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.

Yes, I'm south of Wynken, by the sea. Well, a mile away from the sea but it may as well be 10 for all we use the beach. I'd love a list too, please.

That's a good tip, Wynken. DP & DS are happy to go to garden centres if I buy them tea & cake. Monthly shops could get expensive but it's certainly a good excuse to go and shop look.

Now I have house location envy, Grockle, as I think you must live pretty near where we have had some lovely holidays.

Quite possibly, Maud. It's lovely round here although I often wish I lived somewhere more rural. My mum lives close to Wynken but in the countryside and its beautiful.

I'm just watching HCPFS - it's rated 18 on iPlayer. DP is excited

i suppose it's an 18 because it's so earthy.

::falls about laughing at own joke::

Can i have your list too please Maud? My list is shown in fb pictures or I could pass it round here too. I did no gardening today in the end. Need a sunny day to do the front garden weeding without resenting it - if it's miserable to be out there doing a miserable job I will cut corners - if doing 'positive' jobs like planting, dividing, tying-in I don't mind it raining.

I am going to plant a rose near the front of my front path fence for Ailidh. I saw a couple named on the third Hampton Court programme which might be good. I am going to put a little time capsule of some sort under it when I plant it, a tiny jam jar or similar, with a note inside explaining why that rose is there.

Thanks for the welcome! I'm on the Kent/London border near Bromley - good soIl but absolutely full of stones.

The shrubs are as yet 95% unidentified! There's one untrained wisteria that's swamped one corner but hasn't flowered for 15 years according to a neighbour.

All the shrubs are so overgrown and unloved that they'll need hacking back before I can even get at the flowerbed. Pass the gin someone!

Thanks for the flower suggestions! Can anyone point me in the direction of any good plant books to read up on (nothing too complicated!)? And also some hints and tips on whether it's best to buy plants, bulbs etc at the garden centre or online, bearing in mind I've got quite a lot of eempty space to fill.

Thank you!

Maybe a monthly trip to the market would be cheaper Grockle, I've bought herbaceous perennials for a pound so easier on the pocket.

Lexi, that is a lovely idea. My splurge at the garden centre last week was retail therapy as I was so sad reading about poor Aillidh. Everything I bought that day are perennials, I'll remember her every year they come up.

Just quickly went to allotment and found some sweetcorn, courgettes, beans and carrots have germinated, finally.

If you post pictures of the shrubs, Norky, we will devote our detective skills to them!

To answer your questions, I would say

(a) almost any book published by the RHS or Monty Don's The Complete Gardener. There's lots of useful stuff on the RHS and Gardeners' World websites.
(b) if you know what you want, buy online (Crocus is expensive but ultra-reliable, J Parkers is much cheaper), but you might find it useful at first to go to garden centres, so that you can look at everything and decide what you like. This garden centre can't be far from you - if you join their mailing list, they bombard you with lots of special offers and deals. For the next few weeks, go to as many school fairs and fetes as you can, because they're often a source of fantastic plants at ridiculously low prices!

Here's a gin Norky ! I have a good local market and get a fair bit there. Wilko's is worth looking it, Poundland, the Range. Check out school and church fairs, ask on Freecycle, see if our neighbours have clumps of stuff they can split. Our local garden center have a nursery attached that they open a few days a year for a plant sale (Grockle and I are on ready for the next one). We've got some little corner shops that have a few bit and pieces sometimes and also a farm shop. Keep an eye out when going past allotments , they sometimes have sales.

Oh yes! ::smacks forehead:: The 99p Store.

It is sodden out there. The last downpour saw the last of the blush ramblers. DH just put a fork into the anyas to see if there were any uneaten by the slugs and the squelching noise was unbelievable.

Don't forget bootfairs Norky, I buy quite a lot from those. People raising veg seedlings are often cheaper than garden centres.

The two New Dawns that DH bought for the arch are not New Dawn. They are nice, but we have no idea what they are. I like them better than New Dawn anyway.

Have moved all my seedlings into the verandah in the hope that the bastard slugs won't get the lot.

The tin bath I bought yesterday to use as a water butt/dipping tank is already full.

I rather like New Dawn - the one growing through the apple tree has now reached the top and looks lovely and the one on the fence (which was always the runt of the litter) is at last flourishing. What gave away your imposters, Humphrey?

The flowers are deeper pink and the scent is totally different. I shall take a picture, put it on my fb profile and you could be my plant detective.

Hello all - back from Hampton Court and am tired and got absolutely soaked as there was a heavy downpour. Probably not the best day to visit but I gather I missed an inevitable ending to the mens final. The heritage marquee was my favourite.

Maud and Lexi could I have a plant list please? I'm wary of joining the facebook group as I am afraid you will all run a mile at my profile pic even though it is carefully chosen to be beautiful. No really its because I dont know how to join it.

