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.

Has anyone visited the Three Counties spring show at Malvern?.I am thinking of taking the dc's [but only 2 are interested in gardening].Any fun activities for kids?.

I think my only visit was pre-dc, teta.

Was it good from a gardening perspective Maud?.I've only ever been to the Tatton Park Show before[due to having lived overseas for a number of years] and i loved it [but my mum was baby sitting the dc's].

As I remember it, yes. The site is quite small, so it's not as fatiguing as (say) Hampton Court. I dimly remember some nice show gardens and lots of very tempting stalls, but it was over a decade ago so I'm a bit vague about it.

And I have just worked out that it was after dc, so further proof that my memory isn't to be trusted!

Aaaaaarrrggghh slugs are decimating my plants. I've picked off, I've squashed, I've salted but still the damn things come. I've lost every one of my aubergine plants (I over planted) and a number of my celery babies. I will not mention what they did to my petunia seedlings and the salad. Still to raw!

I'm planning another assault on the allotment this morning - move the bean canes, plant the yellow mange-tout out, etc etc etc and a bit more of a pootle round our garden battling the ground elder menace whilte the grand prix is on.
My bluebells look lovely and the apple blossom is pretty impressive on all the trees around here. This area used to be an orchard so we've all got massive, old varieties in the gardens. I lost mine a few years ago but the warden pear is still up and flowering although we never get any pears any more. It gets some kind of weird coral spot on it's leaves in early summer and the June drop, well it drops the entire crop. It's in need of a prune and some tlc and I really should try and propagate it. Maybe a job for this winter.

I would love to go to a garden show. I dream of visiting Chelsea or Hampton Court or even Malvern but the thought of the devastation my ds could do in just a short time there sends me cold with fear. He picks every flower he sees and walks on anything important. My wallet might not take it either!

Yeah,we're going-its a lovely day here with an indigo sky.Dh has decided he's coming too[which cuts down my plant buying opportunities] and is currently making sandwiches.Radiohelen i've been there.We used to leave a trail of destruction wherever we went[had 3 under 3 at one point].Maud,my memory is also not what it used to be.

My hostas went from pristine to riddled with holes more or less overnight. I have just watered them with Slug Clear and am hoping to stop the little blighters in their tracks. A snail got into the plastic seed house and has eaten the tops off hundreds of sweet peas. Perhaps I should plant them out now and hope for the best.

Have a fab time, Teta!

Aargh....I was sitting in the garden this morning enjoying a quiet mug of coffee, having weeded out some oak seedlings (from the pesky squirrel's stash which they failed to dig up, the twats) when I saw some mice - mummy mouse and 4 little baby mice scamper in through the hole under the fence (previously mentioned as being a fox throroughfare) run along by the wall and into a hole in the brick of the house which will lead under the floor of the playroom.
I am off to buy some expanding foam. I hope for the mice's sake that they aren't under the floor when I block up that hole. The interest of magpies and owls in the area is now explained.

Then I am off for a country walk.

Yes, have a wonderful time at the show. I think the children will love it.

One day I might get to go to Chelsea I suppose.

Yes, do beware of trapping the mice under the floor. My dad traced an awful pong in the house to some dead mice under the floor of the cupboard under the stairs. Yikes.

Just come back from the allotment having started my planting out! Some lettuce, beetroot, peas and braid beans are in now. I'm just hoping baby waits long enough for me to plant a few more bits out and put some seeds in!

On the back garden the lawn isn't dead enough yet to dig up for our herb garden, so that's been recovered, so I'll have to repot all my herbs again!

The lawns need mowing, but DH won't have chance til tuesday and it's meant to rain tomorrow :( which means I probably should do it this afternoon! I hate mowing lawns and would rip it up, if it were up to me!

I have just seen that Gardeners' Question Time are recording this week near me! Applying for a ticket but DH is away for a couple of days then, and I don't have a regular babysitter so I hope they let a (truly genuinely well behaved) 2.9 y old in.

Lexi - I'd be surprised if they did. My recollection (possibly faulty, see above) of when I went to GQT was that it was strictly over 16s only. Is there any info on their website?

How horribly ageist of GQT! Although listening to some of the old 'uns on there I can quite see why. Also they persist in allowing all these weirdos to ask "funny" garden based relationship questions. "I'm a messy gardener and my wife is a tidy gardener. Who is right?" was this week's gem!
Can you tell them you are breast feeding and simply must be allowed to bring him in?
Just been to Homebase and come back with plants to revive. 50p for a strip of slightly battered but perfectly happy runner beans! I'm not a huge fan so I'm not putting loads in. We like the bush beans better. I've planted rather a lot of those!

