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...

Oh compost. I have the day off on Thursday. When's your next meeting in town?

well I am also coming in on Friday am but different destination - over at the British Museum

I'm off on Friday too. Oh dear.

Sorry, no idea on the Amarylis. I don't think at this rate I'm going to get to the fish stage as I can't get my flaming system to flood and drain properly or decide what level the amonia is at on the flipping chart.

Am I too late to plant tulip bulbs ?

I gave a friend two amaryllis bulbs on 31 oct. They are now about a foot high but not flowering yet. Does that help?

I'd put the tulip bulbs in and keep fingers crossed.

Finally cut back the long bed today. Looks much tidier but I'm very glad of the sedum as they keep some interest in the bed over the winter otherwise it looks quite bare.

I saw a woodpecker in the garden today. In broad daylight.
Am ordering seed catalogues to mull over when I eventually have some time.

Went to check on the single blackbird chick. Gone. Possibly to a rat or cat.

Am off to a music festival this weekend, leaving DD in charge of the watering of the veggie beds and pots.

Since you ask, I'll be watching Primal Scream at 11.00 p.m. Saturday.

Reporting in - finally picked the leaves up from the back garden yesterday. How come we moved about 5 cubic metres of leaves and yet the garden is still covered? I don't understand. I know the leaves were ankle deep in some places but still. I had expected to see more clear moss grass.

How were Primal Scream echt?

There are so few deciduous trees in our bit of Melbourne, I treasure the ones there are, and even offer to sweep up neighbours' leaves, so long as I get to keep them (in black bin bags to make leaf mold). Mossy lawns takes me back a bit - it being so dry here. The real bugger is couch grass, already poking through our new lawn, and I thought I'd got rid of it all.

Primal Scream were very good, bertha ,the kind of band I thought I didn't "know", but a lot of their stuff was familiar - in a good way. And how nice to see a woman on bass guitar. Well worth rugging up for the evening, it having plummeted from 37 to 20 in less than an hour. Staggering starlit skies, and staggering festivalgoers, having comprehensively enjoyed themselves.

DH is now campaigning for an improved tent, while I would like the kitchen and bathroom renovated.:o Who will win??

So what do all we gardeners want for Christmas?

Hello everyone. I woke up in the night and realised I hadn't checked in for a while. I think it is because I haven't been in the garden at all

I want some cold weather this christmas, hopefully it may kill off some of the slugs!

It was a balmy 7 degrees here today and I could/should have gone into the garden for an hour but I just couldn't drag myself off the sofa. Shameful.

Today was planting all the random purchases - two climbing pelargonium and three thyme; the former to cover a fence, the latter to fill the herb bed - so much nicer than mulch. More than made up for this by buying two monster clivia - out of season so dirt cheap, to fill in the raised beds which are shady in winter. Also cape honeysuckle planted against a fence which is dark in winter, burningly hot in summer, so we'll see.

Verbena bonariensis have gone daft, with lots of seedlings which I'll dig up and put in pots as pressies. Bougainvillea, one orange, one purple are going great guns, though a thornless fragrant variety is a bit slow.

DH has opened up a small market garden down the drive, walls lined with polystyrene veggie boxes now transformed into veggie beds for lettuce and rocket, near the house so we can gather it easily.

That sounds lovely. I'm hoping this might be the year my (indoor) Clivia will flower.

We went out today for the first time in ages. DH planted the allium bulbs and I cleaned out the pigs and cleared dead stuff from the beds by the back door.

It all sounds lovely echt.

I spent a little time today cutting back roses and labelling the geraniums which my parents have given me as an early Christmas present. There are 12. Where I will fit them in, I don't quite know.

There's lots more to be done out there, but the lawn is too squelchy to be walked on. I need a spell of sustained dry weather.

This dropped off my TIO ... a fairly accurate reflection of my gardening activity though,

Wondering now whether I will be able to get my bulbs in before Christmas now... if I do it will be an interesting experiment to see when they come up in relation to the ones I couldn't find and didn't lift in the spring.

Just met Maud for a coffee and mentioned the London For Free thing going on which gives free entry to some places some of the time over the festive period [ridiculously vague...] I know that Kew Gardens s included and thought it might be a good opportunity for a meetup ??

I would love to meet up with you all, but I am a long way from London sadly.

kew free entry info

Happy Christmas!
Winter jasmine in bloom here.

Merry Christmas everyone

Happy Christmas everyone Seed catalogue time getting near !

Merry Christmas everyone! Our time over the holiday is fairly fully booked, but if a date is fixed for a Kew meet-up I'll try to be there.

Happy Christmas tidings to all Humph's merry band!

I had a lovely day (at the farm in Devon) and some great gifts... However a couple of duplicates. So I am looking for a home/swop for an asparagus knife and an RHS 'Latin For Gardeners' book. Anyone?!

I spent the whole of yesterday afternoon reading The Cloud Garden - Tom Hart Dyke's adventures in Central America. I can't believe I didn't know of that news story at the time.

I'd love the Latin book, to brush up my diminished Latin vocabulary! I'd be happy to pay in plants in the spring.