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.

There haven't been many lawn mowing evenings/weekends due to the rain.

My rhubarb is rather bendy- is it meant to be? Should I be feeding it?

Gosh, another fantastic garden today. How Coombe in Herefordshire. Not a particularly promising start, lots of shrubs that were a bit manky, but as you went farther in it really got amazing. All of these semi ruined italianate gardens, with wonderful stone and statues, semi hidden by the encroaching vegetation. It was seriously romantic and all the better for being so unexpected. There was even a rose pool, surrounded by stone pillars with climbing roses scrambling all over.

It was Edwardian, and there were some beautifully manicured bits too. I yearned to take over the tea room as it was a missed opportunity. DH yearned to win the lottery so he could find a project like that and afford to do it up.

Came home to find the hazel fence had grown a few feet

That sounds delightful, Humphrey. Both the garden and the fact that you had an excursion on a weekday!

I now have a lovely jug full of garden flowers on the mantelpiece. (is it non-U to say mantelpiece? I can never remember).

what would one say, if not mantelpiece?

It was lovely having that garden all to ourselves.

Saw a squirrel eating a strawberry

Mantelpiece is fine, I think, Maud. So long as you don't have a woven lucky horseshoe on it, of course.

I have ceremonially picked the first of my broad beans. They are very tasty, but even better are my beetroot leaves which turn out to be utterly delicious. I am going to plant a whole row of beetroots next year for the leaves alone.

A woven lucky horseshoe? Is that a variant on the renowned MN twiggy and pebbly home decorating style?

I dislike beetroot in all its forms but have gamely been eating broad beans from the allotment. I don't much care for them but DH is like a man obsessed with his broad beans.

I've surprised myself by quite enjoying the broad beans as I've never been a fan. My over-wintered ones are pretty much at an end now (which is just as well as I need the bed for my broccoli & cauliflower) but I do have a patch of spring planted dwarf broad beans coming along nicely now I've propped them back up after they were flattened in the wind.

Still no signs from the replanted dwarf french bean bed . I think I may have to give up on them, and on the humbug parsley which is now on its third attempt! That does mean that I have two bed spaces to fill; as the only thing I have growing are squashes I may have an extra couple of pumpkin patches this year...oh well. Or, I could keep some more of the tomato plants outdoors and watch them all succumb to blight...

This weather is making me miserable. Me and the chickens.

The rain is making me quite depressed, too.

Gardening virtually today - selling off more herbs at work. £1 for 1 litre marjoram/oregano and 50p for chives and horseradish. I'm starting with my 'previous customers'!

Well after 3 weeks away to birth my darling first born, Toby, I headed back to the allotment with baited breath. Well all the weeds are growing nicely and most the planted plants (?) have been eaten, flattened, generally died - lettuce, cauliflower, pak choi, cabbage, rocket, peas, beans, ... :( )
The corguettes and pumpkins seem okay, and the broad beans haven't died yet, but I've got a lot of work to do ( although on maternity leave so now I can spend all the time there!!)
The strawberrys are looking good although need protecting from slugs and birds.
At least the stuff at home seems okay (had peas from the pod this morning! Yum) tomatoes are doing well, just need feeding and pinching out. Still have lots to plant out in the conservatory though!

Congratulations kimmi!! Now take it easy!!

Congratulations Kimmi!
Your veg sounds impressive to a complete veg novice like me. I have tomato and strawberry plants and have sown salad and spinach which are germinating. So am really impressed that you have courgettes and pumpkins and so forth.

Congratulations kimmi! What lovely news. Love the name Toby.

Mme Alfred Carriere has been astoundingly good for me and MIL this year - anyone else?

My cucumber plant seems to have died overnight, no idea why. I keep thinking back to my first year of growing veg where EVERYTHING grew like Topsy. It has never been like that since

Congratulations, Kimmi!

Congrats Kimmi!
Is this our first thread baby?

