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...

I read some really good tips in GW magazine the other day too (think it's the July edition, I am a bit behind on my reading - two The Garden and one GYO are still in their cellophane!) The first interesting thing was that it takes plants 4-6 hours to take up the water from the soil so if you go by the advice to water your containers in the morning or evening, "morning" has got to mean 6am at the latest otherwise they will not have fully hydrated when the heat of the day is at its peak. OTOH, and this is my thoughts not in the article, evening watering should probably mean after the sun has gone down because the heat of the day is still going to evaporate water from the top inch or so of the soil - this might be good to humidify around the leaves, but the watering will also have a good chance of all being taken up through the roots overnight and they will be happier the following day.

The other really interesting bit was a properly scientific article by

Really glad to see all the articles in the papers this week and also evidence here that everyone has had awful trouble with slugs and snails.

My peas and lettuce have completely failed, my beetroot had to be replanted three times and are consequently tiny, and my courgette plant is also tiny cos of all the chomping it has had to endure.
Most of my sweet peas have failed at a small size and my bedding convulvulas are spindly, as are my bedding petunias. I also have had my cosmos beheaded as someone else upthread has too.

I'm a professional gardener, this is what I do for a living. It's embarrassing!

On the bright side the new deep burgundy day lily is doing great and the lavenders are huge as usual.

Am feeling v depressed about my garden this year. Out of 22 tomato plants I now have 8 left and have had one tomato.
No salad crops (slugs)
Cats keep pooing on my strawberries and today all over the lawn. Poor dd3 couldn't get to the pond as we had to wait for dh to clean up (am pg).
Loads of things not growing & potatoes have blight :(

Oh dear. Sounds crap.

I planted up my brand new first ever garden on Sunday and my radishes, raddichio, rocket and red salad bowl had all sprouted this morning.

Fingers crossed for the beetroot and bright lights chard.

My tomatoes are doing well, though I am scared I have over watered them (in this weather, I know) and my purple sprouting broccoli is doing well. The toms were planted in March and the PSB in June and grown on window sill.

Glad to hear its not just my lettuce that has been miserable. Every other year I have been provided with more lettuce than I can cope with on my window sill but despite three sowings this year I have had one salad. ONE SALAD.

Everyone's been really busy! How nice has it been to have sun at last?

I've been working my way along the garden trying to clear away the overgrown shrubs so I can at last see the beds beneath them. Not that there is any visible earth - it's all ivy, grass, weeds, and more baby shrubs trying to take over!

I think I've got a cammelia which has got brown blotches on a few leaves - what to do?

Have uncovered some 5ft long brambles with huge bunches of blackberries ripening, not sure how to support then off the ground!

My flowers are all blooming wonderfully, it's just lovely. I've seen quite a few butterflies too here.

Good morning everyone, it's very calm and pleasant in here, I'd like to pop in sometimes if that's OK.
I have a tiny, L shaped back yard, typical Victorian terrace, so only about 6m of raised beds which we built and planted last year. One of my extravagant treats was a chocolate silk tree. It was very late starting and isn't chocolate yet but that's fine. For the last 2 days there has been a little puddle of its fronds on the floor beneath it, some quite large bits down to crumbs. I can't find any damage to any other plants in that bed. Surely it can't be slugs, can it?
It's just over 6ft tall and still quite spindly. Any ideas please?

Chocolate silk tree is a new one on me... am looking up RHS website to see if I can find something out about it... is it this? but different colour? the only problem shown there is verticillium wilt, which seems pretty terminal unfortunately. Could just be generic sudden stress from the heat though? Re the spindlyness, have you done any pruning? follow link on that page to see when it should be done. :-)

ps, welcome, come and have some gin in our virtual potting shed - makes it even more pleasant!

Welcome, Bewitched!

I think you're right, Lexi, that optimum watering time is dusk or later, but I always console myself with something that lovely Geoff Hamilton said when he was presenting GW, which was that - ultimately - the best time for any gardening job is when you have time to do it.

I have hundreds of baby apples on the trees here, my one consolation for the failure of just about every other crop.

Thank you Lexi. I did a bit of pruning last autumn but there wasn't much of it to start with!
Off to read link now, thanks again.

Hi ComeInto.

Call me Maud, everyone does!

Hm, I hope it isn't that. It doesn't look wilted. It really looks like something is attacking it. I'm going to do some reading this afternoon, and some spying tonight. It was all new soil last year so shouldn't be contaminated.

Oh by the way, yes it is the tree you thought but it should have dark browny purple fronds. Found the label Albizia Julibrisin "Chocolate".

Sorry, Hi Maud .

There's no sign of anything crawling, squirming, swooping or slithering, but its looking worse every hour .
It must be what Lexi said - reaction to the sudden heat, or that horrid wilty thing.
I might try and dig it up and wash all the soil off and replant it in a pot with fresh soil. Last ditch/nothing to lose.

