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...

Thank you for the offer of a cutting, funnyperson. I liked the joke!

I haven't posted a picture of my path, as I lack the technology/skill to do so. I am reconciled to using lots of top soil to raise the level of the lawn and then returfing.

It's a funny thing about my 'Polish spirit'. I was convinced last year it was dead, as it produced no flowers, but I can see that it is producing new shoots now. I will give it quite a hard prune, as I suspect that all its flowers last year were on my neighbour's side of the fence. 'A Shropshire Lad' (or whatever) will be going next to it.

Ooooh love the idea of cammomile teabags for seed Funnyperson!

Hello everyone, it's been a while (8 months!) since I came to the potting shed, DS is enjoying some 'independent play' time at the moment...

Bargain of the year: I got some amazing Sarah Bernhardt Peony bare roots in Poundland yesterday! Considering T+M are charging 12.99 per bare root I think a quid is a bargain, and they are ALL alive and sprouting! They're also a LOT bigger than some more expensive ones I got in Costco last year.

Advice please, oh wise ones:
I've just dug over a raised bed (one decking board high, about 3") and dug in lots of semi-rotten leaves from around the place, some horti grit and threw on a bag of multi-purpose compost (we have heavy clay soil), but the leaves are still... well, er, leaves . Can I plant the peonies in that now or will they need more dense soil? I've dug everything in, so it's a loose mix of grit, clay, leaves and compost....

I forgot how good MN is for the soul!

Time for a ....

Can I put my hand up for the crocosmia too please Maud if you have enough. I shall include you in the Jerusalem artichoke distribution again. I have one other taker too, anyone else interested? I have plenty

I have next week off work so am hoping the weather improves so I start to get things done in the garden and some seeds started off.

Of course! PM me your address. I'm not sure how many I will have - it was potted up last year but I wonder whether it will all have survived.

rhihaf - That sounds like a good planting mix to me. Remember not to plant the paeonies too deep.

Hello everyone

We have discovered that there is possibly going to be a massive solar farm in our view 33 acres of the fucker. Not happy but we have slightly changed our plans to try and shield ourselves from the worst of it. I have no actual idea of what it will look like as there are no pictures on the planning application

So we are going to plant some silver birches along the top of the plot, where the neighbour's very ugly wall is. This will sort of disguise it from the main part of the garden, and is practically what were were planning to do anyway. We are going to put a hornbeam hedge around the rest of that part of the garden, hiding the ugly metal fence into the orchard at the bottom. We are going to leave the native hedgerow (because it is so good for wildlife) between the garden and the field but put the hornbeam in front of it. We will have to move fast as things are starting to bud up so I think we will get some help. 240 odd plants to put in

Eek, Humph. That's a whole lotta planting going on.

Difficult to know what to think about a solar farm. After all, it's a Good Thing, isn't it, although maybe harder to love if it's in your line of sight.

We already have a pylon on the other side FFS.

I am not a NIMBY, I am a BANANA

I am unpersuaded of the economics of the situation tbh. There is a massive subsidy offered to make them economically viable.

Quite. Do you think the thing will ever get built?

I just don't know! It may well.

I am less bothered about windmills! Possibly I won't mind it anyway .

I passionately feel that we should try and keep beautiful places beautiful. There are not that many of them left in the world. I realise that I am totally impractical in an over populated and energy depleted world.

I will go and read your facebook quote again

33 acres is massive for solar! At least they'll be low - they are usually mounted on sloping frames and generally no more than 2m high when at ground level (as opposed to on roofs obviously). The ones I've seen are in grassy fields and the grass is often grazed by sheep as it's tricky to mow around.

They are going to be on the hill opposite, so we will see them. But it may not be as bad as we fear. Except DH has just leaned over my shoulder and pointed out it is 60 acres, not 33

The thing is, I have always struggled with the fact that, although we have a fantastic view, we also suffer with strong winds (phnarr). Part of me just thinks fuck it, plant up lots of big trees to shelter the garden and bugger the non existent view.

I should also add we will be getting some help planting those hedge plants. There is no way we would manage that alone!

I saw a whole bank of daffodils in full bloom today, plus loads of snowdrops. And....wait for it...sunshine!

Sunshsine? I haven't seen that for days and days. ::envious::

Yes it does seem sad that a sunny hillside would be given over to solar panels. Though I'm very very pro solar panels in general especially on rooftops.
There are some good tall yew hedges round here - I dont know how long they took to grow, but they are dark and dense. Would 'pretty' trees like acers and monkey puzzle and silver birch provide screening and structure and shelter and colour? I love the sound of birch trees in the wind.
Prince Charles planted Linden trees in Regents Park- Linden Blossom smells amazing in springtime. Hornbeams are majestic too.
Sunshine? I'd better go for a walk- quick.

yes, the sun is shining here today too!! Hope it is for you too Maud.

I agree about all those trees funnyperson. I think that silver birch and hornbeam hedges are the way forward.

The first holes are being dug this afternoon.

My bay plant (brought indoors for winter) has one branch in flower! I had never thought of bay getting flowers. They are rather nice, small like sarcococca.

Poor you Humphrey , fingers crossed it somehow works out nicely for you...

Anyone bought any plants/trees from Aldi before? I was seduced by their topiary (sort of) rosemary plants for 14.99. I bought 2 but they are quite big, about 2 feet tall, with a stem as thick as my thumb and a sort of bushy ball on top...
They also had lavendar, lemon, olive, and some citrus-type thingy I'd never seen before. Any experience anyone?

No, rhihaf, but I've had some lovely stuff from Lidl. Their bare root geraniums are excellent. I would love a lemon tree. Temptation, temptation.

My MIL has a lovely lemon tree.

We have a whole row of Paul's Scarlet from Lidl. Brilliant. Although they are coming out for the hornbeam hedge and don't know where to put them now.

I'm planning to do more tidying up and possibly some planting today. Still no sunshine, though. ::gloom:;

Bright here, occasional attempt at sunshine..! Just been out to do some pottering. Was assaulted by birdsong as soon as I opened the back door and it lifted my soul about twenty feet! There are lots of tits and robins, but also at least two woodpeckers somewhere out of sight, hammering away at their respective trees.

I've planted more bulbs, no idea if they will come up now or if it was a bit pointless. Twenty 'queen of the night' tulips in the gaps in the border and five alliums. On my rockery, which is now getting about six hours of direct light a day (I'd say sunlight, but you know..) there are three flowering Dwarf Iris 'Katherine Hodgkin' which are looking very pretty, and lots of shoots of other bulb like things which look like they are meant to be there (along with the annoying little weeds). None of my hellebores have flowers unfortunately, and I have a very soggy floppy acanthus which I am not sure is earning its place in the border. Over on the veg side, my canvas gro-beds are also getting six hours of light so I am going to go through my seed box now to figure out what to plant there. I have two rhubarb crowns looking healthy, with about four six-inch deep pink shoots each. The strawberries also seem to have survived the winter in the ground.

Annoyingly I can't find my garden diary that would show me what was happening this time last year and 2011. I am fairly sure that it is usually about now that the first (misguided, foolish) frogs attempt some spawn in my pond.

It's quite warm here - I'm managing without a coat - but no sun at all. I'm continuing to get all the gardening paraphernalia off the lawn and if I finish before it's dark I'll plant my remaining bulbs. I just found some rather shrivelled-looking nectaroscordum. They're one of my favourite bulbs so I hope they'll recover.