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

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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.

Very interesting article, althogh I suspect I would get a shock if I totted up quite how much time I spend on the garden (just as I would if I totted up the money. Eek).

We just got home. In flower: Roses New Dawn, Gloriana and Buff Beauty, verbena bonariensis, sweet William, various aquilegias, various geraniums (Kashmir White is particularly lovely), pink valerian, Welsh poppies, white campanula. Big buds on the lilies and huge new shoots on the bamboo.

How apt that you mention William Morris, funnyperson. One of my first planting plans was to fill the garden with flowers from Morris designs. I haven't kept it up, although there are some things - honeysuckle, acanthus mollis and rosa rubrifolia - which are still in keeping.

Oh, that reminds me. I have 2 gorgeous red roses in flower. I have no idea what they are. How do I find out? And how/ when do I prune them?

I daren't think about money - I see plants somewhere and go to buy 1 thing but end up spending £10 on this & that. Over the months, it adds up to far too much

Probably your best bet on identifying the roses is browsing the David Austin or Peter Beales websites, on the offchance of finding a match. Or the old version of the RHS Encyclopedia of Plants, swhere everything is grouped by colour.

I had meant to say that we went to Alnwick to see the gardens. The rose garden is lovely and will be even better in a couple of weeks, I imagine, when more is in flower.

Have had a bit of chaotic time since we came back. Planned to unpack this am, then mums for lunch, an hour on allotment & another in the garden.
Didn't finish unpacking & then went to mums to find out my Nanna had died so have been out to see family and discuss funeral.

I'm sorry to hear about your Nanna, Harriet.

Wasn't unexpected but was quicker IYSWIM. Difficult dealing with the children & seeing my Dad upset.

Sad news, Harriet, I'm sorry

Harriet. Heard a story at a children's party yesterday about children & funerals though which I'll share in the hope it'll make you smile. Friend took her boys to a family funeral and at the end they asked whether there were party bags . Got to love the view of children; life & all it brings is a celebration.

Managed to plant my tomatoes, chillies and peppers in to final pots/bags in the rain today. At least the ones I'm keeping anyway. Still not sure what I'm doing with the other 100 plants...

Just seen the weather forecast on Countryfile. I'd like summer now please.

:) at the party bags.

so sorry Harriet, what sad news

This part of the welsh contingent has survived the storms and flooding unscathed. The wind was SO bad, we feared the worst but all our frantic staking and plant supporting seemed to do the trick.

It is an interesting point about time spent in the garden. DH basically works in the garden all the time he is not doing child care or running his business (about one day a week, plus odd phone calls - lucky bugger!). He never really comes in until about nine - nine thirty when the weather is fine and it is light enough! We have made a garden that takes a lot of doing, although at the moment he is still doing lots of hard landscaping stuff that takes time. I just don't know how long it would take to purely maintain it, we certainly never feel 'on top' of it, but surely that is the nature of gardening?

I do stuff when I can, and now I have some time off am really looking forward to being able to concentrate on something without interruption when the dc are in work. Teaching is such a full on occupation it left me with little energy to spare. I still get through a fair bit though.

None of us begrudge the time though, do we? Other people are always asking where we find the time to do the garden and it seems that they see it as a chore that must be done, whereas all of us on this thread see time in the garden as the best sort of fun and relaxation.

Yes, that's exactly it, Humph. I never begrudge gardening time (except perhaps the time spent tidying up after the foxes have run amok) but resent every minute I spend wielding a Hoover.

Hi,
Can I join, I have been lurking for a while and have namechanged in honour of all the lovely gardening chat.
I am renting while we are looking for somewhere to buy so I am doing no long term or dramatic gardening but having fun pottering in the borders and doing pots and hanging baskets.

Maud - I love the sound of your garden, those are some of my favourite plants. I've always had shady gardens but my garden-porn would be a lovely sun trap stone flagged garden and borders with dephiniums, oriental poppies, cranesbill, honeysuckle, verbena b and old roses, with lilium regale in pots and lots of plants for night scent. Then when the kids were in bed I'd go out with a glass of wine in the dusk surrounded by lovely scents and bats and moths.
Hmm, will sign off before I start sounding slightly unhinged!

Hello Molly
we are all unhinged about our gardens...

Maud, I am jealous you have verbena b out. Ours doesn't look nearly ready yet.

The thalictrum is about to flower though!

Hello, Molly.

You remind me that my next gardening question is whether tree peonies can be pruned. If not, I need to shift a rose which is going to be too much overshadowed.

Fear not, Humph. The only verbena b that is out is the plant in a trough in the front garden, which is the biggest one. The smaller plants in the back garden are far less advanced, and the thalictrum is looking good but nowhere near flowering.

