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...

PS Nerine Bowdenii looks gorgeous.

oh, I did not know about the gardening club!
Would you mind having a look at the pics in my profile and give me some advice how to brighten up my south facing front?

It is Absolutely Pouring here.

Where is our summer?

its my florence fennel. they did take 2 weeks from sowing to appearing though.

Hello, Quint. Is the area totally paved or do you have some ground for planting into? And how wide is the path? If you put big planters there, would you still gave enough room for access? And, lastly for now, what do you like - subtle and pretty, bold and architectural, pastel or bright?

if it is paved could you put in some raised beds? Even shallow ones could be used for lettuces and small bedding plants.

Which prompts the next question ... Are you able/willing to lift some of the slabs, to create a flower bed/raised bed?

Hi, The path is 90 cm wide. Next to the path is gravel. Under the gravel is a weed suppressing membrane and topsoil underneath. I can scrape aside gravel, cut a cross and fold aside, to dig a hole for plants.

I am thinking hues of pinks, whites and blues. Like Lavender, Agapanthus. Striking flowers. I have a pink hydrangea I can plant in one triangle, but there is still space for something smaller.

I am tired of grasses and "palms" and spiky leaves, so not so keen on that. I want a softer, lush feel to break the rigidness of the path, and the Y shape in the path (motorbike parking space). As a result, I have two triangles to fill!

I can also add large pots.

I dont want anything big, like birch trees or cherries...

Ah, I forgot, the slabs are concreted in. But no need to lift, as there is the gravel for planting.

Hello - been absent for a while but I'm back now. Haven't caught up on the thread yet but will do later. I have an urgent question first:

I planted my rhubarb earlier this year and it came with instructions not to pick any in the first year. But it has gone crazy and has taken over my garden and I need to make jam. What would happen if I did harvest it? Will I kill it?

Right, sorry - have caught up now!

Hello Seratonin & Quint. Lovely photos

DS does a good job of spraying wee all around the garden. Why he thinks it's ok to wee in my flowerbeds, I don't know!

I seem to have loads of nasturtiums in the garden - I've been here nearly 3 years and never seen them before. I've no idea where they came from but have vague memories of chucking out of date/ damp seeds on the flowerbeds so they possibly came from that?

I have a few things to do - I need to plant my Erygnium but I'm not sure where to put it. I love it's blue, prickly bits. Also, I seem to have lots of pots of unknown plants that should go in the ground but since I don't know what they are, I don't know where to put them!

How do I prune my buddleia? I want it tall-ish and bushy but not too wide - a bit of a screen over the 5ft fence it grows next to.

Buddleia is pretty hard to control size wise. To keep it as small as you can it should be pruned twice a year - once after flowering about half its size and again in early spring to reduce size again.

Eryngium needs a sunny spot, preferably well drained.

CuttedUpPear - our willow igloo is sprouting. Last time we wove them in but am not sure if you can keep doing this. Should we weave again, or cut them off?

Right, I'm going to hack my buddleia tomorrow! Thank you

Qunintessential

I think Lavender and agapanthus sounds lovely. Lilies maybe? Astrantia perhaps? Alliums? Purple sage?

About the rhubarb,grockle. We had the same here in our Melbourne garden, it survived ferocious heat and came up with tons of lovely red sticks. So we ate them, lifted th whole crown and put it in a less sunny place, and it's growing like mad.

HumphreyCobbler do not cut the new growth off.
Best case scenario is that you leave all the new growth until the autumn when all the leaves have fallen. Then you take the best bits and carefully weave them in, replicating the pattern already existing in the frame of the igloo.

This way you can keep replacing old growth as it dies.

Basically you do the same every year ad infinitum - weave the excess in between November and March. And any really huge anomalies or dead stuff, cut it off as close to point of origin as possible.

I'm really glas you asked me this and hope you have enough room to allow this years growth to stay for now - I see too many ruined structures through summer chopping and thoughtless weaving in.

Quint - I would look at lining the path with something that smells nice if you brush past it. Lavender would be good but other herbs would work too. Also like funny's idea of alliums.

I passed a garden yesterday where the front drive was lined with loads of agapanthus and it looked amazing. Not sure what it looks like the rest of the year though just a teeny bit jealous as my agapanthus that were beautiful last year died over winter

Still getting very little done in the garden; between the puppy and the Olympics there is just not enough time in the day. Need some ideas to fill the gaps in the veg plot. At this rate I may end up buying plug plants which I hate doing but I'm getting desperate with the failure rate of seedlings this year.

Small accomplishment of the day - have collected and sown foxglove seeds. Job for the weekend (keeping it small) is to dig up and pot the lavender seedlings which have self-seeded in my fig tree pot.

thank you so much CuttedUpPear, we will do exactly as you suggest. Can easily leave it till the appropriate time.

While you're all snoozing, it's a beautiful mid-winter day in Melbourne: 15 degrees and sunny, so out into the garden and killing off weeds. Most plants bar veggies grow all year round so the garden is always some shade of green.

My sulky clivia have decided they WILL bloom this year. Yay.

A monster dendrobium speciosum, a native orchid about 2 by 2 feet, left by the last tenants, has put out flowers this year. All they need is light and a bit of limestone to hug. If only children were as cheap. :o Now I have to drag its 30 pounds weight into the sunniest part of the front garden so we can see it. We keep it portable as it's of no interest once flowered. I'm going to hack it into more manageable chunks after flowering, though this may mean loss of blooms for a year.

The first of the season's kangaroo paws is about to flower, some miniature ones planted to stage the garden when the house was for sale - not my favourites - I prefer the very tall ones - but good to see colour.

Another of the oddities of Australia is that many daisy plants, including osteospermum, flower in winter, so I have two big pots of blue marguerite-felicia amelloides - which I associate with UK summer, but are at their best in the winter here. As is crocosmia and strelizia.

Not very good with the subject/verb agreement there. Teachers, eh?

echt do you have gardenias?

Ooh , strelitzia.

::horticultural drool::

Yes, I do have gardenias, gardenia Florida which did very badly in full sun last year so I've moved them, 4 plants, to where they'll get morning and some shade after 1.00. in the summer. I love the pong, and they should do well in sand with some gardenia potting mix.

They're planted next the retaining wall of the deck, which is about 2 feet high, so it'll be a smell rather than a view.

I know what you mean by strelizia drool, maud, a neighbour has a huge clump in her front garden, flowering now, and they look fab on a cold morning, covered in dew, every one as perfect as you'd see in a flower shop

my poor garden has suffered this past week as i have been glued to the tv watching team GB so i decided to put in a full day tidying today. All grass has been cut, edges trimmed, the beds weeded, roses deadheaded, compost turned, all pots feed and watered and patio hovered.

Now need to give the shed a lick of paint and move a water butt but those jobs can wait until after later in the week.