Our cucumber is looking rough and all the others gave up ages ago. They like humidity and I think it's not warm enough. Last year was warm & wrt and they did well but the tomatoes all got blight

Congratulations Kimmi and back on the allotment already - very impressed!

Roses are only really coming into their own this week here Humph but all of mine are looking as if they will be do well this year - all smothered in buds. First flower ever on my Paul's Himalayan Musk and its starting to ramble.

everyone take a deep breath now - three months of rain due in three days after this sunshine breaks...

Hi, things have been really manic recently and haven't had a chance to post.

Congratulations Kimmi, so impressed you're back to it already !

I have managed some gardening despite the weather. DS wanted a pond so we've made a small one by the greenhouse. I've a David Austin rose, William Shakespeare, that's about to bloom. I planted it the same time as some others and it is by far the best established. Is that coincidence or is it worth forking out (this was half price) in the future ?

Am going to allotment today. I gave up and resorted to weedkiller on two bits up there in the end but am kind of relieved I have as was really struggling. The greenhouse is going well, have loads of herbs (love Thai basil) plus a few ripe tomatoes and chillis.

But this sodding weather, what a nightmare. One of my 220 litre butts filled up in one day earlier this week.

Hi, Wynken.

My William Shakespeare rose isn't blooming yet. I have to say, though, that the DA roses I bought half price in the Crocus sale do seem better plants than ones obtained elsewhere. Buff Beauty has exceeded my expectations - the colour is far lovelier than the name Buff suggests!

I keep on losing posts-one last night and one long one this morning.The preview section doesn't seem to be working.Whats going on Mumsnet?

That one worked.I'm getting a bit p---ed off!.Congratulations Kimmi,don't try do too much.Commiserations Maud on the grass mowing.I have a dh who has never once mown the lawn.We have had several days of dry weather fortunately.I have had a man with a van and trailer to cut down some of the vegetation[all non-specific self-seeded evergreens].Now i have lots of space for climbers and Hydrangeas and Roses.I already have an Albertine,a Passion flower and a Montana plus 3 Fireworks Hydrangeas[still flowering indoors].I'm also tempted to visit the david Austin gardens this weekend as its not so far from us and its at its best [and i want to buy more roses].We have also cut right back a very old [50 years plus]yellow rambling rose to see whether it will come back next year as it was looking very scraggy and sick.

Remember last autumn I think a lot of us were finding that there was an unusual amount of acorns and beechnuts coming down? Would love to know if anyone else now has the same problem as me - I think I have been pulling up more tree seedlings than any other weed this year. I could sell little sessile oaks if I had the space to grow them on! I've definitely had more saplings than slugs (count my blessings there). What a weird couple of years of weather we are in.

Still no sign of my Verbena B.

I have had more hazel seedlings this year than in any other year. DH intends to grow them on the allotment and then coppice them for pea sticks.

Oak seedlings here - though possibly less than elsewhere due to pesky squirrels eating acorns. (and digging for acorns everywhere).

I saw a lovely front garden today - just driving by- a mix of light pink paeonies, blue love-in-the-mist, salmon coloured poppies, deep purple lavender, yellow irises, little white alpines,..all sorts- couldn't get it all into my head as it flashed by in a blur of colour, but 'twas charming.

Right, I have had ENOUGH of this weather, it is not good for gardens and allotments. Luckily I did make it to the allotment and am winning the battle of the weeds, for now. But there's loads of bare earth where seeds refuse to germinate and the pheasants are eating my bean plants. The Oca is lying flat on the ground and I think some of the stems might have snapped in the wind. Guess they will regrow. Even DS's peas didn't grow under a cloche, just a whole load of weeds.

I haven't noticed any oak seedlings here yet and we do usually get a few. Interesting. About the DA roses. I'd always assumed a rose was a rose and DA was expensive hype , but the difference between William Shakespeare plus some that have been in for a year or two that cost a couple of quid, is really really noticeable. If the sun would just shine a bit I think old Willy would get his flowers out.

Anyone got any sweet peas out yet ? I've had one solitary flower with no sign of anymore to come at the moment.