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.

Maud - I AM on ADs but without my garden, I suspect the men in white coats may have come for me. On my worst days I have sat quietly rocking in my garden, watching the bees, noticing the flowers etc. Really, it has been the saving of me I am sure.

Wynken, my sister had a tree removed recently & was very happy with the people who did it if you need recommendations. Don't know exactly where you are but same neck of the woods.

Bargains: cuttings & bits from my Dad & MIL. Um, must be others. I will think.

Plants make me happy too. We've had a lot of stress this last year and the garden plus allotment have kept me sane. Like Grockle I don't smoke, hardly ever drink, I don't spend much on clothes and only buy cars when old ones fall apart.

There's a lot of wildlife in the garden, stacks of birds and bees. One of the few advantages of 1960s chalet bungalows are huge windows so I can sit and see lots of birds in the bushes.

Would appreciate the tree number please Grockle. On the bargain front Last year's allotment was grown from Wyevale 50p a pack seeds and we had huge quantities of veg from it. Last week I was given two big wooden planters and a peony from someone's garden. Tiles for greenhouse path were 20p each. A bush rose turned into a climber and is all round the front door plus cuttings from it establishing by kitchen and on a trellis.

My garden is the best place to achieve that happy continuation of activity, in which we lose ourselves in a meaningful way. Isn't that when psychologist call flow?

I get it when I am cooking too. Sometimes.

what psychologists

Happiness in the garden when gardening or just sitting=priceless

If my DS doesn't stop stomping around upstairs because he's cross that it's bedtime & he can't play on the wii, he may well be enjoying happiness in the garden all night

I am enjoying strawberry lambic garden porn in the internet.

We're having blueberries and strawberries for pud tonight...

of blueberries and strawberries too - all got by the squirrels in our house

at least we have raspberries, they are really coming on well now. Although you get soaked when picking them in this weather.

I am watching the second episode of the Hampton Court Flower show on iplayer. The campanulas are so lovely: The flowers are almost transparent. I really really like the idea of national collections. Especially when it is an every day understated cottage garden plant, like the hellebores, or the campanulas. I love the passion and the care and the attention to detail shown by the keepers of these collections.

I just watched that funnyperson

I really liked the children's tv presenter's garden.

They say that London looses greenery the size of Hyde park every year because people pave over their front gardens and get rid of their little lawns.
This is why I feel garden designers like Joe Swift have lost their way. These artificial show gardens I see on the TV are are generally about the back garden and have very little greenery and a lot of paving, decking, boulders, walls, structures etc. For me the gap in design is all about the small front garden and how to make the most of it.

Loved the children's presenters garden

Gardens like the Russian garden or that one with the white flowers and white steps over ferns are really nice but appear more like - well art with plants and flowers rather than anything meant to be juxtaposed to real life.

Oooh, now, I thought Dom's garden was rather garish much like his telly programmes but he seems like a good sort.

I like the look of the Russian garden very much but, even more than most show gardens, I think, it's a stage set rather than a garden that anyone might be likely to have at home.

Just thought. Does anyone know how to set up a closed group on FB? That way, we could swap photos to our hearts' content if I knew how to upload them.

::Rushes back in::

T&M are selling three plugs of Buddleia Buzz - as seen in the butterfly garden at the HCFS - this weekend for £3.

I was thinking of what Grockle, Humphrey, funnyperson and Wynken were saying upthread about the mental and emotional rewards of a garden, and thought of the Andrew Marvell's poem "The Garden", which I first came across doing my degree, and along way from gardening myself.

There's a fabulous line: "Annihilating all that's made/To a green thought in a green shade".

Google it, it says it all about gardens.

Maud you're a bad influence. I have three buddleias out front and two on the back fence and now you've got me looking at more!

Weeding the front this morning and harvesting comfrey for making that fertiliser.

Same response to Maud re buddleia.

Monty and the other three presenters were so quietly persuasive in Episode 3 that curiosity and the campanulas have won the day. I am off to Hampton Court tomorrow afternoon on a suitably reduced entry free (Monty said one could stay till 7.30) with my umbrella. The arty gardens clearly need to be viewed in person. I will keep back some money for irises though.

I have found the treasure
That lies at the Rainbow's end;
Wealth beyond computing
Is mine to give or lend.

Opals of an April dawn,
Gold of a shimmering noon,
Amethysts of the sunset,
Pearls with the glow of the moon.

Would you like to share it?
There's more than enough for all
In my Iris Garden
Against a grey stone wall.

good for you, funny and remember the plant sell off from the show stands is at 4 - will you be pouncing on the campanulae then?!

I am deliberating whether to go to HC tomorrow afternoon, as it looked so lovely on the telly, but the threat/promise of heavy rain is making me hold back from clicking on the 'buy ticket' button.

I'm loving the garden quotes - mine is always 'there's rosemary, that's for remembrance'.

Our garden is currently buddleia-less, hence my succumbing to the T&M offer. It's for the wildlife, doncha know.

Very jealous of those of you going to Hampton Court, hope the weather is Ok. Absolutely vile here, lashing down again.

DD was studying a poem 'Nothings Changed' about the aftermath of Apartheid. There's a line in there - 'tall, purple flowering aimable weeds' which I really like, having thought what's that all about at first.

Can someone find me the link to the £3 Buzz please? Can't cope with a big buddleia and took one out as was a total thug, but am feeling guilty so would quite like to put small ones in. I've seen the grand total of one butterfly this year.

And yes to campanula, had no idea there were so many. We've got that one you see everywhere taking over everything and it had put me off a bit but will definitely look at getting some different varieties.

There's a very nice campanula called something like takesimana that my mother gave me when I started the garden, although it proved to be short lived.

I'll post the Buzz link when I'm home.

::sobs pathetically::

The blasted squirrels have chewed through the flex on three of my sets of solar fairy lights. I wonder whether they can be rewired?