Has anyone else who is not growing tomatoes in a green house got fruits on their tomato plants yet? I ask as it is the first year of growing anything edible and whilst I have salad and spinach and very healthy looking tomato plants they have no tomatoes on them.

You're braver than me, funnyperson!

I have lots of flowers on my Tumbling Tom tomatoes. If the rain stops tomorrow, I will go and investigate whether there are any fruit yet! My other tomato plants are so runty than I don't expect flowers or fruit ever quite yet.

Btw I said I got 2 of my fruit trees/sticks from Aldi- it was in fact Lidl.

Munstead Wood is about to flower- should be out when I come home from work tomorrow. So excited!

Lexi what a lovely idea about a rose for Aillidh. The situation so completely tragic.

Funny glad you made it to HC.

I was wondering... if anyone is up and bored, do you fancy having a go at identifying some of the plants here? No worries if everyone's too busy or the photo is too small but I figured there might be one or two things people recognised. I think it the most stunning border and would like to recreate something smaller at my new house (there is a really long border down one side of the garden.)

Current short list is rose of the year "you're beautiful", but I'm not sure what habit it takes. So I'm thinking of 'Compassion' or another climber/rambler because she would grow all over the fence and maybe one day I could put a frame over the front gate and train her along the front wall too. Like a big hug. I love open flowered, wild looking roses. Although I never see many insects enjoying them, other than the kind you don't want!! 'Mermaid' looks pretty. I could take some cuttings of the 'Open arms' I have in my back garden. 'Seagull' - only flowers once but then produces deep red hips apparently. 'White Star' looks fabulous. Generous Gardener might be a fall back. Or iceberg.

That's a fantastic idea, Lexi.

As I was not concentrating musing in the gym this morning, I decided I was giving up on the garden for this year, because it's turning into a swamp. Within an hour I had emerged from Lidl with a fab new honeysuckle (x heckrottii American Beauty). I then went to Homebase to look for replacement solar fairy lights and left with an assortment of goodies - mostly, veg-and herb-growing kits - which had been reduced to 50p each. I reckon I got about £30 worth of stuff for £4.

Oh, and would anyone like a seedling of rosa rubifolia as part of my virtual plant sale?

Haha thats exactly what happens to me I decide I'm giving up on the garden because of the rain and then the very next thing I do is buy some more.
I am not going anywhere near any shops though. I have told myself that till I have planted what I have already got i am not allowed to buy any more.
6 lavender plugs; 4 lilies in pots; 4 dahlias in pots; 2 cuttings in pots; hellebore seedlings in pots; oregano in pots etc etc etc all need to go into the ground really.
Got some nice seeds at Hampton court for next year: I decided the nicotiniana aka cow parsley was probably no accident and thought I would get some reputable seeds.

What I regret about not going to HCFS is the volume of freebies one can collect.

Anyway, I have planted today's haul - the big pot of ailing parsley I bought for £1 turned out to contain about 50 seedlings and I'm confident that now I've potted them on they'll be a lot happier. I luffs parsley.

Maud yes Coolings is very close, DH and the 2 DS's were at the nature trail there on Sunday actually!

I'M off to another localish garden centre with my mum tomorrow (Polhill?) So plan to get some in flower perennials if I can along with some autumn bulbs so I'm ready to go. I'd love some pots but have nowhere to put them at the moment.

I'm very jealous of the people who went to the flower show! If only for the chance of rubbing up against Monty...

Rubbing up against Monty?

::faints::

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't resist buying, though I tell myself I'm establishing so much of the garden, so have to get things. don't you know.:o

I have lots of fence to cover so bought two Aussie climbers; pandorea pandorana with white flowers, and hibbertia scandens with yellow.

I have the problem of separating some Aussie plants which loathe fertiliser, from those like bamboo, which revel in it. I have a very long bed at the side of the house which is sub-tropicals at the top, Aussie in the middle, and the greedy bamboo (my screen from the neighbouring property) downhill from the lot. I'v been pondering what to underplant with bamboo, and see that wandering jew will do the trick, and you can't stop that stuff here, so I'll put it to good use.

Also bought 3 salvia guaranatica Black and Blue to go in front of the bamboo. They're as tough as old boots once they get going over winter. In twilight, their blue is luminously vivid. This means moving the rhubarb...hmm.

The last thing I got was a real luxury, conostylis Silver Sunrise, a near relation of the kangaroo paw but with brilliantly sliver leaves. It's a luxury because unlike kangaroo paw, it can't be reliably divided, which I'd rather counted one to turn my 2 plants into 6. Oh well.

i can hear the rain hammering down on the tin roof of the house, so it'll be wet gardening today, but it has to be done, as the school hols finish on Friday, and it's back to work.