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

The orchard is actually over our fence but the land is abandoned so we've adopted it. At one point there used to be an amazing kitchen garden over there with huge fruit cages (now mostly fallen down). I make good use of anything that's still growing (white currants are looking good this year) - we have agreed 'scrumping rights' with the owner so it's sort of legitimate. Although I'm not sure he knows I'm still cultivating the jerusalum artichoke patch over there though....

Back from hols and cannot believe how much everything has grown. As predicted the ranunculus are red, rather than the orange I thought I'd ordered but I got them online from a Dutch supplier who only sent a receipt for how much I'd spent, not what I bought so no come back there annoyingly. Still, they are absolutely gorgeous so it's not a total disaster. The seeds I planted (VB and sweet peas) are doing very well as are all the tiny plug plants. I will have to do some tweaking with collies next year.

Rose is gorgeous and smells fabulous so am pleased with that too. :happy sigh:

Just back from an open garden where I had a bit of a spree. I came away with ten plants for the princely sum of £10 [plantaholic but still a miser emoticon].

ooh wow 10 plants! I try to stop myself visiting garden centres too often. I know the plants are overpriced, but I can't help myself. Theres a good nursery near me that is quite reasonable but I think I still give H palpitations every time I return!

What did you get?

It was heavenly outside today. Beautiful weather and everything looking nice. Debutante is particularly beautiful and the clary sage is in full swing.

I would happily have mulberries instead of strawberries Pkam.

The raspberries are getting going here now, DH made baked jam with them the other day (you just spread the sugar on top of them and bung in the oven for twenty minutes). The best jam ever, it was a little runny but delicious.

Had potato salad (anya), green salad (spinach and beetroot leaves) and ham from own pigs today. Fruit from the garden for pudding.

We also popped over to look at the garden at Kentchurch, the cottage garden there is fantastic.

Ham from own pigs? Wow. That really is grow your own. Have never tried baked jam but it sounds fab - does it need pectin or do you use preserving sugar? Not that we have any raspberries at the moment - we are 'between' canes - but I can dream.

I got carried away with the plant buying because it's a friend's garden, nearly everything I buy from him thrives and he charges so little that I can be profligate. My haul was: two clematis, lychnis chalcedonica (Maltese Cross - the first plant I ever grew from seed and so one I'm very attached to), alchemilla mollis, omphalodes, lily of the valley (it always dies but hope springs eternal), some bronze ajuga, err, can't think what the others are.

no pectin, just ordinary sugar. The recipe is in this book

I want to go somewhere where you can buy ten plants for ten pounds!

As I keep saying, Humphrey, you need to start a gardening club and get hobnobbing with all the local gardeners!

I have had great success buying from little stalls at our local car boot sale. There is a guy that sells pots of shrubs for £2 each, I always empty him out when I go.

Ah yes, I have great things about car boot sales, but the only one I've been to close to home never seems to have plants. They do have fab (and inexpensive) plants at the farmers' market, although mainly for veg.

I would feel to embarrassed to start a gardening club - I hardly even know the names of any plants! I am getting a lot better at it though, perhaps in a few years. I would love to join someone else's though. I will keep looking.

As predicted all the cornflowers are coming out a day after the party. They look stunning although not particularly like any wildflower meadow I have ever seen. They are about six or seven different colours and cover quite a large area with grass paths in between. I am really enjoying the sense of height this creates, as a relatively new garden we are lacking in tall things.

Found some yellow raspberries today, have no idea where they came from.

TOO

sorry

Was watching the baby wildlife out of the bedroom window earlier. This year's baby deer looking very cute and fox cub triplets play fighting. Just lovely.

Our lawn looks a bit like a wildflower meadow at the moment Humphrey, must get out and cut it. Although it does look quite pretty and the clover is distracting the rabbits from my flower beds so may leave it a few more days....would love a real one though.

baby deer! amazing, how lovely to see that.

I just saw a frog in the garden.

::hopelessly outclassed in the garden naturewatch::

Must post a picture I took last week of one of last year's baby deer (not so 'baby' now) inspecting the veg plot. They don't often come into the garden but he was quite curious. Think he was quite cross that he couldn't get my sweetcorn.

Picture of deer on. Also added one of the huge rambling rose in full flower as it's very striking.

God that rose is amazing.

The deer is pretty cute too.

Took some pictures of him and his brother when they were only a few days old last year. Mummy deer had tucked them both neatly into a clump of daffodils near our fence. He was very, very cute then. I've found that you can't be sad or grumpy when watching deer.

I keep meaning to take cuttings of the rose to grow elsewhere in the garden but never seem to get round to it. Think I'm a bit reluctant as never taken cuttings of anything and think I'm likely to end up with dead stalks in pots. Is there a best time of year for taking cuttings?

hard wood cuttings in the autumn? Someone told me this the other day.

I'm just back from hols too!

First thing I noticed was my new lawn. I cut the grass and re-seeded patches the day we left, and it's all 6 inches high and can't see where the bald bits were!

Good things: Nicotianas are pretty but overshadowing things next to them, Astilbes filling out nicely, Calendulas all bold and colourful, Hebe very flowery, second Arum Lily popping up that I left in the ground over winter, blueberries starting to form on the bushes, 'Bright Lights' much taller and thicker...

Bad things: more horsetail coming through in the front garden grrrr, slugs have started on the leaf beet and courgettes, and something has eaten my Dwarf French Beans.

Proper audit tomorrow, and weeding too.

That rose is amazing Pkam! There were some gorgeous borders along a roundabout where I was in France. A mix of poppies, cosmos and black eyed susans. They looked absolutely stunning

Am supposed to be working but keep getting distracted as I have the back door open and the scent of my sweet peas keeps wafting in. They are just starting to look and smell wonderful.

I have a huge poppy that has appeared in the mound of soil we threw over the fence when we dug out the play area last year. Presumably the seeds were lying dormant in the soil and we've brought them to the surface. I want to move it as it's in with nettles and thistles but I've been told they don't take kindly to be moved - anyone with poppy knowledge? I could be patient and wait for the seeds but I want it where I can see it properly now!

Welcome back Lex.

I still have sweet pea envy - I left it very late to plant mine out, so they are nowhere near flowering yet.

Conventional wisdom is not to transplant poppies because you might damage their huge tap root. I have moved my poppy Patty's Plum (huge misnomer, it's actually Patty's Beige) once and lifted it again to split it in the spring. It seems to have coped - it looks about to flower - but who knows how much better it might be if I'd left it in peace. I think the answer is to dig deep, so as to avoid any root damage.

Poppies don't come true from seed, so root cuttings might be the alternative.

My sweet peas are also a long way from flowering.