Come into the garden with Maud - all obsessive and wannabe gardeners welcome

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Whether you've got rolling acres or a tiny courtyard, whether you're a novice or a gardening die-hard, whether you're aiming for a garden of Sissinghurst loveliness or self-sufficiency à la Felicity Kendal in The Good Life, this is the place to be. Take a seat on the tastefully-painted Lutyens bench and chat with fellow enthusiasts. There may even be a bottle of gin in the potting shed.

We've loads of digging. Hoping for a bit tomorrow but otherwise it's Friday as dh is away/work/all away ropes in Dad to dig

Can anyone help me - I have messed up!! I moved a Ceanothus a few weeks ago (silly as the ground was far too cold and they hate being moved) and now it is clearly suffering - leaves yellowing and falling off. It's about a year old and 3 ft high. Can I do anything to save it???

Also loved the Clematis on GW last night!!

Hello - thread lurker here. Have any of you managed to grow flowers from seeds WITHOUT special plant lights? I have some Cerinthe seeds planted in a plastic propagator and they have grown their two little 'fake' leaves, but they are not true leaves, and all the sites I look up say I NEED a light.

How long roughly should it be between germination and seedlings being ready to pot on? I so want lots of Cerinthes!

ON a brighter note, I joined my local horticultural society today and am going to visit their members only shop tomorrow. How exciting is that? Am also going to plant my new dahlia tubers into pots, rather than directly into garden, do some MORE weeding, enjoy my newly flowering dicentra (too early really, but lovely), and attack next door's ivy. Can't wait!

ha! Does she think I am the resident pink trousered seed swapper of Wisley, BPB? Well tell her I said hello, sorry to disappoint.

I didn't chit spuds last year puffy, was given stempsters and pink fir apples by a friend, and put in a king edward and a Desiree from the end of the supermarket-bought bag which were starting to sprout in the light-deprived way they do.. This year I ordered four types from Marshalls and they arrived in the first week of January so I couldn't avoid chitting them!! They developed different coloured shoots and have sort of paused for a few weeks, having used the right amount of internal energy I suppose but just waiting to be planted out.

Shed is going to be in limbo for ten days while I'm/we're away unless DH can get someone to help him put the roof on. Might ask our neighbour when I give them the keys to do my seedling watering. Once the roof boards are on DH can put a tarpaulin over for the minuscule amount of rain we're likely to get, which will do until he has time to do the felt properly.

Have sort of decided I might not do bulbs in pots next year. I love the way the daffodils are so straight and strong in the border. When this lot are over I think I'll mark out the bulb-less parts of my ornamental bed and make sure I put the pot bulbs there in the autumn/winter. If they naturalise, that's one less job each year! Just need to make sure I don't stab them when planting summer/autumn perennials in between.

ooh I LURVE QueenKong's greenhouse!

Charitygirl - I think they'll be fine without a light, just make sure they're near a window if they're in the house so they get natural light during the day. My seedlings get potted on when they look too big in what I've germinated them in, or too crowded if not in individual modules.

Charitygirl - I grow all my seedlings in my porch which has lots of windows and gets all round light but before we moved here, I put them on windowsills (south facing) and they did just fine. Just remember to keep turning them around if they only get daylight on one side and they should grow well. You can always put a big clear plastic bag over them (prop it up with lolly sticks) to ramp up the heat a bit if you need to

I missed GW - but have today bought 3 x Clamatis & a garlic! Shall be planting tomorrow. Will also thin out my leek & brussel sprout seedlings.

Question: I have lots of thorny thistle like weeds bursting everywhere. In the greenhouse & in my beds. The roots seem to go quite deep. Does anyone have an idea of how to organically get rid of them, I dig one up which is replaced by loads more poking up.

Thank you Dowager and Bertha - I won't give up on them yet. The tray has a plastic lid so hopefully they're warm enough. I would so love it to work - my mum is a great gardener but has never been one to grow things for seeds, so it feels like a bit of a leap of faith...

