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.

[Rhubarbgarden]

Sadly, no. But not far from Nymans and Wakehurst Place, so looking forward to getting to know those better.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

I've only been once to Wakehurst Place but we've been to Nymans several times with the grandparents. 'Tis lovely (and has a nice cafe).

[Rhubarbgarden]

Yes the cafe is splendid. When dd isn't ruining it for everyone and we are having to leave in shame .

Monty's greenhouse is indeed rather lovely isn't it? And iplayer is a revelation. I can't believe I have let it pass me by till now. Do we think the greenhouse is Gabriel Ash? I have been looking at too much greenhouse porn lately. This is still my favourite though. I keep sneaking a look at it and having a swoon. Must start saving the pennies.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

I'm not enough of a greenhouse connoisseur to know, but I reckon there's a reasonable chance that Monty's greenhouse is by Gabriel Ash. That example, Rhubarb, is gorgeous.

I think we've all at some point done the walk of shame from a cafe with a truculent two year old in tow, haven't we?

[Handsfullandlovingit]

Hello new thread! A fire in a potting shed, mmmm. And a teapot of hot tea. Mmmm. I spent 2 hours freezing in my greenhouse sowing perennial seeds from Chilterns. They don't do instructions, so had to research it all first. If it works, I shall have flocks of assorted aquilegia, a lavender hedge, clouds of verbena bonariensis, cosmos, violas. It seems so implausible in this weather. Our guest room has a huge south facing windowsill, not so much a guest room as a greenhouse now.

All this talk of Lidl, I can't wait to go explore the classy poundshops near us!

I've not seen a slug yet. That is very good news after last year's massacre.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Pound shops are great as a source of cheap twine, 'disposable' gloves and so on!

This house doesn't really have windowsills and most of the windows face the wrong direction, so now I mostly wait and do direct-sowing or put them in the coldframe. I was reading The Garden last night and drooling over the Gabriel Ash ad, but noticed that their greenhouses all seem to have a wooden base and Monty's was brick, but maybe his was bespoke, a one-off?

[rhihaf]

Hurrah! Hello again everyone, glad to see the new thread :)

Just went out to check the plug plants from T&M I potted on, into biggish cell trays and so far they've all survived, despite the weather's best efforts!
I've got 72 perennials (pour moi) and 36 annuals for mam, in my Argos-reject-plastic-lean-to. They've survived for over a week so have high hopes.

Loving the gas-bottle-stove [warms hands, goes into lovely daydream about Monty's cathedral greenhouse]

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

I think Monty might have used these people for his Greenhouse. I also thought Gabriel Ash at first but then remembered finding the Woodpecker site once before.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Hmm. I see they've made greenhouses for GW before. Great detective work, Wynken!

[HumphreyCobbler]

DH is out today laying leylandii logs all around the irregular borders where we had the wildflower meadow, now starting to be planted up - one with birch, one with dogwood, one with a weeping pear that a friend wanted to be rid of, one with geraniums and possibly one with wildflowers again.

Someone at the garden centre told him that the leylandii would poison the ground, so he phoned up Kew and they kindly did some reseach and phoned back with the news that all should be fine. Brilliant service!

We had to get rid of loads of leylandii when we moved here Rhubarbgarden. Farmers love em We still have three enormous specimens at the front of our drive, along with a scots pine that I love, but given the prevailing wind around here I think they will stay. I dread to think what would happen to the wind direction without them.

[HumphreyCobbler]

OMG those greenhouses.

I want a greenhouse

[Rhubarbgarden]

Yum, those woodpecker greenhouses are lovely.

Trying to work out if it's worth getting wrapped up to go out and do some rose pruning, or if ds will just wake up from his nap the minute I pick up my secateurs. He's been asleep since 12.30 so I could potentially get another 40 mins out of him. Or he might wake up any second. It's a gamble.

[Rhubarbgarden]

I got 50 mins. Bonus. Too cold for the roses though, but got some border tidying done.

