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.

She liked it!

Sounds wonderful, Humph. I'm envious. And hungry.

That does sound wonderful, Humphrey. Was your DH ever a boy scout? They generally seem to enjoy setting fire to things the outdoor life.

I asked, he was in the cubs!

The rain has started now. Two days of sunshine, back to the rain. Ho hum.

Guerrilla gardening on friends is great ... I did a small border for a friend a couple of months after she had her first baby. We called ahead and made her DH keep her in the front room subtly - she was slightly confused that he was leaping up and getting everything for her. Got my boyfriend (now DH) to dig holes, I planted and primped, then we nonchalantly came in the back door (nothing unusual there). Eventually she came in to the kitchen, looked out the back window like she'd seen a ghost/streaker/burglar, realised what we'd done and burst into wibbles.

I have this green plastic trug. It is crap very cheap - the handle clips into the base not very securely, so put more than a few feather-light blooms in it (as shown) and it self-detaches dramatically. I will get another one soonish.

Speaking of which, is anyone going to Hampton Court Palace RHS Show on the Tuesday? Want to meet for strawbs and Pimms Earl Grey? I'll be there with my mum and I have a full day leave pass from home !

Are anyone else' s roses very floriferous this year? Todays warm weather has brought out a mass of rampant flowers on the roses, clambering all over the fence and up the oak tree and into the trellis. The smell is lovely, especially as the honeysuckle is flowering too. You wouldn't believe it is a north facing garden to look at them.
It is impossible to convey what a garden is really like from a photograph. The sounds, the smells, the subtle variations in leaf colour, the way it changes with each millisecond...... the way it surrounds you....
Ah well, best to enjoy it before the rain comes I suppose.

The well-established climbers - Spring Bride, Gloriana and New Dawn - are flowering mightily but all the other roses are too new, I suspect. There have been a few lovely flowers on Winchester Cathedral and Buff Beauty, though.

Humphrey - Did you not know about your SH's Scouting past?

lexi I hope a wibble is positive. I didn't like it when my mum used to garden in my garden when she was looking after the DC. She is ever so keen on lawn edges and I like to leave them soft. She prunes a lot and I do not. She sweeps up leaves whereas I like to leave them to admire the orange for a bit. That sort of thing. I didn't used to tell her, but it used to upset me.

I didn't know about the cubs. Although thinking about it there was one story about a wasp and a woggle that surfaced once or twice

The roses are looking good here too, the Paul's Himalayan Musk in the cherry tree is stupendous. I am so glad we put it in as soon as we bought the house (although we had bugger all idea how to plant it, we seem to have got away with it). The Rambling Rectors are looking good, Mme Alfred Carriere is very floriferous but the others are only just getting going. Lots of buds though.

Our big mistake with the roses was to underplant them with a giant version of nepeta. We are going to have to dig it all up and replace it this autumn with a normal sized plant, you can't actually walk down the path atm.

Am currently having a break from top/tailing gooseberries for the freezer. Seems to be their year as its mainly one bush so far and I've a freezer full and I'm not wondering how to fit in a second one to hoard in

wibbles = happy confused nearly-tears in this case, fear not! She didn't have a gardening style that I could trample on.

Not in my garden but the wild roses on verges do seem very florid this year, I guess it must be all that rain.

My roses are keeling over with the weight of flowers - they've never had so many before. Beautiful.

Dog has dug up my beans to bury her bone I'd already grabbed her to stopped her breaking down the fence so she could bury it down the side of the house and then I watched her lop over to the veg patch, glance over her shoulder to make sure I wasn't watching then dug with her nose and buried it. Cleverly, she cleaned her nose before trotting back into the kitchen looking ever so pleased with herself.

I have one of those posh wooden trugs [smug] - present from the MIL.

I can sympathise on the giant nepata Humphrey, I have several patches of it at the front of the long bed and it's fantastic but is does 'drape' across the drive somewhat. Woe betide anyone who drives on it though as I'll not be happy. Got squashed a few times last year but seemed to bounce back ok.

The giant rose 'mushroom' is in full splendour in our 'adopted' garden. Loads of climbing roses out well this year too.

