The first rule of garden club is...!?!

[Lexilicious]

hoping Humph's Happy Osteospermumsnet chums will find this... la la la... I'm uite used to being betty no mates though...

Come on in and have a seat/kneeler/foam pad and a virtual , anyone who wants to idly chat about what they've been dreaming of planting, actually planting, buying without a care for having a place for it, propagating, harvesting, hacking and chopping...

Agh! I forgot Monty!

::Hangs head in shame::

Haven't watched Monty for weeks . Too much going on of late and tonight watching paralympics. Need to do some serious catching up.

I'll be catching up soon on iplayer. I do like a Friday night fix of Monty gardening advice.

Well it's the first day of spring here in Australia and the Diggers' Club catalogue having just arrived, I'm about to break my resolution of no more pots (than we already have) by buying an avocado that can be grown in a pot. As a tree they grow quite big, and we don't have room for one. Hang on maybe we can knock that down and grow an avo tree.

Well it's the first day of spring here in Australia and the Diggers' Club catalogue having just arrived, I'm about to break my resolution of no more pots (than we already have) by buying an avocado that can be grown in a pot. As a tree they grow quite big, and we don't have room for one. Hang on maybe we can knock that down and grow an avo tree.

Nope, just checked and possums will scoff avocadoes, so a potted one it will be, so we can net it (the plant, not the possum).

Oh dear. What happened there?

Just natural enthusiasm, echt.

Well, I capitulated and have ordered a green Olympic rose and some other bargains I found on the website. Now I'm wondering whether I should have got the orange one too.

I once grew an avocado in a pot echt, indoors most of the time but outside in the winter. It seemed to survive quite heavy pruning to limit its size but of course no chance of any fruit here! Eventually it just got too big and I needed the space in the house so it had to go.

Today I've been given a bag of dwarf dahlia tubers by a friend. The slugs had eaten the tops off completely and I put them out in the sun to dry the compost thats clinging to them and noticed they are all sprouting again. So what to do? Shall I pot them up again now and let them grow or dry them off and put in the shed?

Well boo hoo. I couldn't get a Wurtz avocado tree for a pot, will have to buy online. It was going to be DH's Fathers' Day present, so he'll have to wait.

Instead he'll have to be getting the soil and compost into the raised veggie beds. We've been stalled with very cold wet and windy weekends so today's sunny 19 degrees is just the right time to have him working like a dog.:o

I'll crack on with mulching the beds against the hotter, drier weather.

I am sitting on my sunny patio sans dc's[hurray] surrounded by a gorgeous smell of almonds from a Clematis Flammula and C. Triternata mixed in with a white Solanum.The flowers look like masses of tiny stars and have covered the wall in just one year.I was going to move the Solanum as it is such a thug but it looks so pretty growing through the white Wisteria that i think i will leave it.I'm not sure the Handel climbing rose has enough room to grow now.
Is anyone else like a kid in a sweety shop with the new bulb catalogues especially the Tulips?.I can't decide whether to go with the Crocus selactions [loved the bulbs for pots last year] or the Sarah Raven ones.I am definately going to try perennial tulips in beds this year but don't especially like the mixed colors that are available in most of the catalogues.

Oh yes to the sweetie shop effect of tulips, teta. I bought so many bulbs last year that I had to buy a job lot of pots on Ebay to accommodate them. I would never buy mixed collections though.

I must do some planting at the weekend. I have four clematis - one of them a C flammula - waiting to be found homes. I do get a bit carried away, and might get further carried away still as Crocus have Rose Souvenir du Docteur Jamain in their sale. Oooh err.

Argh. I have forgotten to do my tulip order! Thanks for reminding me.

I think we are going to copy the Arne Maynard garden we saw in Derbyshire, and put in pink and purple tulips in the cottage garden, quite sparsely planted so the dying foliage does not become a problem. The masses of white tulips we put in the front garden looked awful due to cramming so many in, although hopefully this will be mitigated this year by the geranium and alchemilla mollis being much more established.

It is a beautiful, beautiful evening. I am also really pleased as DH has worked out where I can plant my silver birches. They are going at the top of what should be the wildflower meadow bit, in a kind of triangle and will replace the willow stakes that we really shouldn't have planted there. I have always wanted a birch grove and am planning to plant cyclamen underneath.

I should say the white tulips looked awful when they went over, they looked rather splendid when they were in bloom

Do you ever go to Cambridge, Humphrey? There are lovely birches (if my addled memory serves me rightly) in the winter walk at Anglesey Abbey.

I never have been there, but it sounds absolutely lovely.

DH pleased because on the Wartime Farm programme they had an Allen scythe, just like us. Although theirs seems to be actually working in the title sequence, which ours never is

Just googled it. Goodness me, that is amazing.

Hello - I'm rudely barging in without having caught up on the thread but I have an urgent gardening problem that needs solving...

I have 4ft fence between my garden & next door - it belongs to next door & the woman has turned into a complete psychobitch, screaming at my poor 6 yr old & being horrible & rude all the time. DS won't go and play in the garden any more. I need some way either of increasing the height of the boundary (Can you get trellis on big posts that I could put on my side of the fence?) or planting some pretty things that grow tall quickly. I don't want anything like Leylandii but need to do something fast. Will go back and read thread . Hope everyone is ok.

Oh Grockle, how awful for you. I'd be tempted to put up tall trellis on your side of the fence and grow some fast growing climbers up it. Having spent a lot of last weekend hacking back the massive growth of clematis montana and a grapevine from my own garden I'd recommend both of those!

Sorry to hear about your nasty neighbour, grockle. I've seen this kind of fencing done by a friend here in Oz; very stout supports with trellis between. The fence, not the friend.:o

As for plants, I don't know where you live in the UK, but if it's in the south, try trachelspermum jasmines for slow growth but will cover in a few years, with something fast-growing which you can rip out later.

Clematis armandii will also do the job on its own, possibly better in that it's fast (so will screen the ghastly caaah asap) evergreen, lovely, scented early spring flowers, and thick enough for the birdies to nest in. Stout trellis, though!

That should read trachelospermum jasminoides.

Grockle - the friend who designed and made my trellis (ooh, get me) says it's never as solid if it's on posts rather than fixed to the fence, but as there's no chance of the old boot agreeing to that, I'd say go for it. Clematis Jackmanii is also rampant. Hydrangea petiolaris, honeysuckle and Chinese Virginia creeper (less rampant than the ordinary sort, which is probably too rampant) will also give quick, dense coverage.

How about bamboo or eucalyptus in pots?

I quite liked the fence that (whispers) Alan T's landscaper did in the recent Love Your Garden... posts were put in in front of existing fences, then slats of cedar horizontally which climbers would grow through. It was stylish (and an effective screen) straight away and then naturalised later.

Oh yes. I do like those horizontal slat fences. And I quite like Alan.

Something like this one?

I need help/ suggestions.

A dear friend has put me in charge of figuring out flowers for her wedding. I'm on the West Coast of Canada, so climate similar to parts of the US.

She doesn't care (much) about what kind of flowers, just that they be pretty, and her colours are white and purple, with silver accents like ribbons.

I need suggestions. In season preferably, although roses are pretty much obtainable any time, but seasonal would make it less expensive.