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.

Don't think we're getting a frost here tonight - it's pouring with rain! Tomorrow forecast to be sunny if cold, so I will definitely get my front garden weeded and possibly mulched, if I think it deserves it.

Oh yes, Lexi, but I think there's a difference between a garden that's designed to run away with itself (akin to the benign neglect school of parenting) and a garden that is designed on the assumption that it will be maintained and is then left to go feral. And even a garden that's intended to run away with itself will be weeded and pruned, one imagines.

Oh god, Maud, now I'm suddenly seeing parallels between my parenting and gardening styles - eek!!

My complaints were more along te lines of bindweed covering shrubs, long grass between the cracks of newly laid pavers, plastic toys left in the middle of flower borders (I mean for months, obvs we all have a bit of this going on).

Sorry my letter H doesn't work properly, you'll get used to it eventually. It gives me a french/cockney accent in uncorrected work.

Frost forecast here tonight

CUP, I'm on the South coast. I think my garden is probably a bit small for anyone to travel any distance, I really appreciate the offer though. In reality I am being a bit lazy and should get off my backside and sort it , it's just taking a bit of mental adjustment going from having spent 10 years trying to make it a good space for the DC's to play to realising I don't need to accommodate a swing set and climbing frame anymore . Though each time I say the play things are going, DS suddenly decides he will use them!

I love much effort some schools put into giving the children chances to garden and developing the site they are on. It's a shame how much it varies from school to school though. We've got a new Head who seems very enthusiastic about making the most of the grounds, which are great, they are very lucky children, though they don't realise it I don't think !

Looking after a garden does seem to throw some people into a panic. I guess most of us on this thread are probably fairly 'green fingered ', which I thought was a but of a myth until talking to a friend. We were talking about growing things and I was encouraging her to have a go and she was saying that it's easy for me as I have green fingers where as she claimed to have the fingers of death! She was saying how do you know when to water and when trying to explain it I realised that I just know instinctively and I guess that's what maybe people are talking about. I'm far from being a good gardener but the majority of things do grow when I try.

A final thing then I shll shut up. I've just forked out and ordered a distance learning pack for a part of one of the RHS courses. Have wanted to have a go for a bit but it's hard to get to where the corses are run, so I'll have a shot at this.

My church has a "Grow Zones" initiative set up, where a group of people spend a morning or afternoon a weekend working in one of their gardens, over the season we get round everyone's gardens at least once. It's surprising how much can get done with enough people in a few hours and the bring and share meals are delicious

Wynken, I fancy those but didn't know there was distance ones.

Here Harriet. I've ordered the propagation one. Once you have worked through the course material you register as an external candidate at somewhere who runs the exams, which are Feb and June.

Somewhere on the RHS site is a list of the distance learning ones but I can't find it now I'm looking for it.

Found it.

Thanks!

Three hours squatting and kneeling on my horsetail patch, plus lifting/moving yarrow, comfrey, calendula and marigolds. Job well done. Just a couple of larger comfrey to dig in, and sweet rocket, and I'm done. Trouble is, I've now made the fatal mistake of sitting down and having some lunch, and I haven't felt this unable to get up off the sofa since I was pregnant!

Hello, may I join you?

I only have a small garden & no greenhouse or wood but I do have chickens. The landscapers have finished turfing the lawn and my garden path was laid today so I am ready to start planting. I want lots of fruit and pretty flowers with lovely scents (all perennials - I can't be doing with lots of bedding plants). Off out tomorrow to start buying .

We have a willow classroom at work but it doesn't get used The allotment is always busy though.

I'm going to look into an RHS course.

Wynken i am on the south coast as well. West Sussex to be exact. We got a pretty mature garden when we moved into this house in feb and now i am just waiting to see what comes up that i want to keep and filing the few gaps with some of my favorites. My garden has some pretty shadey areas as we have large oaks all along one side of us so on that side i am going to add to the japonicas and have a japonica garden but the rest is just wait as see.

I've mown the lawn!!!

Left a few patches of milkmaids though. And in places its difficult to see where the lawn starts and the border finishes.

My Morning Glory were about a foot high Cutted and were twirling around each other. Please reassure me that they were big enough to plant out! I've put them along a south-facing fence that gets plenty of sun if we ever get any and I've kind of hooked them onto the net for now so hope that will keep them up off the floor and prevent them becoming slug fodder. Am worried about the frost though, possible light frost tonight but I'm going to risk leaving them uncovered as I think they're fairly well protected by neighbouring plants and fence as long as it is truly only a 'light' frost.

Had some child-free hours today so weeded the jerusalem artichoke patch and finally straightened up the veg plot net roof following the hail damage. I discovered that a friend of mine does a Sunday gardening segment on a local radio show so I had the laptop with me so I could listen in on i-player. Had a lovely couple of hours. Even with the hangover and a body that really can no longer dance for three hours and expect to be able to move the next day...

Just typed a really long, euphoric message about my lovely day in the garden. And lost it. Never mind, it was like this

Sounds lovely Humphrey

just about to go out on a slug hunt. Found 23 of the buggers in the mini greenhouse earlier. I fed them to the pigs, they munched them up.

Found a large black one in the artichoke patch today that the chickens went a bit loopy over. They were kind of playing slug tag with it as they stole it from each other. Kept me amused for a while. Happy hunting.

Pigs?

My bantams never liked slugs... too sticky by the look of them. They would occasionally eat small snails (I think baby ones with softish shells) monkey peas were particularly good, as were earwigs.

Good god, we found hundreds. All over the herb beds, no wonder my purple orache has vanished. Loads in the veg plot. MASSIVE ones in the bed by the washing line.

I have left them in a sealed plastic tub and will give them to the pigs in the morning. They are very keen on a few slugs.