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.

I was just having a little look on Blooming direct when some how a few plants found there way into my basket.

Penstemon Sweet Cherry
1 x Buddleia red
1 x Hebe
1 x Hydrangea Blue Wave
1 x Potentilla Red Ace
1 x Escallonia Appleblossom

and before i could stop myself i had completed checkout.
I blame the fact that my husband is hogging the tv remote and i am bored.

Have never seen Blooming Direct before.

::doomed forever now::

God, things have moved fast on the veggies bed front. We have a chap in at the moment replacing all the old sleepers which hold up the front and side gardens - everything is a raised bed at our house, being built on a hill - and we asked him to buy some lengths of pine to make the veggie beds - which he has. Yay! One more thing we don't have to lift and carry ourselves.Once the retaining walls have been replaced, we can get the house termite-proofed.

An enjoyable aspect of all the digging to do with replacing retaining walls is the unearthing of gigantic cockchafer grubs - as big as my little finger. I collect the foul things and go on to the nature strip where the magpies are waiting. They are longer-legged than the UK kind, bold, hardly moving if a dog walks by, and they LOVE cockchafer grubs. They race up to me with long bowlegged strides, demanding the grubs RIGHT NOW!

I've been thinking about houseplants. I've never been very good with them, which is why, obviously, I moved to Australia, where the buggers can grow outside.

I love Blooming direct. Not the greatest selection but there is always something i like and good healty plants.
I bought some fatsia from them ealier this year for my japonica garden and they are positively thriving.

I can't go on Blooming if things jump into your basket. I went to Homebase again this morning and when I went to leave, I found 3 pots of reduced plants in my basket. And then 3 rolls of turf jumped into the car (actually, they were free because they're all manky so I got them for the chickens)

The magpies sound interesting. In America, what they call robins are actually the same species as our blackbirds - they look like big blackbirds with red breasts. It's a bit odd seeing them.

JUst wondering how you all store your seeds? I want a box where I can organise them by month they need to be planted. My tupperware container feels a bit shabby and let me down when the fox got hold of it and left the lid off during an overnight torrential rainstorm

i have one of these

www.wilkinsonplus.com/storage-units+boxes/wilko-storage-box-cd-champagne-22cmx16cmx15cm/invt/0305408/?htxt=CqRsbJu%2FutV8PO2VUe7M5tbw0eF0%2BgiZGsyhRiL%2FA7J%2FD5ckTwx4gGk9NGxRQ2HoBcTxJmxJa8Ar%0AIS49VztZhg%3D%3D

but want one of these in the olive green

www.crocus.co.uk/gift/_/bulb-and-seed-storage-box/classid.2000016171/

This one is nice if you organise month by month

www.crocus.co.uk/gift/_/calendar-seed-storage-box/classid.2000016173/

But i just chuck them in and have a rumage when i have a gap to fill

I need a proper seed box too. I am using a very flimsy one, sort of a cards / crafts box, but not a clip lid, the structural properties of a cheap shoe box.

Got a tray of six salvias for £1.50 at Tesco this evening. And GW magazine.

I have a vintage tin that was once a first aid box, doncha know.

::retro::

Is that what Pedlars told you, eh? ::hee hee::

Pedlars

I love the calendar box. I might have to buy it for myself. And then buy seeds to fill it. I seem to be doing a crocus order. What else do I need?

How very dare you, Lexi! This is the real deal as it was found at the back of a cupboard covered in forty years of dust and grime.

I have an Old Speckled Hen beer tin for my seeds. My Adirondack chair was an EBay job. Don't spend as much time in it as I would like to but it is comfy with arm rests great for resting a cuppa. Not too bad to get out of.

Went to a small garden centre today and was very good, came out with nothing. I'm saving myself for plant sale at end of week ....

I'm so excited, Wynken!

::books cheap day return::

I really hope it's as good as it was last time or I'll have raised Grockle's hopes for nothing !

interesting article about 'timing' plants - I had no idea you could set your watch by evening primrose!

I hope so, Wynken - I just cancelled the dog's hairdressing appointment so I can go tomorrow. Now it seems a parcel is going to be delivered sometime tomorrow & I need to be home to sign for it but they won't tell me when. Argh!

Wow what a day - I spent all day today and yesterday digging and clearing 2 enormous flowerbeds of weeds, glass and all sorts of other rubbish. Then I actually got the pleasure of planting!

Heuchera, Cosmos, Hydrangea, Salvia, Antirrhynium, Dahlia ... my garden is a riot of pretty colour. One small corner of it anyway!

how is everyone else coping with this endless rain? Isn't it dreary and a gardening nightmare?

I have miles more beds to clear and hundreds more flowers to buy - has anyone grown monarda before? I think it looks so pretty!

My garden is loving all the rain. My hydrangers have giant blooms, my dahlia are a mass of buds and blooms, my lilies are about a metre tall but as yet no flowers and i have staked them to protect them from any high winds, the marigolds, , Antirrhynium, verbena, Echinacea, Geranium, Lavatera and Crocosmia are all in flower.
My petunas, cosmos and hanging fushia have taken a bit of a battering in the heavy rain.
The weeding in the gravel drive way were getting out of hand so i spent the moring hand digging them out in the rain. I usually just spray with resolve 24 but no point in this weather so i had to do it the hard way
I have 2 plant sales to go to this weekend so i am going to have to be strict with myself or i could over spend on plants again

Norky & cantspel, your gardens sound lovely.

Are you ready, wynken? I shall talk loudly about naice ham & fucker snails

Ooo, that reminds me - we did a snail hunt the other night & collected about 20 off my beans. DP was rather bemused when I grabbed one, got my permanent marker out & wrote Fucker on it's shell.

My dahlias have been chomped to the ground by snails and what they have done to my hosts collection is too painful to contemplate. I must do another snail hunt.

Best things in my garden at the moment are digitalis mertonensis, hydrangea quercifolia, various clematis, honeysuckle and lilium regale.

I saved my dahila with the aid of pellets as there is just to many slugs and snails this year to keep up with picking them off.

I have some lilium regale which are growing to trifid proportions but as yet no trumpets but they did go in late.

Even the pellets have been defeated this year, boo hoo.