[Handsfullandlovingit]

Well done Rhubarb! Long live the afternoon nap! I've just found out Month Don is doing a talk at Hadlow College in June, which is not so far from us. Now wouldn't that be something? Worse news is that the village spring show may be cancelled cos nothing is growing. I was going to enter a random daffodil and a carrot cake! (may now just eat the cake and put daff in vase)

[Handsfullandlovingit]

...or Monty Don. Pah.

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Perhaps we should all go and worship listen attentively to Monty?

I just snipped a few dead twigs off the rose by the front door, but am a bit worried that this may be inviting frost damage. It's our garden society spring show soon and I don't know what I'm going to exhibit - usually by now I'd have tulips close to flowering but they don't even have buds showing.

[Handsfullandlovingit]

Crumbs, frost damage? I thought roses needed pruning when it was cold? Thankfully our show also has scary baking/jam/tasteless knitted item/kid arts classes, so ho pefully the show will go on...Glad to hear your tulips aren't in bud yet, mine aren't either.

[Rhubarbgarden]

Hey, we should definitely all go and see Monty! MN trip out. Excellent plan.

I wouldn't worry too much about your roses. If they do get frost damaged, you'll just get a bit of die back. It won't kill them. Just cut out the dead bits once the weather is milder. If the weather ever gets milder, that is.

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Maybe we should have named this thread the 'Monty Appreciation Thread'!

Does anyone want any Turk's Turban squash seeds? I finally opened up the one I'd been keeping yesterday and I have loads. No idea if they'll germinate though as they don't seem quite as 'fat' as the ones I was given last year. PM me if you fancy an experiment and I'll post some on. I loved growing them last year as the squashes are very nice to look at. Pretty veg! They climb nicely too, mine went up the veg plot netting quite happily.

[Blackpuddingbertha]

That should've been the 'Monty Appreciation Society' obviously...

[mollythewitch]

Hello everyone! good to see the new thread. My garden is under nearly a foot of snow, with no sign of a thaw so can't see me getting any gardening done, even over easter weekend.
Rhubarb (and others with wood burners) - is leylandii any good to burn? A friend has cut down their hedge and offered us the logs. It would mean an hours drive each way and althougth they are fairly chunky and I think i heard somewhere that they didn't burn very well, or it might have been that they burned too fast.
btw Rhubarb, your garden sounds amazing, you will have to describe it fully so we can imagine it properly, such an amazing project to restore it to glory. My garden is also overrun with conifers. We moved before christmas so I have yet to see what comes up, but the house is victorian and the garden is very seventies!

[Rhubarbgarden]

We have an open fire rather than a wood burner, but I don't expect it makes any difference. Our tree surgeons said Leylandii burns very well, though it spits a bit, and it's important to let it season. If you've been offered it for free I'd take it!

Are you taking out your conifer-fest or leaving them? I think most of mine are on death row. Same as you though, I'm waiting to see what the garden does before fiddling too much, as we've only been here six months.

I described my garden Here when Maud asked, if you want to have a look.

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Now I'm jealous of Rhubarb. You have a walled garden!

[rhihaf]

I'll second that Bertha. Rhubarb, your garden (and house) sounds utterly delightful.

A walled garden really is the hitting the heights; I used to love watching the BBC series Victorian Kitchen Garden with the old guy, Harry (?), he had a lovely soothing, old-grandpa-type voice :)

It's been snowing here today. Come on Spring!

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

Agree Rhubarb's garden sounds fantastic, very jealous. I really enjoyed the Victorian Kitchen Garden, Harry was great.

Excellent bit of customer service from Suttons. Bought a Mirabelle Plum lady year that only grew two little bits at the bottom of the stem. Decided to tell them about this recently. I emailed one evening and early the next morning received an email apologising and saying they'd send another. It arrived yesterday so I have stuck it in a pot with some compost as we're off Friday and don't have time to properly plant it.