Osteospermumsnet.com - flutter your foliage, pick your produce, shake your seed packets and bring your blooms to the Spring Show

[Lexilicious]

Welcome to the gardening quiche :)

Earlier malarkey was here

All welcome whether you are a Sackville-West or a Dimmock, an Oudolf or a Swift. Whether you dream of digging or dig for dreams.

Fair weather or foul, we've got disco lights in the potting shed and fairy lights on the terrace. Bring gin, wine just doesn't cut it round here.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

That's what I'm hoping Cantspel - that nature doesn't yet know it's July. I gave constructed chicken wire fortifications to keep the birds off!

[cantspel]

I have grass seed mixed with a bag of compost when it sprouts i will scater it on a couple of bald bits i have left from where i removed the giant connifer. I have tried just laying the seed but the birds ate it.

Didn't get around to cutting the grass this weekend as it was just too wet but i have just read in the paper that summer is due to start next week so it can wait till then.

I was planting Penstemons in the rain today, bit late in the season but the weather has been so bad i am hoping they think it is still spring.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

DH finally cut the grass yesterday (as soon as I saw it was not raining I started to nag encourage him) and I have just been sowing grass seed in the huge bald bits of lawn. I know July isn't the best time to do that, but I'm hoping the grass seed will think it's still May.

I have the heating on, in an attempt to dry the washing.

[Phacelia]

Grockle, I have M.E too. And I quite agree, it is so therapeutic. I always pictured gardening as something quite physical, but I just sit on the ground to do most stuff, and it's quite easy to pace too, as there's nothing ever particularly urgent that needs doing. It has been the best therapy possible for me really. When I move into my new house the plan is to plant a very calming garden (lots of lavender!) so it will be even more relaxing to sit in it on a summer's day (if we ever have one again). Can't wait.

Oh, and thankfully I've already found someone who will cut the grass/do the bigger jobs for me in return for some space to grow veggies, so that is a big relief.

[Lexilicious]

Humph did the first one, I've done #2 and #4, Maud (I think) did #3. Someone else's turn! "Our waterbutts runneth over"?

The Springsteen concert was the middle day of the three-day Hard Rock Calling 'festival' in Hyde Park - three stages, about 20 acts each day! Last night was Paul Simon with a lot of the original Graceland band members, and lots of other special guests. Fantastic but really tiring - we stood (and boogied) for about 5 hours so my back and feet were really sore.

My dad was here at the weekend so lots of jobs round the house are now progressed... but very little in the garden. The only thing I managed to do on Sunday was off-load some of my divisions onto my parents for my dad to take home today. Rhubarb, a butternut scquash, heucheras, sisyrinchiums, and some herbs. I am still yet to get the rest of my veg plantings in the ground. I cannot keep up with distributing slug pellets before the bastard magpies eat them. Weirdos.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Yes, Humph, these threads are lovely. I do have some equally obsessive gardening friends in RL but it's good to have some virtual ones too.

Grockle - I too am convinced of the therapeutic benefits of gardening. I hope yours will continue to help you.

[HumphreyCobbler]

sorry to hear that you are poorly Grockle. Gardens do give such pleasure and relief from stress and anxiety.

Went to a local garden that is open throughout the year. Was the wrong day, but she kindly let us wander round anyway. It was lovely. Lots of rather thin hedges with beautiful curves. I especially liked the single purple beech one, the new growth was such an amazing colour.

We need a new thread title - come on Lexi..or anyone who is inspired.

Isn't it lovely that we are all still chatting. This will be our fourth thread.

[Grockle]

I love reading about what you've all been up to and what you've bought. I've planted some of my purchases from Friday's sale but the rest are just dumped on the patio, waiting for the weekend.

I've been quite unwell for a couple of years and they're now thinking it might be ME. I'm so exhausted much of the time & my garden is my haven. I love that it doesn't take a huge amount of work & that I can do what I want, when I want - as much or as little as I can manage. There's not many other hobbies/ past times/ whatever that are as flexible & peaceful as gardening, is there?

