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.

I have the same problem Jacksmania.i've got several pots of mixed bulbs from Crocus and they have been absolutely beautiful.The tulip is a pale yellow with white streaks in and is stunning.I would be so upset if they didn't come up next year[even if the hyacinths and narcissi and scilla do].So i think i'm just going to replant elsewhere and junk the tulips[which seems a real waste].But the tulips i left in last year have been awful this year and i don't want to spoil next years pots.I also really want to reuse the pots for scented pelargoniums for a summer display as i find it really difficult to get pots i like at a reasonable price.

Desperately need to spend the weekend in the garden. This rain must stop! Oddly I remember Maud doing rain dances this time last year because it hadn't rained all month - delayed rain dance response obviously.

::whispers::

I now have far too many pots because I bought a job lot on Ebay.

At the weekend, I emptied the lovely pot in which, for a few years, I had some fabulous tulips (Queen of Sheba, not subtle but really uplifting). They failed this eyar and I discovered that my lovely John Innes-based compost mix had clogged the drainage holes and I think they had drowned. Boo hoo.

I put a beer trap outside last night and guess how many slugs are in it this morning?

Absolutely none. I guess they haven't got going yet round here. I've found the odd tiny baby one on the bottoms of pots but no biggies.

Bought GW magazine this morning for the 2 for 1 entry card (sucker for advertising!) and am going to sit down with coffee and Danish, gaze on the Brit sunshine outside, read the mag and wait for my wine delivery. Well, it's Friday!

Hi
I've been lurking on here for months (stalkerish! No pun intended...) and finally plucked up the courage to join in, if you'll have me?

This year I've finally cleared a patch for growing veg in our rather higgeldy piggeldy garden. I think there used to be piggeries (sp?) there. I dug out a veritable mountain of huge rocks and old, heavy bricks from the ground along with about 150 wheelbarrows of earth, ash & coal to clear a 11' x 11' space, but all the graft has been so worth it to have a usable patch of land at last! Have put the rocks to good use and built a U-shaped bed which now only needs topping up slightly with soil. Need to crack on now to get some veg I've started off indoors in the ground, although we're still getting frosts atm so I'm a bit weary.

Part of some outbuilding is still standing (2 and a half walls) and has a sunken patio 'inside' it, and then a small patch which I dug out last year and the year before (even more buried bricks!!) and have grown a small lawn from seed recently. Very excited by my new grass, but trying desperately to keep the chickens off it!

Erm, the rest of the top garden ( immediately outside our house) is basically patio & ancient flagstones (that used to be the kitchen and living room floor!!), then a small field beyond the fence, shared by PIL who live next door, where said chickens have free range. Is all grass, with some trees and shed at the bottom, and wood pile etc. and beyond the bank at the left hand side there's a stream with a long, narrow strip where my FIL and I plan to upscale our veg growing and make a little 'allotment', maybe next year though.

Sorry to ramble, but got to say I've loved reading all of your gardening exploits - really kept me motivated and I've learnt LOADS from you clever lot! :)

We'll have anyone! No allotment committee here!! But the gin's running a bit low, got any?

Is 'brit sunshine' another phrase for a deluge Lexi?.The rain slackened off a bit yesterday so i managed to plant my pink and lilac bed round the cherry tree and the blue and white bed underneath the Beech.The monsoon was so heavy last night it was depressing ,so i went to bed early.Can we include hot chocolate with rum and whipped cream in the potting shed?Its that sort of weather.
Maud which ebay seller do you use for pots?.I find it really difficult to get the right shape and i don't really want to pay crocus prices[skinflint].

ha! at the time it was "brilliant" sunshine but I guess my spellcheck decided I was mistaken!

boozy hot choc sounds marvellous.

No gin m'fraid, but plenty of Aldi if that'll do the job?

Lexi - can I have some of that Brit/brilliant sun please? Although torrential bloody rain has stopped at exactly the same time as DS woke from his nap, so no chance of getting anything done this afternoon now. Thinking about mooching down to the garden centre in a bit, although it's a bit dash & grab with two toddlers in tow so I always end up spending too much on something I didn't intend to buy!

