planted in the cherry and apple trees. Somebody planted our perry pear tree a hundred or so years ago, and here we are, still making perry from it. We know that there has been an orchard here for at least a hundred years, it could have been much longer. I love the link with the past that trees give you.

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ChristinedePizan · 28/04/2011 22:37

Yes it is and thanks (although I take no credit at all as I said). The people that bought my last place send me photos of the garden which is so lovely. I heard someone (a garden designer I think) on the radio today and he said they are like his children and I know what he means. But a lot less trouble :o

Selks · 29/04/2011 14:18

Off to the garden centre today to buy some shrubs Grin

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 29/04/2011 19:59

It just rained and rained for about twenty minutes.

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JarethTheGoblinKing · 29/04/2011 20:20

We only had a bit.. water butt is still disappointingly empty :( (but installed, finally! wooo)

Pkam · 29/04/2011 20:32

None here. Sad Looked promising for a bit and weather report said heavy showers today. If we get through tomorrow that will be the whole of April without a drop of rain. That's not right surely? My watering can arm is getting strong though.

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 29/04/2011 20:47

OMG, just went outside and found that DH had taken the old paddock fence down, so we have a lovely view of new herb beds, pear tree, lawn and new wildflower meadow from the back door. The willow igloo he built for the dc is accessible to them now too.

And to think I was in here getting annoyed because it was nearly dark and he still hadn't come in Grin

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Pkam · 29/04/2011 21:39

It's raining!!!!!!!

Just popped my head out of conservatory to smell it - lovely.

Selks · 29/04/2011 23:15

Good trip to the garden centre today.....I've got some serious planting to get done tomorrow!

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 30/04/2011 09:38

I love those kind of trips to the garden centre Selks. Do tell, what did you buy?

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Selks · 30/04/2011 13:52

A mixture of things Humphrey -
A Spirea Bridal Wreath
Two evergreen laurels
A Physocarpus Diablo
A Buddleia Black Knight
A lovely blue flowering perennial Geranium, name escapes me
Two Penstemon Husker Red
A Stachys (Lamb's Ears)
and some lovely pansies in gorgeous colours for pots

I'm re-doing one bed, and all of the above are for it. I've been out and planted some of the shrubs, but it's blooming windy and chilly here today! (I live on a Pennine hill) Not ideal gardening weather.

I want to think of some more white and blue flowering easy to care for perennials that will go with the above plants......suggestions welcome! In the bed already is a lovely Sambucus Nigra and a tall variegated (white/green) grass.

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 01/05/2011 17:37

Hope you had fun putting that lot in today. I am looking forward to the vicargae plant sale tomorrow.

There has been a foul north wind blowing here for the last two days. Leaves blowing off everything and one of my clematis flowers has crisped up. We seem to have no shelter from this side at all, it is horrid to be outside in too.

Put in some more spinach and salad today, potted on cosmos purity, weeded the catmint border and tied up the roses. I hate doing the latter, it is too painful. I left most of it to DH Blush. Also weeded the broad beans and pulled up all the leeks that had gone to seed and fed them to the piggies.

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spanky2 · 01/05/2011 18:03

Well I have confirmed today that the reason beetroot won't grow in the garden is because we have an acid soil. I am really disappointed. I am going to have to grow some in tubs. I made dh dig up some of the front lawn for a veg patch in the front garden. I am growing carrots (not beetroot as planned,) curly kale and cornflowers and possibly dahlias. The grapevine has gone beserk again so I gave it a trim. Yesterday I weeded the back garden, which I hate. Can dephiniums be grown in tubs? They Go yellow in the ground and they are so lovely I would like to be able to grow them.

Pkam · 01/05/2011 19:29

Have today planted my parsnips, some more radish, some beetroot, more carrots & spring onions and finally my runner beans. Very proud of myself as I have a very bad hangover and really wanted to be lying on the sofa.

Our bid to buy the extra land was turned down again so am very sad. However, I have decided to cheer myself up by putting more beds/borders in the garden instead. Have decided to surround the playhouse with some beds creating a little 'secret' area for the kids behind with paths through to it. Also means we can screen the playhouse a bit and introduce more colour. No idea what we'll put in them yet so will have to visit some gardens (& websites) for inspiration...

I didn't know beetroot was fussy spanky. I love beetroot, there was a beetroot risotto recipe in the paper today that I may try.

ChristinedePizan · 01/05/2011 21:06

I've succumbed to the slug pellets and am absolutely shocked by the number of dead snails lying around my verbena and knautia. They'd have been mullered without the pellets

Selks · 02/05/2011 16:37

I want a lovely rose too, Humphrey. I don't have one in my garden. I often look at roses for sale online but I don't know where to start.
I'd want something shrubby and leafy, not one of those horrid stick like rose bushes that are all too common, and one that would need to cope with my peculiar conditions here - high Pennines = some altitude, windy, dryish soil......difficult.

Selks · 02/05/2011 16:39

How did you go on at the vicarage plant sale Humphrey? Any lovely bargains? I love plant sales, although I have bought one or two disasters from them too ( a VERY invasive ornamental grass......sigh)

Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 02/05/2011 19:52

It was a case of sharpen your elbows at the vicarage plant sale - There was a seething mass of humanity fighting for plants. I got 2 campanulas, four different heuchera (sp?), a poppy of unknown colour, 2 pink japanese anemones, some kind of shrub thing I have forgotton the name of and a blue geranium.

We then went to see a garden nearby that made me swoon with joy, it was SOOO beautiful. Just what I would like my garden to be like. I talked to the owner, she said it was the result of 25 years work, so I felt slightly better about my own garden as it is only 3 years old. Lots of beautiful iris, geraniums, poppies, the MOST beautiful bed with ferns and purple tulips. I was there with FlopEmOut, she liked it too.

Dh shocked me a bit by pointing out that the best place to achieve planting like that in our garden is in my circular vegetable bed. I will need to get my head around that, but I think he is essentially correct. The layout would work better as the bed is next to the rose walk, and we have now built another veg bed on the opposite side of the garden. We could have one side of the garden as ornamental and the other as functional. Mmmm. I need to give it much thought.

The wind is still vile, it is unpleasant to be outside in it.

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Original poster
HumphreyCobbler · 02/05/2011 19:53

I will ask my MIL about suitable roses Selks, she really knows her roses. Tis very handy.

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ChristinedePizan · 02/05/2011 19:55

I am not liking the wind at all - what with that and the total lack of rain, it's all feeling a bit of a struggle at the moment to establish youngish plants

WhiteBumOfTheMountain · 02/05/2011 19:59

Enjoy your horse shit! Grin You sound like my sis who phones me up to discuss seeds.