[cantspel]

I went to my local garden centre this morning and managed to get some 4 maru and 8 stargazer lilies, with masses of flower buds which will hopefully open in the next few days.
I also had a rummange in their bargin corner and picked up 8 Asiatic lilies and 6 Oriental Lilies for between 50% and 75% off. They are pasted there best now but work out about a £1 per bulb so worth it for adding to the garden for next year.
Couldn't resist a new pair of leather gardening glover in lilac and a terracotta wall hanging pot as well. So all in all a good day for me

[funnyperson]

lexi I really really hope you went to that springsteen concert yesterday cos there aint no concert in hyde park today. So I am confused.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Eek! In ten posts' time we will need a new thread!

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

I have been to a lovely NGS garden - one of our nearest but it's taken us years to get there - and have returned with two more plants.

[Phacelia]

Yes absolutely. Gardening has given me much more appreciation for farmers. I can't imagine the worry of not having huge fields of crops not succeeding. It shows how very vulnerable we are as a population, and how important it is that we don't expand even more

Lovely day today here too, at bloody last. Have been lying outside soaking up the vitamin D, reading Sarah Raven's 'The Bold and Brilliant Garden'.

[Lexilicious]

yes I do wonder Wynken, last year it was grain wasn't it (not enough rain) and this year I have already read of potato prices rising and animals having to be kept indoors. hay/silage hasn't been as easy/possible to cut, so winter feeds will cost farmers even more money.

puts 'paused sweet peas' into perspective somewhat as it's their livelihood.

Glorious day here, am stuck indoors on a piece of work with a Monday morning deadline. off to big concert in Hyde Park later, it'll be a total quagmire even if it doesn't actually rain! Hoping to get some planting done between work and going out. And a trip to the tip as well.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

Anyone else worrying about what the cost of food will be this year? I think potato crops are failing with rotting in the ground, apple harvests predicted to be low. We've still got sweetcorn and butternut squash from last year but won't have any to replace them with, short of a miracle.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

Don't one about Dahlias but if it is any help, my sweet peas are in suspended animation. I think it's just too cold for a lot of things and they just stop growing. I woke up this morning and was contemplating seeing if I could get the woodburner going it was so cold.

Very jealous of people with courgettes and vases of flowers and also Echt's new veggie beds as I bet vegetables actually grow in Oz unlike here ! Don't envy you on the couch grass Echt, I spent ages digging it out of allotment this year.

[echt]

Well, the pine sleepers for the veggie beds have arrived, and DH and I spent the morning placing them out, then starting the weeding of what was once a lawn.

I may say with some authority, that the only upside of digging out couch grass from sandy soil is comparing it with the very idea of digging it out from clay.:o

Still, the weather is good, rain holding off, so we'll get a lot done today.

[Phacelia]

I finally have one decent sized courgette on my plant; all the others so far have been tiny. I am going to wait a couple more days before picking it so I'm just hoping it doesn't start rotting before then (some of the others have).

My dahlias seemed to have just frozen these last few weeks. That isn't normal, right? They have lots of leaves on them, they were growing really well and now they've just stopped.. Just like that. And stayed small for weeks. No sign of any flowers on them. I was so looking forward to seeing them flower too.

The neighbour's clematis that has grown into our garden is looking spectacular. Glad something is!

[HumphreyCobbler]

I did pick some clematis earlier. Don't know what they were, but type two. Pink and blue.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Once I started looking, I relaised there was more than I thought - acanthus look great in a vase, for example.

Still no sign of any edible veg here, although the herbs are doing well unlike the slugs and snails I just murdered.

[HumphreyCobbler]

well done Maud. I am very short on flowers for the house atm. The gladioli for cutting will be ready in a couple of weeks though, I am glad I got those in.

I have eaten exactly two courgettes, there seem to be no more coming. I have six plants in and they have not really grown. Broad beans are coming on though.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Despite the predations of the weather and the molluscs, my jugs of flowers are looking magnificent.

::preens::

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

Everyone very welcome Funnyperson

I haven't started planting at all. Went to allotment and they had a mini show. One category was 2 courgettes, they were all pathetic. Not what you expect for July. I didn't have even pathetic ones to enter so they were way ahead of me.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

I'm sure there's some fermented elderflower presse lurking somewhere close by - I saw Cowslip wine in a farm shop earlier.

I 've put a link on FB page to their website, there are more dates on it.

[funnyperson]

er....I call house......where is it?can I come?