Reluctant Gardeners sign up here - gardening flylady style.

[Carrotsandcelery]

Anyone up for a gardening motivational thread, flylady style?

The idea is little and often.

We post what we have done here and hopefully inspire/motivate each other to get cracking in the garden and have a beautiful summer.

Keen gardeners are very welcome too, to show us how it is done.

hi carrots, hope you are enjoying your evening. I have to admit to been very slack of the last couple of days. We havent had any rain for weeks and I haven't been watering. Anyway I had a good look today and the flowers were looking very sorry for themselves. So I have been out with my watering can tonight and done a good 15 minutes of watering and deadheading. I feel better now and I am sure when the sun comes out tomorrow everything will be looking better again.

Good work with the watering Dosey. It is so dry here too.
Yes Carrots the one is now nearly 10months - need to change my name! I look forward (without wanting to wish time away) to a phase when everyone can be a little less supervised - though the twins go to school in September, so suddenly I will go from 3 at home to 1, something I've never had before. I will have much more time on my hands.
Dog walk up a hill sounds great! I think flylady would approve

Watering seems like a good plan right now Dosey with all this talk of forest fires the ground must be drier than we realise.

You will find things a bit easier in September twinmum although you will be amazed by how easy it is to fill up the time and even one at home can absorb your attention when they feel like it. My ds has ADHD or something similar (in the process of diagnosing) and he managed to keep me on my toes when dd started school.

We have been busy. I have planted some of the purchases we made yesterday and placed a lot more of them ready for planting. We are stunned by how much we spent and how tiny a dent it has made in the beds once we got them placed. We don't have a huge garden either.

I have also been brave and attacked a sprawling hebe that was making one area look dreadful. The stuff I chopped off it filled a whole massive garden refuse sack. It is tiny now but will hopefully grow in a beautiful mound - or possibly die now .

I have watered again and rewatered the newly planted once more this evening. I am dreading a hosepipe ban as I find it very therapeutic.

You have all been very busy! I agree that it is much more fun in small doses Carrots

We have had two sharp frosts for the last two mornings, my poor seedlings have not coped well and I fear I may have lost a fair few. The ones I planted a couple of weeks ago seem ok but those I planted over the weekend look very poor. Bloody weather! First no rain and now late frosts!

Next weekend we are planning to re-concrete some of the loose slabs around the garden so all the nice planting bits will have to go on hold. I am also thinking of cutting down a large tree outside the front window which blocks out too much light and is starting to tap on my bedroom window. Does getting hunky tree-surgeons in count as my 15 minutes? If they are very hunky I promise to spend at least minutes watching them.

Hunky tree surgeons count as your 15 minutes as long as you watch and take notes for us. Of course if they happen to be female then you will have to get out there and do something yourself

Bad luck with the frosts sybil. I was in a fab garden centre today run by adults with special needs. They grow all the plants themselves for sale. One of the gardeners there told me that although they were selling lots of bedding plants now he wouldn't plant them out until June. I have 8 little bedding plants from there on my family room windowsill which I will have to nurse inside until then.

Could you put a polythene tunnel over them to protect them? The heat would help to bring them on a bit too maybe. You just wouldn't expect a frost this late in the year after such gorgeous weather.

I have been planting again today - I think it must count as my loving movement for my flylady thread as it was really hard graft. I had to have a shower before school pick up as I was covered in mud.

The new plants are beginning to make a difference though. We lost a lot over the winter, thing that had been there for more than 10 years and were very well established. There are still gaps but other areas are packed now and should look good if everything survives.

Hi, I'm a late reluctant gardener. Garden is concrete and weeds,grass and borders with added flavour of bramble(mine) and ivy (neighbours). Then the crowning glory is the bottom third - Brambles,bindweed,ground elder. The whole garden suffers from mares/horses tail. I will try to do some thing every day.

Welcome doom. Sounds like a lot to deal with. What are your tactics? I would be tempted to just pick one little area and get it looking fab and then maintain that and start on another little area. It is amazing how much you can do in 15 mins. I am really glad you have come to join us - I love a person with a project. We will motivate you through it .

Hi there, just started getting on top of my garden after XP always did it.
It's a beautiful garden, mainly lawn, but borders of bushes/small trees/clematis etc. I also have a much smaller front garden.

I have made a start on the back garden, mainly needs cutting back and weeding, but I'm terrified of spiders and creepy crawlies. Now I know they're out there, I've seen the spiders webs in the spring frosts first thing in the morning and at last count, my garden had 22 seperate spiders webs all over the bushes.

I wear gardening gloves, and think if I can just do a little at a time, I'll enjoy it and DD 2.8 loves playing in the garden, so little and often is my plan, but how many of you don't like spiders? And how many of you have actually had a spider end up running up their arm?
I haven't seen any webs in the last few weeks so foolishly maybe am trying to convince myself that I'm unlikely to come across any spiders silly enough to take a running jump at me??

Any kind words please? Or a cure for my creepycrawliephobia??

Btw, got quite a bit of gardening done today and evaded the little scuttlers.

I have never had a spider scuttle up my arm whilst gardening droopy. I am not a creepy crawly fan either but I find they get as far away from me as they can when I am gardening. The only wee beasties I have encountered have been worms and snails, which don't tend to make any sudden moves.

Glorious here this morning so I watered everything just in case. It has greyed over now though so it may not have been necessary.

Does anyone know anything about ivies? I planted a couple a few weeks ago and the tips of some leaves are going black. Any suggestions as to why? Could I be over watering? They are near my oil tank - would that be relevant?

Sorry carrots no idea about your ivies - i thought they were pretty much indestructible.

I hav never had a spider come near me when gardening either (just as well as I am a big nelly where spiders are concerned). Ants are the most friendly things in our garden although we are convinced the squirrels nicked a couple of chocolate eggs from our easter hunt the other week.

