Rhubarb Appreciation Society

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Going with Rhihaf's thread name suggestion, following on from the first rule of gardening club is thread.

Pull up your kneeling pads, crack open the elderberry wine and the blackberry gin and come and join us. No real experience or gardening know-how needed.

Oh I do hope so. I've promised dd we will dig over her little bed and plant her seeds at the weekend.

X posts - I hope so as in I hope the weather's better at the weekend!

Good idea Lexy
Cold and wet here today so no pottering for me. Weather supposed to get better at the weekend but I'm at a wedding. Bugger

glad we seem to have enough votes for the picture idea... I've now reported to HQ my post suggesting it, and obviously it would be for the whole Gardening topic, not just the quiche...

What did we call the sickly/bargain plants trolley/corner last year... boulevard of broken dreams or something similar I think?

Like the picture idea

Wet and cold here today. Was planning to grab half an hour to pot up my oca for starting off in the conservatory but couldn't face it.

Got lots germinating nicely indoors though. Conservatory filling up nicely and my little table in the 'hot room' at the top of the house is working well as a germination spot. Considering moving the beans up there as they're showing no signs of life yet. Even my conservatory is too cold for beans!

Oh yes to the photo idea.

Nothing germinating here, apart from chickweed in the borders. Pah.

Nothing germinating here either, Maud, except nettles.

nice weather here so far. Have been fiddling about tidying pots etc whilst DH divided chives in the herb beds. There are lots of orach seedlings, I am terribly pleased about this. Planted out two tansy plants I rescued from the slugs last year, they were stripped to the bone twice but still recovered. I also uprooted all the thyme as I am giving up trying to grow it in the herb beds, I will just stick to pots in future. The is ONE sage that has survived the winter!

Hurrah for the one surviving sage Humph!

I have all my seeds in my greenhouse... it gets VERY warm on sunny days but pretty chilly at night - will things still germinate, or do they need constant temperatures?

Ironically, the tray of hastily shoved in sown peas (Leo's finest@49p a pack) have sprouted magnificently and I have pea shoots on their way! The lovely T&M ones have yet to emerge...

My beans and tomatoes are germinating nicely, but no sign of any flower seedlings yet. I think variable temperatures should be fine, rhihaf - my conservatory is like that too.

I have a few tree lilies that are just poking their heads above ground and plenty of very short tulips that look like they are ready to flower at the first sign of sun. The magnolia tree is full of buds and the same with the rhododendron and camellia The red camellia at the front of the house is in flower. The tree peony have fresh growth but no sign of buds yet.
The only colour and brightness in the garden so far is the Skimmia japonica's mass of lovely red berries and the purple of the heathers but slowly and surely the garden seems to be coming to life again.

I had to do some watering this morning. The euphorbias are all looking lovely. There is a very pleasing mixture of euphorbia Chameleon, Bowles golden grass and polyanthus Black Kace at the front of my Venetian (ahem) border.

Err, Lace.

I spent the day actually working today. First time in ages. To be fair, it's a planting plan for a garden I designed for friends so it's for a dinner out rather than for cold hard cash, but still it was nice to dust off the old drawing board. It's been too long. They want jungle style planting with a red/orange/yellow pallette so I've had Christopher Lloyd out

Oh, are you a garden designer, rhubarb? And ::grin:: at channelling Christo!

Well, sort of. But my business kind of crashed and burned when I started having babies. I kidded myself it's a family friendly job and that I could work evenings and weekends, but in reality... I've done a grand total of two gardens in the past three years, and they were both for friends for the cost of childcare and a dinner. One day I'll be back, one day...

No gardening to report here. Still have to get out and plant my onions. DH seems to have absconded with my very nice garden fork .
Dawnywoo I googled lutyen benches just there. Oh they are very lovely .

Dawny Neptune do a lovely Lutyens bench - they are a kitchen and furniture company. Available across the UK and parts of Europe. You can now order online from their website too. I'd say they would not be cheap though.....!

Castlelough - My DH does that too. Boogers off to the allotment with the lightweight fork, leaving me with one I can barely lift. Huh.

Got our Lutyens bench from the neighbours for nothing. They were moving house to a place without a garden weirdos. Have you tried eBay?

This is the latest spring I can remember.

I think it's the latest Spring anyone can remember Edie Monty said last week he couldn't remember one as bad since 1962.

Had a look at Neptune Castle Yowsers! you are right, they aren't cheap. I found 3 seater Lutyens bench made with FSC Eucalyptus for £120 on ebay. The one Neptune sell (albeit Teak) is £775. I'm taking a chance, but at leaves it leaves me some spare money to fritter spend on other garden goodies necessities.

Another favour - just planted 2 clematis to grow around a newly erected arch over our front path. It's going to look a bit bare for a while (DP thinks it looks naff anyway) Is there anything else I could plant with it to give some quick cover / year round interest? I thought about a Chocolate Vine. Really wanted a climbing rose New Dawn but that's just more summer colour.. Any ideas?

MooncupGoddess: glad to hear about your conservatory-related variable temps, I had visions of them somehow being a lot kinder to seedlings, but I suppose they'll harden off quicker in an outdoor lean-to [kidding-self emoticon]...

Castle: I saw Monty planting some onions into modules for the greenhouse - he does make you feel better about forgetting important jobs doing things later, doesn't he?

Rhubarb: good for you for doing a job you love! I sort of did the same with catering ie kidding myself working out that I could earn an equivalent wage doing 4 or 5 weddings a year instead of working full time.
But am now preparing my CV to go back to full time teaching in September....

I suppose there's a lot to be said for a guaranteed monthly income, especially when there are garden indulgences necessities to be purchased...

I am very fond of my New Dawns, but they don't do that well in our garden for some reason. A shame as they are on the four corners of the centre circle bit of the rose walk.

Sad to report that it doesn't look like there will be any piglets in the cobbler household. Spot has five days to go before the timings don't work at all and she has shown no signs of the final 'uddering up' (!) you would expect from a soon-to-be-lactating pig. We must have been fooled by her HUGE stomach . It is strange though as we have both seen in undulating in a peculiar manner. We will get a male weaner and let him in with the pigs and try again in the autumn.

So RhubarbGarden - we meet at last!