Is it this amazing tree?
www.vanmeuwen.com/trees-shrubs-and-ornamentals/trees/albizia-julibrissin-summer-chocolate/70385VM

This and other sites seem to think that a cooler conservatory might suit it better. Or perhaps it has simply finished flowering.

V Interesting. What other plants did you plant it with?

Yes that's it. It was like that when it arrived but this year it's come out green.
And I've never had a flower. In the same bed I've got star jasmine, a violet clematis, garnet penstemon, white lilies, purple alliums, purple sage, blue geranium, chives, bleeding heart, marjoram, white and deep pink cosmos, gardenia, bamboo, Japanese hardy banana, tulbaghia, a couple of ferns in the shady corner and a few blue traily lobelia.

Seems like a very full and colourful bed! I guess you could dig it up and look after it in a pot for a while, and see if it recovers, but sometimes things just fail for no reason. Can you take a cutting from a healthy looking part?

Yes I may have over stuffed it a bit! It does look good tho'. The banana is about 4ft above the bed in a pot on a stand.
The other bed is less full and not as good so I can do some juggling around.
I might try a cutting, good idea, thank you.

Over stuffing is good, in my view. As you say, you can always shift things around if it gets too crowded but that's still better than sparcity and bare earth.

it's too hot. But in my back room off the kitchen with the French doors wide open, it is beautifully cool and I can see almost all my hard work.

I sorted out my potting shed yesterday ... added a set of drawers from a cheap wardrobe unit we took out recently, and put my seeds into their new tins and boxes. I lifted all my bulbs from big pots and hanging baskets, and put them in paper bags to dry out a bit before they go in the tin. I have a phenomenal amount of tulips but lots are small side-bulbs so I don't expect them to flower. I really need a nursery bed to bring them on for a couple of years. Today I have divided iris on the rockery but doing that has released an excess so I need to decide whether to put the rest out in the front garden (fits the colour scheme!!) or sell them at work.

My red and white gladioli out the front have burst open like Olympic fireworks just in time for the festivities! There is not enough blue out there for the theme but I have one or two things up my sleeve. More lavender, for a start. Blue glass bottles on the end of stout canes would be fun.

Better get my veg seeds planted while there is still some shade on that side of the garden.

Absolutely Maud, I'm impatient and want it to look lush and luxuriant ASAP.
Next week we're replacing a wooden fence to our east with sand blasted glass.
I'm so excited to see what difference it makes, it should reflect evening sun as well as let more light through in the morning. Glads sound fab Lexi, and I really like the blue glass bottles idea. Is that just for decoration or will it serve a purpose?

Tell me more about the sand-blasted glass, Bewitched. I need to replace the steps down from our French doors. I had been thinking of a small iron balcony and steps, but just the other week thought that a glass balcony would be even better.

yes, it sounds intriguing Bewitched.

just bought a 2ft box ball on ebay for thirty quid

Evening all.

Hi Bewitched!

Sand-blasted glass, I am curious.

Only general tidying and maintenence to report here. DH still away on business, school hols, various children that do not belong to me round the house etc etc. Plus, I agreed to water our next door neighbours 'few' pots while they are on holiday for 3 weeks. Turns out, there's WAY more than I would call 'a few' and I am a touch miffed, but probably being a bit mean feeling that way. Took me ages to water everything for him today!

Going to weed and sort a 20m bed tomorrow, dig up two clematis that clearly didn't like the semi-shade and clay soil at the bottom of the garden, weed the front beds, turn the comost heaps and bins. general sorting rather than anything very exciting. Also need a trip to the garden centre to purchase something to go over the brassicas, which the rabbits appear to like rather too much!

What veg seeds are you planting Lexi?

Phew, what a day! Blue bottles just a design idea, BBB, think I saw it at Hampton Court but I probably won't get round to it. By the winter when I am more likely to have the time, I won't be as bothered about my red white blue colour scheme.

well, today I planted four types of carrots, rocket, pak choi, mustard, a heritage salads mix, heritage runner beans and kohl rabi. Only a bit less than a metre each row, but I think enough to give us the odd garden meal, not self sufficiency. On the ornamental side I planted some cosmos seeds (bit of a punt this late, we'll see) moved a huge and rather elderly sage to make way for the clary sage which is too tall for the front of the border, and brought two Iberis 'Snowball' out from under an astilbe to enjoy more open positions.

Best bits of the day were (a) my nearly 3yo's excellent technique raking the veg bed to a fine tilth with me, and (b) DH sieving out most of the contents of Compost Dalek 1 for me - a job I was not relishing. Right now DS is rather roughly harvesting red chillies from the indoor pots.

Tomorrow is for planting in the front garden and maybe moving a fern from full sun to a damp spot beside the water butt.

Also want to know more about the glass instead of fence... I have irritating little boys next door, one of whom now likes to stand at the top of his five-foot slide, hands on the top of our six foot fence, and chatter incessantly at us. Six year olds are evidently immune to my Hard Stare. This afternoon I said 'as you're mostly over the fence already why don't you just come round and play?' but he said he was 'grounded'. Grrr.