I thought ivies were indestructible too sybil which is why I planted them in that spot. We have lost a lot of things there as it is so damp. I will leave them be and see what happens.

I haven't been watering today as it rained today. It is glorious again now though so I may go out and potter a bit once the dcs are in bed.

I love the mental image of a squirrel clutching a chocolate egg

We have had rain on and off here for the past few days.

I have had a lovely afternoon pottering around the garden today. The grass has been cut and is looking rather lush. My little patch where my veg containers are kept needed turning over as weeds were creeping up everywhere. My super dooper giant lilies are beginning to sprout out but Im still waiting for my other plants I ordered to arrive. I planted a few sweet pea seeds directly into my borders and some have come up and are doing well. Im just hoping the dont turn out to be weeds.

I bought a clematis and some other plant in April to go in pots that DCs had got me for mothers day, but they have finished flowering now and Im not sure what to do. The clematis is supposed to be hard pruned in June according to Gardeners World magazine. I havn't got a clue what hard pruning is I take it I have to cut it back but I don't know how much.

I want to move them out of the planters now and put them in the border and hope they come up again next year but don't know if I will kill them if I move them now. Also if I do move them I want to put something else in the planters but prefrably something that will flower a bit longer than a month. Any ideas for small planters in a sunny spot.

Ive got winter pansies in one border which are still flowering but are looking a bit tatty. Im not sure whether to pull them up or not, I thought they only lasted a season.

I hope everybody else is enjoying a bit of rain.

On Gardener's World on the tv Monty cut his clematis right back to a few inches above the ground and said it would come back again next year. I don't know if you can get it on an iplayer or anything.

I don't know about moving them though.

I think pansies do come back if they are happy in the space they are in. None of mine have but I have had zero success with pansies I am afraid.

Our primulas have kept flowering for ages. I don't know if they would be any good in your pots. I keep dead heading them and they keep coming back.

We have had buckets and buckets of rain, especially today, so I have not been out in the garden.

I spent 3 hours in the garden today .

I went out intending to spend about half an hour and got carried away.

It is forecast to rain for the rest of the week here though so it was like my 15 mins for every day all rolled into one!

I weeded, did lots of digging, planted a lot of hardy perenials, swept and watered the newly planted.

Did you find anything on the clematis Voldemort? (and how is dd's bedroom btw?)

How is everyone getting on in their gardens?

I did 20 minutes of weeding today and was amazed how far round the border I got in that time.

I have watered the beds and pots this morning so I have pretty much guaranteed rain. I am hoping to get out and do another 20 mins or so of weeding again shortly.

Am I the only one gardening just now?

I am still here, just haven't been online recently. (Gives Carrot solidarity hug)

I have scooped blanket weed out of the pond today (caught two newts and a frog - whoops) and put in some organic barley straw stuff which will hopefully stop it growing so quickly. We have had so little rain the pond is about 10 inches lower than it should be so I also hosed a bit in out the tap just to try and keep things alive in there - when are the April showers going to turn up?

I may have been a bit over-hasty thinking I had lost most of my precious seedlings to that late frost. Quite a few have come back and are now growing (hurrah!) We have a few marigolds in bloom which are the first things we seeded that have flowered. The kids are very proud!

Have to go but will try to get back into popping on more regularly - keep the faith Carrot!

Hurrah! I am so glad I am not alone sybil

I have done no gardening today as it has been pelting it down with rain. Your pond would do fine here sybil.

Now you are just being mean, taunting me with your lovely rain when all I have had this weekend is a few spots

I have what I think is a weeping cherry in my garden, can you eat the fruit from that do you think? I need to clairify that it actually is a cherry first I know but if so I could do a bit of jam making which would be lovely. Or make liquer cherries, which would be even better...

Hello all - saw your thread and wondered whether any of you might be able to point me in the right direction.

I am about to take on a huge garden - with some raised beds/vegetable plot, only a little bit overgrown, some lawn, and a rather lovely section currently maintained by somebody else (phew!). I am not a gardener (yet).

I really need some kind of gardening coach - a blog or something? that can tell me what I should be doing at this time of year, and how to do it, and maybe make suggestions of what I should be planting when. Do any of you know of such a thing, please?

I have no idea about the cherry tree sybil - maybe post a photo of it in gardening and someone might identify it.

I will happily share the Liquer cherries with you though

We have blackcurrants, apples, strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries.

We get a couple of kg of blackcurrants to make jam each year if we get to them before the birds and have more apples than we can remotely use, despite vast quantities of crumbles and chutney being made.

The gooseberry is still new so we will have to wait and see how it does.

The strawberries don't produce enough to even fill a dessert bowl so they just really let the dcs see the process and pick one to taste every now and again. The raspberry is new and just one cane so I imagine it will be the same.

I love it though - growing our own, admittedly on a very small scale, and using it. I would love an orchard of varied fruit trees - and a gardener to tackle the harvest

All I have done today is dead head a few daffies. It is still really damp here (sorry sybil) so not really very enticing outside for now.

I have planted a fuschia (sp?) that dh bought cheap from M&S today. It is not damp here at all (sends scowls to carrots!) but I have spent at least 10 minutes standing in the conservatory looking at the overcast sky and encouraging it to send some rain my way. It didn't work. I tried to convince dh to go outside and do a naked rain dance but he refused.

Miserable bugger.

purpleturtle - your new garden sounds lovely. I can offer no help at all about when to plant/manure etc but we will be very supportive if you want to join us on this thread.

Welcome purpleturtle - we would be very interested to hear what you get up to if you join our thread.

I think the Gardener's World website has a little section about what to do and when. It might be enough to keep you on track.

Maybe someone else on the thread knows of a good blog - I think we would all benefit from that.