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.

Bastard slugs

Can I join? I have all the books!

I have a knackered but functional greenhouse in which I've just sown tomatoes, brussel sprouts & strawberries seeds. My new quince tree is budding beautifully. The apple has 1 bud!

The veggie patch is empty. So I've bought a few little herbs & some broad bean plants. Then along one side I've dug a border & planted a beautiful Camelia and a few bulbs.

I've just put some sweet pea seeds in to soak to plant tomorrow. Most veggies will be from the free packets you get in magazines!

If you had a knackered but functional greenhouse would you plant directly into the soil or in growbags, as has been suggested to me? I intend to plant cucumbers, tomatoes & peppers.

Oooooh, lots of eager new gardeners. That's the ticket!

Am loving the idea of the flower-arranging husband.

Saggybaps - I would plant in grobags - the soil might not be ideal for growing directly - or perhaps have a trial and do some of each and see which is most sucessful?

Anyone in the Yorkshire area needing willow for anything - I'm just about to give mine a hair cut - gets them each spring - but seeing as I grew it from a bit that was simply prodded into the lawn when we moved, and a neighbour has grow quite a few like that from my prunings, can't be too bad.

Today i have planted violets in white and blue,iris foet... and a variagated pulmonaria in my woodland area and a geranium in my sunny patch.Have also moved a primrose camellia to the spot where the sick-looking acer was [squirrels were eating the bark].The acer was past saving sadly.I also bought an erysimum linfolium[from the lady down the road who sells plants outside her house].This i think is going in my newly cleared sunny terraces.I have had a gardener for the last few days clearing my steep hilly garden from rampant ivy and self-seeded plant/trees.He has terraced an old path that has been newly cleared so i can now have a cutting garden[but dc's want to grow vegetables].He's really good at dry stone walling.Luckily the pile of stones left over from building work is going down [was a bit of an eyesore] especially with an old ceramic sink perched on top.I like the sound of the flower-loving husband!.

Mistlethrush- you could try some willow weaving?

teta, how many acres is that?

Oh wailey wailey! I have just investigated the herb garden and the cold winter has killed all the thymes, the rosemary and 3 of the lavenders.... sobs.

May I join please? I am mad keen and have read all the books, but have a large garden and can't seem to get a cohesive 'look' throughout. I keep forgetting to plant things in large clumps, so have ones of everything dotted around - am working hard on that this year! My ideal is a casual country style garden with interest all year - not coming together quite yet!

Me too GBR.Purple Pidgeon its not several acres[much to my relief].It just sounds big, because we have lots of old trees with shady patches, and a south facing hill with a windy path down it,with little terraces off the path.Its an old garden,which now needs some repair and maintenance.There are bits we havn't touched for years [as dh is not a gardener].Several dc's and a dog have wrecked the other bits.Unfortunately,living overseas for years meant that it wasn't properly looked after by anyone.Having just had a balcony for years i am now really enjoying having a garden again.

I have 8'x8' of flat roof, so still

saggybaps (love the name lol) - I also have an inherited knackered but functional greenhouse and have just completely dug over the inside border and pretty much replaced most of the dry soil with new compost and manure. Am hoping this will give me more room this year to experiment with loads more veg as was restricted to grobags last year.

I read somewhere is slug and snail mating season at the moment so the earlier the pellets go down, the better. Please don't shoot me if you are all 'green' gardeners but lost most of my clematis growth to the little buggers last year so really don't want a repeat of that this year!!!

Hmm will have to go around shooting amorous slugs and snails now, we have millions of them and I'm slightly phobic about them, yuk. I now have a trapped nerve in my neck after lugging 18 bags of well rotted horse manure around to do my mulching last week, but am a third of the way there!

Good Idea mistlethrush will try half & half. I just thought if I go directly into the soil it might save on watering - but no idea what the soil is like.

I saw a sign last week 'free horse manure' might stick some in a compost heap for next year.

Is there an environmentally friendly way of controlling slugs & snails, last year we had tonnes, I think they were attracted to the swathe of lily of the valley which I have since dug up.

Hello to all the new gardening people. HJ - maybe you should get your DH on here and we can all giggle at him give him advice. At least he's keen - mine does things in the garden only under sufferance.

