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

just popped out to see DH and the new stone bench he is making and got sidetracked and hoed the big veg patch.

Query - can I pull up tulips now to store over summer, even though the foliage has not died down? The roses are all coming out to a ground cover of decayed and dessicated looking tulip leaves.

I'm not qualified to advise on tulip-lifting. I plant my tulips in pots and usually leave them in situ but lifted them last year. Those were without exception the worst of this year's bulbs - the ones I left in their pots performed much better. Anyway, strictly speaking, I think it's a tiny bit early to lift them, but if the foliage is already dry and crispy I think you can take a (small) chance and lift them now.

Cheers Maud.

I think I might do the pot thing next year - seems like a good idea. A good way of trying out different colour scheme. Although the roses are out early this year, so possibly dying foliage wouldn't be a problem another year.

I have been cutting lots of the Madame Alfred Carriere as they are only being blown to bits by the wind anyway. They look beautiful but smell better.

Have just read Susan Hill's The Magic Apple Tree. I loved it - has anyone else read this? Made me feel a bit better about my windy garden.

Tulips in pots are fab. Fabbest of the fab is Prinses Irene in a weathered terracotta pot.

just had a look - they are rather wonderful.

Oh I am so, so happy to have had rain. Proper rain. I'm going to leave the snails tonight - am too tired to deal with them - but will throw them into the street tomorrow instead. My cannas are coming up! Rejoice :)

I had a little walk down my soggy wet garden yesterday evening. Something has been at my chard seedlings, grrrrr. I may need to re-nematode (am trying to garden organically). Haven't looked this morning. I have scale bugs on my acer which I'll need to squash this weekend. I throw my snails into the woods and slugs into the pond for the frogs.

bulb lifters ... I lifted all my bulbs out of pots last weekend - they were about three weeks ahead of the bulbs that were in the ground which I haven't yet decided to move. There were one or two tulips that were still quite green and fleshy of stem/leaf, but I pulled them up anyway. I'd had very few flowers from the narcissi that were in a pot for the second year (just left dormant last year). I think if you're going to leave them, you need to give them some love when they emerge - top dressing of compost would do it.

Other than bug patrol, this weekend I will be planting out two sweet peppers in place of the brassicas which are finished, putting polythene over them and the sweet potatoes, organising my seed packets and writing a planting schedule, digging a border in my (5x4m) front lawn to grow green manures and wildflower drifts.

But mainly I will have to be indoors because our DIY projects are all stalled - I have my little brother here this weekend (not that little - 24!) who says he'll help with painting.

Ooh those fairy lights are lovely - may well have to get some of those! Thanks!

Lex - I'm planning on re-nematoding too as I think the first lot didn't work because it was so dry.

Going to try and get the wood down to make the front of the long bed tonight once DDs are in bed as we've managed to secure some hired manual labour for the day tomorrow to lift the rest of the turf, pick-axe our solid ground to break it up and spread the huge amounts of soil around. I am hopeful of shopping for plants this weekend if we manage to get it finished.

I'm too poor this year for nematodes but I think they're by far the best method because they get rid of the slugs in the soil, not just the molluscs sliming away on the surface.

Wow - sounds v ambitious pkam! We have friends coming to stay so I shan't do much but I'm going to be tying in a load of honeysuckle next week and potting on my VBs that I've grown from seed.

Madame Alfred Carriere, New Dawn, Blush Noisette, Blush Rambler and Rambling Rector are all coming out on the rose walk. So exciting.

Ooh, rose envy, Humphrey! I have a few flowers on the New Dawn which grows through the apple tree, but the one on the fence is still sulking after its battering when the fence panel was replaced. Spring Bride is looking good and Ballerina is about to do her stuff but Paul's Scarlet [99p Store special] isn't doing much.

We have a rose in the 'adopted' garden which has grown over a stump and now forms a dome at least 4m high and around 8m in circumference. It's amazing. I have no idea what it is but it has small white flowers with a yellow centre in abundance. Just coming out now.

Got about half the wood fronting down for the long bed last night. Slightly hindered by the fact that 3in below soil level is a bed of flint! Had to pickaxe holes (with sparks flying everywhere) to get the stakes in and they still wobble. Hoping that when the soil level is raised they'll be considerably more stable.

Sitting here waiting for man to arrive so he can carry on the pickaxing while we head off to Wisley for the day.

Well done, Pkam.

I just spent an enjoyable half hour tying the grapevine to its new Fishbourne-inspired rope and post structure. I also dispatched a lot more lily beetle grubs.

