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

No, Humphrey. Time to send in Ziggy Stardust, I think.

Went to the garden centre today with my birthday vouchers. Bought two bronze fennel, one green fennel, two coreopsis moonbeam and two purple plum heucheras that were reduced to three quid each, and most brilliantly three rosa glauca at six quid each. So pleased about the latter, they were double the price everywhere else.

Went to Kentchurch to look at the gardens. Fabulous. The garden at the lodge was just perfect, that is what I aspire to.

Came home and planted out the sweetcorn.

Do hope it is raining at yours Maud..

I just nematode-d my beds. The sky was getting darker than it would be at just sundown - and as I finished I felt a few spots of rain (8.20). Then it seemed to give up for a moment, and then it was properly going at it, and now it's given up again. (Watford Herts, btw) We must be right on the dew point or something.

The bees are having a great time in my garden and on my nice neighbour's pyracanthus which is just behind my alliums. My foxglove is starting to open, and I've now got two thymes in flower, geraniums, heuchera and gaillardia, and both the pond and the bed irises. The idea is that there's always something flowering so that the nice bugs have some nectar to eat. Next to flower will be the lavenders, one of the honeysuckles, smaller alliums, borage. Have today seen a shaft of an arum lily which has overwintered underground, which is encouraging.

Planted out a couple more sweet pea seedlings, and planted into large-ish pots some veg. Have given the squash a ten inch pot each, and put courgettes into similar sized pots in pairs. I have a lot more veg though that I need to find homes for. Have got some more large pots becoming available when I take up the tulips once the leaves die off, but I'm not sure it's enough.

Saw an interesting moth resting on a crocosmia leaf - white, quite large, and sort of furry. The holly blue was back, as was a Small White... but she couldn't beat my netting and get at my kale and broccoli so HA! I win!

Still no rain. ::gloom:: But a friend gave me a lupin today, so I shall have fun squeezing it on somewhere tomorrow.

WHY is Gardeners' World not on iPlayer yet?!?!?! I missed it on Friday because it was Boy's bathtime. They've shown it in all regions so it can't be that it's not allowed to go up before NI has watched it on broadcast. I NEED to see some MONTY! And I like Rachel. I would like to have a cup of tea with her.

We had a shower earlier which lasted about 30 seconds. I cannot lift another watering can, and yet the forecast says the south east is going to stay dry.

::lies down on the dessicated remains of the lawn and weeps::

oh dear

how long without rain now?

We had a bit of overnight rain about 10 days ago, but it can't have been much as almost nothing has gathered in the bucket which lies around by the back door, ornamentally.

Some of the garden is looking pretty good now, but one side is rather bedraggled because our neighbour replaced the fence and we had to unpin all the climbers from it and they rather squashed the shrubs. Unfortunately he took so long to finish the fence that everything got rather battered and what I really need now is rain to encourage new growth.

::becomes weather obsessive::

fingers crossed for you

went to two gardens today, one lovely and one not so lovely that looked like a municipally maintained park. The first had amazing amounts of roses, I want to go back in a few weeks and see them all out.

Our roses are suffering from mildew quite badly. DH pruned a lot of it off but refrained from totally decimating the flowers on a lot of the bushes. William Lobb is particularly badly hit. We should have been more on the ball. Still we know for next year.

I have one strawberry turning red

I have a strawberry too Humph - on my rockery, one of the alpine strawbs which grow and spread like a weed. My dad was here today and supervised my son climbing on the rockery to see a bug/beetle/something and then they saw it, picked it and ate it. Strawberry, not bug.

Today we did the shed roof, and I pulled up the remains of half the brassicas and replaced them with sweet potatoes. Planted some things I've been growing on in pots - acanthus mollis, a couple of hellebores, some gazanias, three nicotianas.

For my DH's birthday my mum got two dwarf fruit trees which are to live in patio pots. One of them didn't ever get going other than a bit of stress growth near the bottom of the rootstock, so I took it back to the garden centre (Van Hage near Chorleywood) and they straightaway said I could have a credit note. The replacement is doing well, but as I'd planted up the first one they were happy for me to take it home too. Well the rootstock has sprouted even more, so now I've cut the stem down and planted it in a pot and labelled it 'mystery dwarf fruit rootstock'.