Ever tried cutting a picture out of a magazine and engaging your toddlers in sourcing it for you around the garden centre? Might keep them more on side! I haven't done this but it is a variation of the art gallery toddler experience, where you head to the gift shop first, buy a handful of postcards of some of the exhibits, and play 'hunt the painting/statue/installation'.

Dear god but I've just won 20 mumsnet pretentious points haven't I. I'll have some of that vin de pays domaine d'aldi pls.

weebleswillwobble am I right in reading that you have a stream at the bottom of your garden?

It has stopped raining I am going to be p l a n t i n g yay!

In between showers, I have planted a pair of peonies, beautiful plum foliage for winter colour. They are between a mock orange and black bamboo, so should show up quite well.

My pots came from a lovely girl who was moving house and didn't want to take her pots with her. They were nicely weathered, but a one-off.

I did though buy a lovely lily pot from Crocus in the sale. I thought I'd still been quite extravagant until it arrived and I saw how big it was. Now it seems a proper bargain (even if it wasn't £1.50 per pot as my eBay ones were).

I've just put some seedlings/divisions onto Gumtree and then found somebody about ten miles from me selling a load of pots (plastic, ceramic and terracotta) for £8!!! Eight! Hope he didn't miss off the zero.

I have been moving plants around and now have a bit of a system so I know where things are. There's a shelf of my grow house called the 'high dependency unit', while the others are general and paediatric wards. My shed is a zero to preschool zone, and I have an 'adoptions and rehoming' metre square plastic cloche on the decking. There's a sheltered bit between DH's shed and the back rockery wall which will be the summer napping place for tulips, and currently houses some pre-adoption yucca shoots and a rhubarb in a recycling planter

By the way, I hope nobody thinks I am the mad recycling box thief. I would like the court record to show that I have been planting veg in my own recycling boxes for months now and haven't stolen anyone else's. And I don't live on a culdesac.

Great idea Lexi about the pictures...my 1 year old is mainly concerned with licking the bottom of his shoes, and a shakey-shakey seed packet tends to keep him occupied for quite some time, but it might work on 2 yr old. She's a bit flighty but I'll give it a go! Have a splash of . The pots sound too good to be true! Hope it's kosher.

Yep, funny you did read it right. We've actually got a couple really, one that runs the length of the garden, and one that runs just beyond the fence on the back border. It's not gushing, but it never stops flowing even in droughts.

Didn't get an amazing amount done today, although have potted on my Apache peppers which I am verrr excited about.

Dawn the Peonies sound luscious!

Hi Weebles - welcome, I'll have too please as just settling in for GW

I don't have a stream at the end of my garden (on my wish list though along with the walled garden) but today I appear to have a bog...Also now have a chicken house & run. Chickens will be moving in tomorrow!

Oooooh monty monty. Do you think he's going to be all soggy again this week?

I had to dig out loads of catmint and brambles but in their place, underneath the climbing roses and in between the blue flowering forget-me-nots went some stachys lanata and aquilegia clementine white, www.gardensplendor.com/harv/plantinfo.asp?plantid=425100
and viola odorata Rothchild which will be purple and scented.
www.plantsforshade.co.uk/acatalog/Viola-odorata--Baroness-Alice-de-Rothchild.html
All apparently suitable for shade.
The Generous Gardener climbing rose has been planted in the front garden which is sunny.

I have to wait for Monty as I don't have a functioning tv so I have to wait till he is on iplayer.

Is it just me but does Monty's pond just look too 'round'? Sure it will look beautiful once plants actually growing though.

I am going to have to find room for some euphorbias.

we've also got no real telly so watch iplayer too funny, you know there's a 'live' option don't you?!

when we want to watch other channels we use tvcatchup.com

so anyway, yes the pond is rather regular but the stones were lovely.

Missed Monty again tonight, so I'll be on iplayer tomorrow.

That white aquilegia looks lovely. I've got a purple one about to flower. I don't remember planting it so imagine it's a random seedling.

I'm laughing at Lexi feeling motherly towards Monty as generally on here, when people are expressing sentiments about Monty, they're not maternal.

Ah. Euphorbias. This is a new arrival in my black and white bed.

I've said before that myrsinites is doing fabulously well in a pot with rosa Gloriana.