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.

A busy gardening weekend for everyone. Went to B&Q this morning and picked up a few plants including a Fatsia Japonica and a few hyacinths. The latter I grabbed as they were cheap and I'd seen them in our local NT property on Saturday in a formal part of the garden, planted in blocks and they looked very effective. I've lobbed mine into a trough, the blue looks good next to the primroses.

Funnyperson, I know how you feel about ageing parents it sucks.

Rhihaf - You have livestock? Wow!

Sarah Raven? I like to think she nivked the Venetian theme off me. I bet she's a MNer. But, seriously, that dahlia mixz is just the sort of saturated colour I;m after, although I'm officially Over Dahlias. But I still hanker after the Bishop of Llandaff and feel it would be fitting to put him next to the crocosmia Lucifer.

Oh, more grounds for optimism. The geranium phaeum Mourning Widow is just a day or two from flowering and my bay tree is going to flower for the first time ever, which is miraculous as it never looks very healthy. Less good - had my first lily beetle kill of the year.

I'm sorry things are so gloomy with your parents, funnyperson. for you.

Don't know what went wrong with the spellchecker there. Sorry.

Yes SR probably did take inspiration from you!
I've planted Bishop of LLandaff today. It is an act of faith cos the squirrels ate the tubers and the slugs ate any foliage that did survive the rest last year. Oh yes, brilliant to put him next to Lucifer!

How is your geraneum pheum flowering so soon? It must be very warm where you are.

Am thinking of raising some cerinthe purpurascens to go with the venetin dahlias, as I will put them deep in a bed this year. I'm not sure what else to plant with them.

Thanks wynken and maud re parents. I love them so much and feel so responsible and am so inadequate.

I just laughed out loud at the idea that SR has been lurking on these threads and decided to name her dahlia collection Venetian after my ramshackle beautifully-designed flowerbed.

I have no idea why Mourning Widow is about to do her stuff, but she is usually the first geranium to flower and she is in the garden's hottest spot. She's also a well-established plant.

That reminds me that I bought some cerinthe seeds last week.

Does anyone know when B&Q's BOGOFF on plants ends?

It is so difficult to know what to do with aged parents. It sounds to me, funnyperson, as if you try really hard and do a great deal, but I do recognise that sense of there always being more to do and it not being quite enough. Do you have siblings who are in a position to help you?

FP, I've come to the conclusion that nothing prepares you for dealing with elderly parents and whatever things you've put in place ever seems adequate. You love them and are doing your best. It might seem inadequate to you but I bet it means the world to them.

I'd like Bishop of Llandaff but can't be doing with worrying about tubers and winter. Maud's choice of companion plant has made me smile.

And you could add Apple Red Devil. ::wink::

I love Fatsia Japonica. They are one of my favorite and have a very large one (about 2 metres tall with a3.5 metre spread) in the woodland part of the garden. Last year i added 5 new fatsia under the spread of it to grow amongst the wood spurge and camellia.
Managed to get my agricultural grit from the local garden centre today so i am all set to do my pots when my Fasicularia Bicolour arrive.

Funnily enough mine is to go next to a camellia. They are going to be in pots though. The previous owners kept ferrets and had a run in the corner of the garden. They took it leaving yellow and pink paving labs which I hated so the DC's put some edging up and gravelled it for Mothers Day one year.

Got one of those swing seats very cheaply which is on it and there was a hole in the slabs where DH's loquat tree is. It all looked really boring so I've decided to get some plants in pots on it. Way to go yet but I think in a couple of year it should look much better.

As long as a certain scruffy brown labradoodle doesn't eat the plants as she did when little....

Rihaf, a shed specially to process your livestock. I am deeply jealous. We do the pigs on the table in the verandah and in my small kitchen Only ever two at a time though. I would love a proper room to do it in.

funnyperson, so sorry that it is so hard.

sorry Rhihaf, not rihaf

Fatsia and camellia make a great combination to brighten up a difficult part of the garden. My big fatsia must have been planted years ago by who ever lived here before us. We get creamy-white flowers on it which seems to be alive with wasps and bees in autumn.
My potted fatsia has gone a bit yellow so i think i will have to repot it in new soil soon.

Sorry to hear you're a bit down about the aged Ps. I used to post on your other thread and wondered how things were.

Here, have .

Hi! Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend. I haven't managed any gardening this week or weekend at all.

Is it too late to plant my spuds, do you think? (Records) This week I also want to sow my seed tray with sunflowers.

The school garden patch is coming along. We added peas to our potatoes and onions. And I picked up a packet of candytuft (as recommended by Rhubarbgarden I think) for easy sprinkling this week. Almost all of their sunflower seeds are sprouting on the classroom window sills - much excitement!

Feeling a bit despondent about my garden plans. We have still not secured the mortgage we need to finish our half-built house . We are aiming for October now . Which pushes the garden plans out even further. Still, I am enjoying hearing how you are all getting on in your gardens and may just have to invest in a few nice pots, for now!

My spuds are still in the shop... Monty has only just done his, definitely not too late.

I am going spud-shopping tomorrow, hoping to get some Charlottes to do in pots, well, those wicker planters from Robert Dyas that someone else also mentioned having bought. They were part of my spree with the GW magazine discount card.

The thing about garden design is that in real life a garden is a living dynamic ever changing thing, which evolves over time, and is never quite the same from year to year or season to season. It is one of the reasons I love it so much, because there is that element of otherness and surprise and weather, which means that one is thankfully not the creator, which would be too great a responsibility, but the facilitator.
The west facing border in my garden, which has mainly ivory and green plants, always ends up with some other colours as well dotted in, from plants which find their way there, and all the better for it!

Monty's spuds looked very smooth. I thought potatoes were supposed to sprout or 'chit' before being planted. I'm not planting potatoes. I'm frightened of blight.

I think the jury is out on whether chitting is necessary or useful - it gets discussed quite often on GQT.

But then, everything about Monty is smooth and urbane!

Monty's face isn't smooth, its ever so slightly wrinkly!
I think the programmes are very well engineered. They follow a tried and tested formula. I like the formula, prefer it to the whatitsname house programme which irritated me when I watched it once.

Its been lovely in the potting shed. I have a busy week ahead again. I hope you have a lovely time with the spuds! I agree planting them in pots seems handy.

I was thinking of the smoothness of his presentation, not his visage. And I agree this potting shed is delightful.