Nematodes are what you need for the slugs if you want to be all environmental. I normally buy some for the start of the growing season (needs to be past frost) and then slug pellet the rest of the year. My mother is 'growing' her own nematodes by drowning slugs in a bucket; instructions for which were in a newspaper last year. I'm trying to convince her to do some extra for me as I don't fancy it much .

Got some more free seeds today, including more tomatoes. So I am officially giving up resisting growing tomatoes and am going to try some in the conservatory (with the cucumber, peppers, chillies...going to get crowded in there); hoping that they'll ripen earlier and get blight later so I may actually have a crop.

Hi I'm in!

I have a tiny weeny garden at the house, which is used for sitting in mostly.
In the morning with a cuppa, to welcome the day.
Lunch if it's warm, afternoon tea, then dinner/supper with a glass of ale or a G&T.

This is my dream.

In reality I grab a drink as I do lots of planting of seeds and propagating, bung as many flowering plants as I can in the beds and hope for the best.

I'm lucky, we live in a village surrounded by mountains so the garden has a lovely backdrop. Sitting out under the stars, late at night with friends and family is one of the most precious times of my life.

The love of my life is the allotment; we've had it for 6 years and it a reaaly special, healing place that has kept DP and I sane.

Sadly allotment politics have cast a pall that seems to have no end in sight and it's lost its appeal as a haven from stress and strain. I hope we can resolve it and to that end the spare bedroom and the greenhouse are full to bursting with seedtrays and pots.

Bright Blessings to all fellow gardeners on the Spring Equinox, may all your plans made in the depths of winter, all the seeds you have sown begin to germinate and become real.

My garden is sadly under-used. Veg patch not re planted for 2 years, loads of ancient apple trees, stacks of old terracotta pots, flowerbeds crying out for weeding and replanting with cottage garden type flowers, more tubs around the patio that the chickens and dog have ravaged, hedges untrimmed for a year or so.

Dh and I simply cannot agree on prorities - or how to get started on this lot, and after 5 years here it is far worse than when we moved in.
I have just planted some mint in a pot - yippeee!!!

Earthy - that sounds a real shame - hope that things improve on the allotment.

DH doesn't do ANY gardening. At all. Which means I have to even do the lawn at the moment - however, I'm going to see if I can find someone that will do that for me so that I can spend the hour or so I current spend mowing the lawn actually doing some gardening instead.

Earthymama, hope the politics disappear, your garden sounds idyllic!

Do all allotment societies fall prey to bizarre politics? Ours is a bit cranky efficient and my friend's in another part of the country is worthy of a Mike Leigh play.

Ok so I have potted on about 15 dwarf beans into bigger pots, got six courgettes potted on too, twelve 'moneymaker' tomatoes, but not the gardener's delight toms because I ran out of little pots!! I need to do some selling so I can get more pots or maybe I should make up those DIY newspaper modules.

Someone asked about potatoes. I have my Marshalls leaflet right here, and it says first earlies planted Feb-Apr for harvest May-Jun. Second earlies, salad and maincrop planted one month on and harvested from two months later.

I do love this thread. May I join in? I am thinking of taking lavender and rosemary cuttings from a neighbor (with permission). I have just received the sweetest little hellebore seedlings in the post which I have potted up.
Also I planted the Rose: Dr Jamain, though am slightly worried it might be too near the 1.99 stick from lidl plum tree.
The burgundy Munstead Wood rose went into a large b and q plastic greek terracotta container -with rhizomatic fungus on the roots just like Monty Don planted by my darlings on mothers day. So happy.

Marking my place ...

This is marvellous! So many newbies! Must have been the mention of gin.

I decided I had bought enough new roses but I keep spotting Munstead Wood in the David Austin ads in the gardening supplements and every time someone mentions it here I waaaant one.

I was going to wait a few weeks longer before doing my planting-out of baby plants, because in previous years I have sometimes planted things too close to stuff that hasn't yet emerged, but I'm thinking I ought to get on with it anyway, so that stuff the baby plants have a chance to get established before the drought gets worse and the hosepipe ban kicks in. I've bought some of that rooty stuff too for the roses.

I am worrying that perhaps I will send my beans and courgettes into shock putting them out there tonight. It could get down to 3° and they're used to 16° in here. At least they are cuddled together and under plastic. night all.