::psycho killer::

Just got back after 2 weeks away and our garden has turned into a jungle.. we have lettuces 2 feet high and a digitalis that's as tall as me!

also, hi... it's been a while.

hello there, hope you had a nice holiday

am slightly despairing over the wind. Another day of being battered from all sides by whirling wind. Are your gardens windy, or is it just mine? 12 foot hedges are looking more attractive by the minute. Bugger the view, especially as two of the main fields on the hill we look out on are now covered by attractive plastic sheeting

Our garden is walled (it's tiny, so not as grand as that sounds) so everything is really sheltered.. We have a 4x4m jungle now.

I love the sound of a jungle enclosed by walls. Where did you go, Jareth?

::make me jealous::

Humphrey - Have you considered that bamboo fencing on a roll as a short-term solution to the tornado problem?

its seriously tiny..

We went to Cornwall.. visited The Lost Gardens of Heligan again.. found loads of wonderful hidden bits that we missed last time.. I LOVE that place.

Went to Eden again too.. its dullness the third time you go ..

I would LOVE to go to Heligan.

Walked round the garden with DH today and planned our strategy for dealing with the fact that we live in a wind tunnel. It was an abnormally windless summer when we bought the house, and tbh we have done a lot of things that have made the situation worse so that we are now reaping what we have sown.

Our plan is to put in about five hedges, which we hope will really help divert the wind. We will also try putting up a cheap wooden fence across the gap between the house and the big shed and see if that diverts the full force of the wind away, and if it helps, we will then build a wall with a door in it. We can't afford anything too expensive or slow growing for the hedges, so it will probably be a mixture of field maple and hawthorn. We will have a bit of the garden we can walk to in order to see the view rather than having it visible from the door. I think it will probably be a blessing in disguise as it will give the garden a lot more structure and get rid of the large expanse of lawn we have atm.

I just feel better for having a plan.

Constance Spry now out

I'm really enjoying this year. I've improved my attitude to weeding - last year I would get peeved that nothing stayed weeded. This year I'm just weeding my away around and enjoying being outside.

I took up the grass in the turning circle in the drive (about 5m x 3m) and have had a great time attempting to plant it with something the rabbits won't immediately destroy. I'm putting a row of more decorative shrubs in front (south) of a boring evergreen windbreak. And after the wind the other night, I'll be replanting the westerly windbreak - probably hawthorn and something. Oh, and I went to Glendoick (rhododendron specialists) and bought a couple of lovely azaleas which I planted yesterday. Fun.

Glendoick! Ahhhhhh, memories of childhood Saturdays. (I grew up in Dundee)

It is now pouring outside (yay!) just when I had finished what I wanted to do - pulled up finished bulbs and tipped half a wheelbarrow of soil improver over it and the alliums - put in some canes where the bulbs had been and planted beans - clipped the pyracantha hedge and left the clippings to put off the cats - planted out the five bedding plants (for £10) that I bought today - potted on lots of seedlings and left them on the little potting table down the bottom of the garden - planted more beans in a canvas bag planter - planted my third (of four) tumbler tomatoes in a hanging basket and put basil seeds in those three and the patio planter.

Yesterday I finished the job of dealing with my hardstanding which had had a pile of gravel and a pile of London Clay dug up from the garden and replaced by soil in March. Seems an obvious solution now but I spread out gravel on half of it and roughly levelled the clay clods on the other half. My mini greenhouse is now surrounded by gravel which hopefully should be a good slug repellent. And late this year I will get a raised bed and put it on the clay (which is actually very good for retaining moisture) and fill the RB with the compost from all this year's planters. That is my plan.

Didn't get round to digging the front garden 'drift' beds.

I love Heligan - haven't been for a few years and would love to revisit. My planned bed is not working that well because I put in loads of bulbs/corns plus seeds and then some stuff I bought as plants. I didn't put things precisely where I thought I had so I have a canna coming up right behind a VB and then there's a huge gap in front :o

I can move stuff in the autumn but it's going to look a wee bit odd this summer. I planted a couple of hostas under a shrub that was here which has grown to gargantuan proportions and the hostas aren't that happy (plus you can't see them) so I might move them across to fill gaps. Like my gran always said 'plants have got two choices, live or die' and they're not going to live where they are so I might as well dig them up and cross my fingers

Is anyone else having problems with tulips refusing to grow back? I've moved mine out of the bed and into a giant pot, but they're still very green, and i need the pot for something else now!

I'm looking at getting a garden journal - there are some nice looking ones on amazon, just thought somewhere i can write what I've put where, and some of them also have pouches to put seed packets etc. Does anyone else have one?

Ok. Two trips to Wisley plant centre and am now officially poor. Have a huge stack of plants that need planting in the half-finished bed. Have promised myself it will be finished this weekend. (Although I'm quite liking the look of the collection of potted plants outside my front door....)

Pootles - I have a garden journal. It's in a cardboard box with all my seed packets, sketches of planting schemes, odd scraps of paper and random plant labels. Nothing written in it. One day.