Have squirted foam into hole in brick. Am now awaiting pong of rotted mouse though hope they were elsewhere.

Have also planted oregano and lavender munstead bought from b and q at the same time. The viticella is thriving in its new spot. Watered the irises with tomato feed as recommended by Maud.

No spare earth now, but want a tree peony. And more irises. May have to move home to accommodate a bigger garden.

You could ask the 2.9 year old to ask a question. eg 'can I eat marigolds?' That sort of thing.

Tree peony history
crickethillgarden.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/peonies-in-chinese-art/

I have no idea whether ticket policy is GQT or the host venue - the only ad I've seen for this is on the local council website so I will have a look on the BBC site to see. I could set him up to ask a question about one of the soft fruit we're growing... He is my pfb, but even so it is impossibly cute how he mispronounces and says "strawbudgies". I wonder if they have probably sewn up the question-askers already though. If I could, I would ask whether there is any hope for my two dwarf fruit trees (peach/apricot) which I didn't look after very well last year and forgot to protect from peach leaf curl, but have cosseted since March.

Been working again today so no real gardening. I've tied in my beans and peas some more, and put some beer out for the slugs. I have also seen that last year's potatoes were clearly not fully harvested, as they are coming up in between my shallots and garlic!

I have had a lovely weekend in the garden. My lawns are cut and edged, my flower beds have all been dug over and feed with chicken manure pellets. A couple of new fatsia planted in my japonica garden and one in a pot for the patio (i still need to buy another pot for another one and find a home for in the japonica garden for another).
I have finished shredding the last of the prunnings so have a lovely big bag of mulch and a black bin full of leaves for leaf mould.
A few bedding plants have gone in to the raised planters and i have started on the hanging baskets.
I have swepts up the fallen blossom from the flowering cherry and magnolia and had a general tidy of the paths and rockery and rose garden.

I dont think my tree peonies are very happy this year as i have only had 2 buds on one and none on the other. They are probably suffering after our house move this winter and not too happy about being moved but as they have plenty of folage hopefully they will come good next year.

All in all the garden is coming on nicely but i now need a long soak in the bath to ease my aching muscles.

I have also had a good and productive time in the garden - planted things out, sowed some sweet peas in situ as I fear the ones in root trainers that the snail beheaded may not recover, hauled out the green waste for collection. Have decided to give up on strawberries in the strawberry planters and fill them with herbs instead - I hope this will suit the thymes better as they always die of cold in the bed.

If anyone has any ideas for eye-catching combinations of perennials for window boxes, please see my other thread.

The first dry weekend in weeks and we spend it at the in-laws. Grrrrr. Have come back with some cosmos seedlings from MIL though which she states are a dwarf variety which I hope is right as I have some gaps for middle height plants in the long bed. If they end up as tall ones I'll be cross!

We've had four mice in the pea patch traps now, although none last night apparently so they've moved out I think. Also no more holes since I topped up the pea planting on Friday so I'm hopeful.

Aliums are nearly at flowering point (some in pots out already) - very exciting, I'm hoping they're going to achieve the affect I wanted in the long bed. Need more stuff to flower; have aquilegias, red valerian and the start of the cat mint & lavender but that's about it so far. Getting impatient for colour now the tulips and early bulbs have passed over.

I have one nectaroscordum about to open - the sole survivor of about 50 I've planted over the years. I was reading in a magazine about someone who had to pull them out as weeds. Ah well.

We had a lovely time in the sun today.I did [despite dh] manage to buy several pelargoniums and 3 hydrangeas[fireworks in white ,blue and pink varieties].and 2 large terracotta pots for 5 pounds each[bargain].One dd fell in love with garish coloured pelargoniums and one came home with a venus fly trap.All dc's fell in love with Bilbao baggins home[lookalike] and we have all decided we are getting it [complete with reindeer fur and stove].We just have to check with the local planning office as we live in an area of outstanding beauty and have very strict building regs.There was lots of things for kids to see-we didn't even have time to see any gardens[but all dc's loved the floral marquee].

Ooh, was that the shepherd's hut that they showed on GW? If not, please post a link!

Glad you had a good day there. We went to a local festival but sadly there was no gardening action there.