Wildlife watch: that moth was still there this morning, and I've ID'd it as a White Plume Moth, the larvae of which apparently exclusively eat bindweed. Today there was a lot of blue tit action and I definitely have some young amphibians in the pond. They are about 5-7cm long and they still have tails which I think means that they must be newts, as froglets lose their tails at 1-2cm overall size.

A moth that eats bindweed? I wonder whether I could buy some from the website that sells ladybird larvae!

I have flowers on the strawberries - alpine and others - but as the others are in a planter they are suffering from serious stress due to lack of water.

::Wonders whether Jareth will be doing the raindance honours again::

My strawberries are being eaten by something pesky. Don't think I've got a whole one forming at all. Same thing happened last year but can't find the culprit. Whatever it is leaves black holes in the berries as they form or eats them away totally. Anyone got any ideas?

Picked our first radishes at the weekend. Yum.

Have emptied the water butt now. Need rain again. It spat a little on Sunday afternoon but nothing worthwhile.

For reasons I won't go into, at my work there is always a short range (rolling 3 day) detailed weather forecast on the intranet. Well, today there is a great big seriously windy low pressure system out in the north Atlantic and Wednesday a cold front will come across the whole of the UK. Then a warm front following on across Scotland on Thurs. There also looks like there are more weather systems behind it, which hopefully will push the high pressure down more into the continent and then we can get our Gulf Stream back.

My butt is empty too, and I was overruled at the weekend about putting guttering on the shed and a second water butt there. It is partly overhung by trees so to be honest the gutters would probably mostly collect leaves, acorns and sycamore seeds.

What does that mean in plain English, Lexilicious? Will it rain on London?

::desperate::

::scans horizon for Jareth and her rain dance::

We have drizzle forecast for 4pm. We have had no proper rain here for weeks. The RSPB have asked people to made mud and put out bowls of water for birds to make nests with and to drink/wash with.

I will be giving everything a good drench (again) today

I am hoping that the fact that I spent £35 on a new garden hose yesterday will mean a downpour tonight. I am now fixated on the weather and can think of nothing else.

Maud, it means that there might be some rain tomorrow.
The further south east you are, the less likely though, as it might have run out by the time it gets across the country. Sorry.

I have a pond which is going down and down.... wishing I hadn't scooped all the pondweed off - was probably insulating it a bit from evaporation.

Oh, Lexilicious, your first line cheered me up until I got to "the further south east you are, the less likely".

::Strips off and does own rain dance::

I don't think you can get more south easterly than we are :( Well, usually, that's :) but the lack of rain is not conducive to reshaping a garden. If we get a hosepipe ban at any point, it's going to be curtains for all my plants

::strips off and joins maud::

::Looks around anxiously for the constabulary::

::Joins hands with Christine and invokes the rain goddess::

My new plants are hanging in there, but nothing's actually growing. Still, I have just installed my latest addition to the garden - fairy lights. I hope they will look charming (and provide a tiny amount of useful light) rather than naff.

Hello, please may I join you? I'm definitely newbie, with tiny garden, full time job and a baby... oh and we're doing the bathroom as well atm.

Hope to plant my bedding plants, which arrived very late yesterday from Fothergills , hoping they won't die on me as punishment for keeping them in plastic for too long...

It seems to be blowing up a storm here. At the risk of being contradictory, I'm now hoping it won't rain until 7.32pm.

What have you bought, Pootles?

this petunia & bacopas - I always say I won't get annuals but couldn't resist them on special offer! Thought they might be ok in hanging basket & window box.

Pretty, Pootles! That key says half-hardy perennials doesn't it? So when they're finished you just put the hanging basket away inside (I think a shed would be ok) to lie dormant for the winter, and then bring it out when it's warm enough next year?

I don't do annuals either. I definitely don't do houseplants - far too high maintenance!!

Lovely, Pootles!

I only do annuals that I can grow from seed, otherwise the window boxes and hanging baskets bankrupt me. I'd like to devise a permanent planting for the window boxes but have never found anything that really works in all seasons.