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

Today I have bought some wooden posts to create a Structure to support my grape vine, which will be modelled on the pergola at Fishbourne Roman Palace.

::Oooh get me::

Just googled Fishbourne Roman Palace to find some photos of the pergola. Am now imagining your garden Maud as having a very large vine covered walkway (and mosaics obviously).

I have things flowering in my new corner bed which is quite exiting. However nothing is thriving though lack of water regardless of me watering endlessly. Please let it rain properly soon.

Oh if only, Pkam! My whole garden is about the same size as your veg plot. That's why I love this thread. I am vicariously enjoying having acres of garden to play with.

The point is that my baby vine has grown to the point that it needs a support. I was going to use two wooden posts in front of the fence, with wire between them, so that it is by but not on the [neighbours'] fence, but I've never found a satisfactory way of getting the wires taut. Now, inspired by Fishbourne, I am going to use rope, which looks so much better and can have the vine simply looped around it, as in their fabulous pergola.

For the second night, it's blowing up a storm here, but with no actual rain.

I googled it too, what a wonderful place. I want to go, but it is a little too far away.

I cannot believe how dry everything is, nothing is growing properly. Rain forecast for Saturday here, so hope that actually happens.

Pulled nearly everything out of the flower bed by the washing line after visiting that garden yesterday. Put in two ferns, white and pink anemones and white geraniums, leaving in single blackish hollyhock and Francis Lester rose (which won't flower this year as it has been moved). I will put in some cosmos purity when they have grown a bit more. I am hoping it will look better although everything has a lot of growing to do.

Why did my italics go awry? Ah, well.

Fishbourne is utterly lovely, with a Roman herb garden to boot. We were away for four days and lots more stuff has started to flower, but the lack of water is beginning to show. The lawn badly needs weeding, but the ground is now so hard it's inpenetrable.

I have nearly 14 gladioli coming up! Am very excited. No sign of the canna yet but it's only May so I must try and be a bit patient. I really want to put some mulch down but now I've sown all the Nigella I can't really. Nor can I weed because I can't tell for sure what are weeds and what are seedlings :o Some are starting to get their true leaves though so I am looking forward to a weekend of hoeing. Still no rain forecast here :(

Oooh yes. Some of last year's gladdis have come back, much to my surprise. I'm sure the canna will be dead (I never lift them) but there's one in a pot which spent the winter in a sheltered spot which might just surprise me. One chocolate cosmos left in the ground seems to have survived too.

Oh good re your gladdies - I'm so pleased :)

I am a late convert to gladdies but do love them now!

I love them too. I grow them for cutting. Got beautiful green ones this year.

Last year I grew white, black and green gladdies but can't remember what I put where - and the labels have been grubbed up by the foxes - so that all adds to the sense of suspense!

::Channeling Dame Edna::

well it has rained on and off all day, not heavy rain but any rain is better than none

Just a short, light shower here. There are cracks in my clump of weeds lawn. It's like the summer of '76 all over again.

cracked earth here too still, despite the showers

just been round the garden with DH. Our to do list runs like this

do lavender & rosemary cuttings
transplant hellebore shoots and split clumps
sow poppies
plant celeriac, sweede, sweetcorn, tall sunflowers
sow another lots of peas
plant out runner beans, dwarf french beans and climbing french beans
plant out the rest of the sweet peas
transplant the cosmos seedlings
move the overcrowded wildflower seedlings to patches where nothing has grown
move four ferns to a different bed
earth up potatoes
move a rose that has been stuck in the veg bed over winter (risky)
decide where peony bed is going and plant them, having decided what else we are going to plant there
plant the new white montana clematis I got for my birthday
weed path in the vegetable patch
put in taller support for the raspberries

Phew! Even reading that list is exhausting!

I'm hoping to get a few more hours gardening time at the weekend. I have bought the posts to make my vine structure so now need to buy rope and hooks/loops to thread it through. I also need my neighbour to come and finish fixing his new fence so that I can reattach the climbers.

I'm impressed with your list Humphrey. I just dream up plans in my head that will probably never materialise into real action....I'm going to keep doing it though as, in my head, my garden is beautiful.

But, in the spirit of list making, here's mine for the weekend:
Dismantle pop up greenhouse
Plant final lot of peas
Plant dwarf french beans
Plant out sweetcorn
Plant out butternut squash
Plant out unhealthy looking perpetual spinach that arrived in post today
Give celeriac seedlings a good talking too to make them grow and toughen up a bit.
Pray for cloud cover, if not rain, so can finally get nematodes in
Drink more wine

Still no rain here. Weather forecast has some for the weekend but yesterday it said heavy showers for Sat & Sun, now says light showers for Saturday. Think it will have gone completely when I check tomorrow . Grass is all yellow now.

there is so much to do and so little time
how inconvenient that I have to go to work

our weekend rain forecast has shrunk to a light rain shower on Sunday too

Ah. I also (in the spirit of list making) need to

plant out the teeny-weeny salvias which arrived from Parkers today
buy new hose for back garden
take advantage of the drought by painting ground elder and bindweed with glyphosate
plant out chocolate cosmos, dahlias and other things from cold frame [living dangerously emoticon]
see what else in the cold frame can be planted out

it will rain tonight as I have watered the round veg patch with the sprinkler

Just checked the weather - we have rain forecast for the next four days! Never thought I'd say this about a wet weekend, but, hurrah!

ha, as predicted it is now raining

this evening I
planted my runner beans
moved the ferns
planted the sweet peas
planted the celeriac

and now I am going to watch Gardener's World, the highlight of my week.

GW finished, bye bye Monty.

Today I dismantled the greenhouse thing, planted out my perpetual spinach, sweetcorn, butternut and tomatoes. Peas and beans going in tomorrow, hopefully I'll be out in the rain .

I also watered tonight just to make sure it does rain Humphrey - seems to have worked for you.

I did lots of planting this evening because I had about seven boxes of little baby plants arrive in the post yesterday and today. Missed the first half of GW because it was still light outside so why would I be in watching TV?!?

In the ground: 8x Celeriac (10x more in pots, possibly to swop/sell), last two shallots, two sweet pea seedlings, 5x Gazania on the rockery
In a big pot: 3x Squash (wonder if they would be better in a long trough)
In little pots to grow on a bit: 20 more Gazanias, 20+ Leaf Beet 'bright lights' which will then go in the ground amongst other stuff, 4x tomatoes, 2x courgettes, 2x aubergines, 2x chillis, 2x sweet peppers, 6 different heucheras, 5x sweet potatoes

My to do list is immense, still. In the immediate term I need to go to bed because I have to go to work v early tomorrow and Sunday. But my boys (DH and DS) are away until Sunday pm so I have no distractions and so I will really try to get on with things! Nematodes if it rains, for sure.

Lex - how big are your celeriac? I've grown mine from seed and they're still tiny. No more than 2cm tall and fall over every time I water them. How big do they need to get before you plant them out? Mine are still in the conservatory but thinking of moving them out in their tray under a cloche to see if I can toughen them up a bit.

How big is your squash pot? 3 sounds very cosy .