I love cerinthe too. Last year, I grew fabulous plants from seed by simply sowing them in a pot and standing it on the flowerbed, disregarding all the instructions about heated propagators etc. The current batch are in the seedhouse, which doesn't really get enough light. We shall see.

As for the ailing ceanothus, I would just wait and see. It might be worth trimming it a bit, so that the sulking roots don't have quite so much plant to support, but they hate hard pruning, so don't take too much off.

I know all the theory about ceonothus but I had one in my last garden which had got massive (I was too scared of cutting into old wood) and in the end I decided it had to come out. So I cut it back to a stump but couldn't get the blasted thing out. And it flowered! I've seen someone else hack one back massively too and it did fine afterwards so it's not like lavender.

Ah. My experience is with my late MIL, who always believed her gardener rather than me even though he was clueless. I warned her not to hack at the ceanothus, gardener said it would be fine, reduced it drastically and promptly killed it. I had to stifle a laugh.

We had a huge ceanothus in our last garden and DH hacked it back and it survived.

I've had a lovely afternoon in the potting shed. I've planted squash, sweetpeas, runnerbeans, frenchbeans, marigolds, calendula, pak choi, spinach, cosmos and sweet scented stock.

I also dug over, and raked one and a half small vegetable beds and DH has offered to dig one of the huge veg beds (and add last years compost) so I can get my potatoes in.

I also did a bit of weeding in the flower garden.

I love my garden, but today I was laughing because I remember readign a tip in a magazine years ago that said 'Never walk through your garden without pulling up a weed - that way your garden will always be neat' Whoever sent in that tip must have had a garden the size of a postage stamp. I could walk around mine all day everyday weeding and it would still be far from neat!

Our ceanothus is growing like a small tree and I had to lop branches off so it didn't grow like a big tree and it is definitely surviving. And this year I have planted a clematis near the base. I'm not sure whether to train the clematis into the ceanothus or by the side of it.

On the subject of ceanothus does anyone know what to do when the get badly hit by frost? I have 3, one of which is quite substantial, and they all got hit by the cold snap we had (-15). Leaves are all dead. Will they survive? Should I cut them back?

Dh has built the pea supports this morning. I've sorted out the mint & potted up the tomatoes.

I have just planted the oca and Jerusalem artichokes, so that's the most overdue job done. Now to plant the ornamentals, in the hope that there may be rain soon.

Thanks for help re Ceanothus - it's looking very sorry for itself now so I will be amazed if it survives

However, lots of fun in the greenhouse today with whitewash and planting out tomatoes, cucumber and peppers

In the course of planting the roses in the tiny herb bed garden, I had to move the lovage and now have a huge piece of lovage root. Is it likely to work as a root cutting?

I have had a fabulous afternoon gardening in two gardens.

So I'm doing the 1 metre veggie plot in GW mag this month. We have an empty raised bed exactly the right size and I bought the seeds today. It'd be a bit of an experiment, am not expecting it to work. Will keep you all posted if you like!

Please do, QueenLong. Post some pics!

Put up my little plastic greenhouse thing today in readiness for frosts and to have somewhere to put my seedlings from the conservatory when they get too big. Fits nicely on the only raised bed that currently has nothing growing in it which is very handy.

Yes, keep us informed of progress on the veg bed QueenKong. As Maud says, pictures would be good. If it fails completely just post the pics out of the GW mag and we'll all be polite and pretend not to notice.

::snort:: at If it fails completely just post the pics out of the GW mag and we'll all be polite and pretend not to notice.

That reminds me, I am going to buy some paint and paint my bamboo canes in jazzy colours.

ooh yes, I love a good nose at your gardens. I tried to put some of my garden up once but got stuck. that's my excuse

Got a bloke coming next week to change the uprights on the verandah from nasty metal to nice oak supports with arches. It used to be the coal shed . DH cleaned it up this weekend and we ate there this evening. It is also very useful for hanging washing in when it looks like rain.

Do hope all of us survive the cold weather that is coming. Expecting 20 mph wind on Thursday. This could spell the end of the pear, cherry and damson blossom. Luckily the apple won't be out by then, so should escape.