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...

Exactamundo, Bertha. But not necessarily painted.

Jacks, when? Imminently or next spring/summer?

Oh sorry - - rather crucial detail - the wedding is this year, last weekend in October. Bit of a rushed affair but there are circumstances (all good).

Eek, Jacksmania. That late in the season I would look at dahlias (there are lots of non-naff ones these days), perhaps white Michaelmas daisies. You could also use chrysanthemums, but some might think they are too funereal.

Thanks for the suggestions. I live almost as far south as you can be in England so trachelospermum jasminoides is a great suggestion. I also love the fence Lexi & Bertha mentioned. I might ask my friendly carpenter if he fancies having go at it.

I'm no help with flowers, I'm afraid.

Will go and read rest of thread now!

Yeah, tell me about it - no stress here!!

Ooh,can I ask a stupid question?

I think the strawberry runners have rooted. Will they survive any frosts?
Where to keep them in the winter?

How about foliage and berries, Jacks? Rich autumnal colours, bit of white stuff in between like bishops weed or cineraria, maybe some berries sprayed silver (I had gold sprayed hypericums with deep red roses in my bridal bouquet at almost midwinter).

Strawbs. Hm. Maybe cloche them? Or take up any really small rooted runners and bring them on indoors/ potting shed?

We decided on dahlias and some green stuff and silver ribbons. Details will be handled by the florist :)

There's a florist? I thought you were actually making the decorations, Jacksmania!

When she showed me what she wanted in terns of bouquets, untold her firmly that she would need a florist. No way am I taking responsibility for creating several perfectly found puffball bouquets. That lies completely outside my capability.

When we got together yesterday and got caught up on all the wedding details, it transpired that the plans have been somewhat hijacked by my friend's parents. . Friend and fiancé are "minimum fuss" kind of people. They were planning to have an afternoon wedding and then a short-ish reception with cake and champagne. Apparently her DMV and DF had kittens at the idea and insisted on a sit-down dinner. For around 180 people. Then the fiancé somewhat sheepishly admitted that the idea appealed to him too (which I suppose is fine but it's his second wedding and therefore I think my friend's wishes trump his given it's her first) sooo... big dinner it is. My friend, however, said, that that being the case, fiancé and future MIL could be in charge of dinner and the menu. She (friend) has several dietary restrictions which mean she'll need a special meal anyway, so she said she didn't care much what anyone else was eating :o
I hope I'm not making her sound like a bridezilla. She isn't in the least. She was so deflated and sort of steam-rollered when I saw her yesterday, I felt quite cross with her parents.

Awww oops - sorry - I thought I was posting in the tea room! Apologies for rambling about weddings.

Untold = I told

Found = formed

Stupid autocorrect.

That's fine. Good to know the context!

My friend did the flowers for her own wedding - huge ham hard of Englush hedgerow flowers. They were lovely!

Jam jars of English flowers, even. Why is autocorrect so hit and miss?.

Jam jars of flowers sounds lovely. My sister used cow parsely from the hedgerows at her wedding. It looked amazing.

I just ate a strawberry. Just the one, mind. When I THINK of the bowls and bowls we had last year.....

:: offers Humphrey a shoulder to cry on::

I have six tomato plants at home. Between they have produced one tomato.

::sniff::

did you eat the tomato? With sea salt and the best olive oil?

My four tomatoes are still very very green. I secretly hope suspect that Maud's tomato is also not yet ready for sea salt and olive oil.

I jumped over the fence to go to the orchard for the first time in around a month this evening - picked a handful of mulberries which got devoured by the DDs and myself in seconds. Two months later than usual and they're still struggling to ripen. However, I don't think I've ever seen the apple trees quite a laden as they are and my jerusalem artichokes are huge this year. Well over three metres and only just starting with flower heads now so probably still going upwards.

I had an October wedding and MIL did the flowers, loads of ivy everywhere which was free and looked amazing.

of your apple crop. Ours is lamentable. We have an entire orchard and only about one and a half trees with any fruit at all. We are still drinking the juice from last year, there will be none at all this year.

Oh well, we did eat some sweetcorn today. DS came running in with the one from his garden and gave it to me, saying "This is for you because I love you"

Got about four tomatoes (plum) the rest might ripen (ever the optimist).
No Bramleys at all
No pears

Strawberry runners?

Indeed. My tomato is the size of a ping pong ball and bright green.

We do, though, have hundreds of apples, including our first decent crop of Egremont Russets.

Interesting variation in everyone's apple crops....does it depend whereabouts you are? Here out west we had bumper crops of apples and plums last year, and far less this year, although we have plenty of pears. Last year we also had millions of wasps which ate everything in sight including the runner beans. This year I've seen about 5 all summer - the bad weather has had some good effects!

Today I started clearing out a massively congested bed and dug up 2 bucketfuls of crocosmia lucifer corms. Will have to try and give them away as I can't bear to chuck them.
As for tomatoes; DF turned up today with 3 trayloads, we'll be roasting toms tomorrow! I don't know how he does it. He's the only person I know who has successfully raised a courgette this year too. Our 9 plants have produced a total of 0. DF brought 7 to 'keep us going'! I think he must go out to check them at night like Gromit

I too have got loads of crocosmia Lucifer to give away. I keep meaning to ask on here whether anybody wants them.

I could fit in some croc Lucifer (about the only things I can reasonably expect to find space for are tall thin things!). In return or for anyone who wants some, I am probably going to have some divisions of Monarda 'squaw' which needs full sun but is stunning. I am also going to lift/split/move some Astilbe 'mighty pip' (haven't yet looked up how/when to do it, but it dies back to nothing so I reckon I can split the roots when it goes dormant). So if anyone wants either of those, let me know.

I have done nothing in the garden again this weekend. I did a bit of watering and have been on top of the caterpillar hunting on the broccoli/kale plants, but that's about it. Am starting to see a lot that needs to be tidied, but it is going to have to wait until the weekend after next because I am off up to my birthplace to do the Great North Run.