Went to a herb farm for work today, saw fields of lovage, chamomile and coriander. Came home smelling of parsley which made a nice change from the normal cow poo .

Finally I think our roses have caught up with everyone elses! DD and I counted 28 different ones flowering yesterday. Today they have had all their petals bashed off again by the lashing rain. Wild roses are very splendid here though too. Even the mildew covered climber has come into flower.

Despite the rain I managed to lurk in the greenhouse and build a raised bed along one side ready for the peppers and cucumbers (unlikely, they still only have 4 leaves). Very pleased with the tomatoes this year, they are huge and starting to fruit now.

28 different roses? Respect!

Not quite sure how we managed to get so many! Well, ok, I planted most of them, but some have been here a long time and one, a scotch rose that suckers and rambles along an old hedgebank is probably quite ancient. I love them though - the garden is very blowsy atm.

I've been thinking about doing some guerrilla propagating of roses - there are some lovely wild ones in the hedgerows around here and I could so easily go and take some cuttings and pot them to grow on. Can't be anything wrong with that can there? I wouldn't if they were actually in a garden and hanging out onto the pavement but these are fields and woods. Pale pink Rugosas mainly.

I love the look and scent of the deep pink Rugosas.They really seem to smell like old fashioned roses.I'm tempted to replace the Privet hedge at the bottom of our garden with a Rugosa hedge in autumn [as the hedge has died back in parts and looks ugly].However the privet hedge is really quite formal and a Rose hedge won't be.Hence i have to think about it carefully.I'm very impressed by the 28 roses.I have a lot of catching up as i've only planted 3 this year so far.
I'm not going to order from Crocus again but how come there are so many posters willing to come out of the woodwork and criticise purely for the sake of it?.The nice Gardening section seemed to suddenly turn ugly and into AIBU for a time.The reviews about Crocus recently have been pretty bad but this wasn't the case a few years ago.They are obviously resting on their laurels.

You can smell the rambling rector (all four of them) all over the garden in the rain. It is funny as they don't have much scent up close.

We are thinking of getting some cuttings from the hedgerows Lexi - there are some amazingly beautiful dog roses down our lane. We have one amazing one in the orchard, it would be great to put lots and lots in.

Have today managed, in between the rain deluges, to resow the gaps in my french bean, carrot & spring onion rows; pull up the last of the over-wintered broad beans to make way for planting out the broccoli and cauliflower; sow a row of turnips as an experiment; and kill about a million slugs!

There have been no in between bits of rain today here. It is really windy too, my clematis arch between the herb beds has blown down. Most annoying, it was doing really well.

Well done on killing the slugs, I have declared war. And the bloody squirrels that are ruining the oak tree and eating my strawberries

Watching GW. Want Monty's trug. Want want want.

I spotted the trug too. Beats mine.

No GW for four weeks!

I have to wait a bit to watch Monty on bbc iplayer as I still have no functioning live TV due to the digital switchover. I am really looking forward to it.

Respect for 28 kinds of rose! Do you have favourites?
It does seem like it could be a very good year for rose cuttings and other sorts of cuttings. There has to be some advantage of all the rain!
It is tempting to take cuttings of the wild rugosa. But also of the neighbours' nicest roses, with permission. Monty's cuttings seemed to do well earlier on in the year.

The answers on the healing/herb Q and A are posted if anyone is interested.
Apparently one can sow camomile by sprinkling seeds from a tea bag! I'm trying that tomorrow. I have always wanted a camomile lawn and so will sprinkle tea bag contents from the kitchen on the bare patches in the grass. DS will think I am even more bonkers.

Four weeks!

I hate sport.

Surely gardening is more important than sport!.I've just been perambulating round the garden in the dusk following a rather late dog walk.I love watching the plants grow day by day and my new transplants are looking really healthy due to all this rain.Though sadly my Morning Glory doesn't seem to flower on rainy days.The hedgerows are a mass of roses and honeysuckle here.I've discovered all our roses have been trained over the wall to flower in the neighbours garden.My youngest dd with very sharp eyes noticed this and we have gone round pulling them back over.We were away for several years and she must have thought we wouldn't notice.[i didn't for 3 years]

We have local gardens open for charity this weekend.I am really looking forward to visiting and will try to restrain myself from buying more plants.