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.

Glad you like it! Mine is the sterile version, so doesn't produce fruit, but if you get the right variety it will also have beautiful red berries in the autumn.

That sounds gorgeous, I like all year round colour and am currently rearranging things so that I can achieve that.

Yes, year-round colour and scent is my goal, too.

Another vote for the viburnum. I've got int and it is lovely.

Does anyone know anything about lilacs. I have one large tree which comes into leaf and flower bud each year but then the flowers never blossom. They stay stunted and small.

I have another much smaller one which gets shredded by the hedge cutter cos it is in a field hedge but it actually produces a few decent flowers.

After nearly a year in our new house, I've done what I should have done immediately; tear out some would-be screening shrubs and plant the real deal.

The vendors had quite rightly planted the fast-growing but very boring pittosporum tenufolium as a way of cheering up buyers who could see the garden is overlooked.

Just having written this, I can see we've torn out every single plant which was put in to sell the place. They did the right thing, and we bought the place.:o

I'm planting native trees which will screen, and provide food for birds - banksia serrata and grevillea "Moonlight". They'll take a while to kick in but will be beautiful and useful. I'm prepping the sand soil with native conditioner and some water-retaining compost. Both plants love poor soil. BIG water in and judicious watering for the first year. Tons of bark mulch. I'm underplanting with prostrate grevilleas and short-arsed banksias.

To cheer my flower-loving heart I'm planting freesias in every sunny place - they grow like mad here, and planning sweet peas for the front bed. I've found a fuchsia which can endure 40 degrees and blooms all year round, so right at the front door.

Sob! For the second time in a week, foxes (I think? could it be cats??) have dug up my front garden. The front garden I recently covered in weed repelling material and covered in lovely new bark chippings, with seven beautiful new shrubs, and a sweet little Salix Caprea tree. TWICE in one corner some animal has pushed all the chippings up, and scrubbed up the material. BUT they haven't really disturbed the soil, and while I think I can see wee, I haven't found any poos. It was overgrown before but I hadn't thought they were using it as a loo.

Does anyone know what might be happening - and what can I do to make them stop. It's SO dispiriting.

We've just put a vibernum in, I do love them.
Maud thanks for the other shady suggestions. I'm always looking out for shady plants.
I haven't got any suggestions for your the fox problem Charity, sorry. Still battling a bit with cats.

Re:shady plants - my lupins seem to do well with almost no sun. And hellebores in early spring.

I'm by no means sure, but I think that if there's been any attempt at digging or covering, it's probably cats. In my all-too-frequent experience, poxes just poop wherever they feel the urge - usually in the very centre of a plant or in an empty flowerpot.

We've snow here today. Not proper snow though thankfully. Certainly cold though.

Err, foxes. Bloomin' spellchecker.

We're likely to escape the snow, but have been promised rain.

Winter jasmine flowers in my shady garden. And cyclamen, and geranium Johnson's blue. A spider plant has thrived and provides 'architectural' interest, as does a cotoneaster pruned into two small bobbles hiding a statue of a heron. In a really shady spot I am trying tree lilies with hosta at the base this year. The theory is that the tree lily roots like shade and they will grow tall enough for the flowers to get some sun. Rosa New Dawn grows into the oak tree, and Albertine is rampant and I have just planted Dr Jamain against a North east facing wall.
Irises grow and flower, but the Japanese anemones don't do that well.
There are hellebores, flowering quince, forgetmenots, pale daffodils, anemone blanda, small yellow and violet pansies. I love my garden.
Clematis viticella has been ordered in hope.
But I too have holes in the lawn! Perfectly circular ones and other scraggy ones. Some are made by birds, others are squirrels.

Here are the tree lilies.
www.thompson-morgan.com/flowers/flower-bulbs-and-tubers/lily-bulbs/tree-lily-starburst/p92149TM
I think they will cheer up that awkward corner.Summer and winter jasmine flourish behind. Then I'll have the hosta in front and I am looking for a medium size pale flowered or blue plant or perhaps a grass to go with.

Is everyone getting a lot of really good blossom this year? Our magnolia has never looked better in its 20 or so years, and a chaenomoles (definitely dodgy spelling there) is awash with flowers, despite me 'cutting it back' with the hedge trimmer last year! Our daffs, on the other hand, are very disappointing.

Those tree lilies look fantastic (adds to list).

I have three tree lilies that came as a freebie with an order from Parkers. They were about 4 - 6 ft tall last year (second year) and I'm hoping they will be even taller this year.

No blossom here yet - my magnolia stellata is still too small (I think) to blossom, the chaenomeles died years ago and so I'm waiting for the fruit trees to do their thing!

My stellata is just starting to come out - lots of the large ones are fully out though. The wysteria is budding up, just ready to be hit by the cold weather I hope we don't get it). Willow leaved pear just coming out too - I really love it - just delicate white flowers with the grey leaves just coming.

I have an anti-fox suggestion Charity - my Dad used to do this when we had chickens in my youth. Apparently if a man wees around the perimeter of the garden (in a territorial manner) it puts them off. Not sure if it works for cats though. And as it's your front garden the accomplishing of it may be amusing for your neighbours tricky!

maud what have you planted in front of/ at the base of your tree lilies?

This is the quince flowering with the hellebores and anemone at its base. The fruit in Autumn are amusing: a lovely rust/orange colour like a squashed apple with no stalk.
The magnolias in front gardens here are magnificent this year. Like heady wine.

www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/602/jet-trail-flowering-quince.php

Well, Funnyperson, as they came as a freebie and were never part of my carefully-considered slowly-evolving made up as I go along planting plan, they were stuffed in wherever I had a space.

The yellow one is in the herb bed, behind some hemerocallis Corky and golden marjoram, another one (which IIRC is white and red) is in the area I am currently, ahem, developing but will be near sambucus niger Black Lace, rose Falstaff and some crocosmia Lucifer and the other (which didn't flower last year as the buds were eaten by snails but IIRC is pink) is behind cotinus coggygria Royal Purple and a mish-mash of other things including a bright blue geranium and cephalaria gigantica.

Thank you Maud and Bertha. I wonder if it is cats...although our bedroom window faces the street I sleep like the dead when not feeding DS2, and I've not heard anything. So annoying. On the plus side LIDL are selling 40L bags of bark clippings for 1.99 (also peat free compost) so at least I can replenish stocks quickly.
Remembered today I have 5 salvias coming from Parkers at done point - hooray! Love salvias.

We're finally getting some rain here today (berkshire) so I am hoping everything will really get going now, it's been so dry! Three of my four water butts were completely empty. Anyone got snow?

I really love chaenomeles and my neighbour had a fine one in her front garden, but both those that I planted died. Sob.