Oddly, I noticed that many plants in the frozen north were ahead of those I have at home. My rodgersia, for example, is scarcely out of the ground yet at Wallington (NT property) it was almost in flower.

I went to an amazing garden today - Pant something (sorry can't find the yellow book). It had a green ampitheatre with two cellists! And a huge empty picture frame for the amazing view. And a whale shaped pond you could see from above with a fountain/spout. And a ruined village on the side of a hill, all planted up with honeysuckle and climbing roses. And a giant stone turtle. It was truly wonderful.

Grr just spent ages writing a long post and its vanished! That garden sounds amazing Humph, although prob a bit far away for me to visit? We visited Hestercombe on Fri while on hols in Somerset. It was really lovely although weather a bit rough to linger and appreciate it. Wonderful landscaped valley with lots of quirky summerhouses and glimpsed views and then a fantastic formal garden with a parterre and rills. Masses of huge blowsy peonies.

Got back home to find garden somewhat flattened and my entire stock of plastic flower pots spread over the garden. Didn't realise things had been quite so bad here (W Wales).
Three huge bats just flew past the window so hope there are some moths out there for them tonight.

I now want a whale shaped pond with a fountain spout, a green amphitheatre with two cellists and a giant stone turtle. That garden sounded truly lovely.

I am sorry about nana, Harriet. My parents are old and frail. I love them loads.

William Morris: yes, Maud, I agree, honeysuckle - but also could include strawberries, willow, acorns, marigolds, pomegranates. I have strawberry thief, willow, and that pomegranate wall paper at home in different rooms. On the inside/outside merging theme you see. It works well. The DC have always loved it.

Sorry about your nan, Harriet.

Blackpudding I told the party bags story today and the assembled Queen's Birthday enthusiasts roared. We think we may have spotted a trend.

I was the only plastic gold-crowned person there but, meh.

BUT, I snagged a 30 year-old staghorn fern for nowt at the same gathering. It's about 3 feet wide and high. It's not been fed for yonks, which is surprising as all they need is a banana skin every year. I'll collect later this week. They are lovely; just sit there and grow.

That garden does sound spactacular!

Well done, echt, both on spreading the party bag love and bagging the fern. I took some surplus ferns to the gardening club the day after Monty had featured ferns and they were snapped up in moments.

Funnyperson - I do have some more Morrisian plants (wild strawberries and lots of self-sown marigolds) but I no longer collect them because they are Morrisian, if you see what I mean. We have Morris curtains in all the downstairs rooms and will have one wall of paper - I dare say one wall of paper is now considered old hat, but don't care - once the sitting room is done up.

Had our first strawberry this am. I say had but it was actually split 4 ways

Love the party bag story.

Thinned out the biggest gooseberries this am. Got 2lb from just the one bush!

I'm just going to wade through the knee-high grass to see what's going on in my garden. The lawn still hasn't had its first cut of the year.

OOoh you are a better lawn-poker player than I, Maud!! If I didn't cut it, cats/foxes would claim it as their own (and did before first cut). I cut it again on Sunday, even lowered the blade height to the middle setting. I think I also need to sharpen the blades because it is tearing rather than cutting neatly. Cheap-ish Flymo, I suppose you get what you pay for.

I didn't manage to do much at the weekend at all, just tied back a couple of stems of honeysuckle and secured a climbing rose a bit better. Really I need to weed the front garden. It is pretty horrific - horsetail, creeping buttercup, dandelions, plantain, and also self-sown seedlings of things I planted last year - comfrey, calendula, yarrow. The Jerusalem Artichoke is laughing in my face, and I need to chelsea chop the sweet rocket (x4) and buddleia (x3). I have three raspberries which aren't any higher than a foot and a gooseberry still only six inches. When do they send up tall canes?!?

I don't know when I'm going to do all this though because I have guests for lunch on Saturday and quite a lot of proper cooking to do ahead of that, and we are going out to a child's birthday party on Sunday, but I'm strongly thinking of crying off the latter and leaving it to DH. Slightly higher priority than the front garden is the front room, in which was the brick wall that was three-quarters demolished on Saturday. We need to clear out the pile of rubble into grab bags on the front verge and arrange collection. I have been suffering badly with rhinitis since all the brick dust was kicked up, and now have got seriously aching sinuses. I am half considering getting a watering can and gently dousing the front room so that the dust isn't airborne.

Nah, I just have a husband who hasn't kept to his side of the bargain about being responsible for the lawn while I do everything else in the garden. I never wanted a lawn. Sigh.