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.

We like rhubarb questions though Fraggle Any question really, then we get to quiz you about your garden in return for information!

My daphne is basically a freestanding tree in the middle of my lawn; apparently that's unusual so I'm probably not that useful when it comes to describing daphne habits. I know they are poisonous though.

Happy half hour weeding the long bed this afternoon (bunked off work). I worry this time of year as I'm not sure if I'm pulling up stuff that has self-seeded or if they are actually weeds .

Rhihaf - fig? (for the terrace)

what is best against snails?
they are even eating the new leaves of my roses.
bastards.
would it be worth asking for coffee grinds at a coffee shop?

nothing green visible of my rhubarb... they have eaten it all :(

careful with figs neat foundations/walls I have been told. their roots go really wide and deep. don't know if they can go in pots?
I have a fig tree, pruned it back quite hard in winter as it had gone wild for about 2 years.

Mousy - how annoying. The slugs ate everything in our garden last year, we salvaged some stuff by going out every night and collecting as many as we could. There were forty odd slugs on every single potato plant, it was utterly disgusting. We must have removed thousands. We also used slug pellets which I know are not for everyone. Things like beer traps were not that useful considering the sheer amount there were.

Mouse, figs are better with their roots confined. Mine grows in a large pot half buried.

You can get nematodes that work for snails I think if you don't like pelleting. Plus most things that work for slugs will get snails too. Hand picking snails is slightly nicer than hand picking slugs

the dc find the snails fascinating.
snail races and all that.
it's just the sheer number of them.

Bertha: a fig! Thankyou, I hadn't thought of that and my dad loves figs Would it be happy in a bigish pot then? Can they tolerate drought? thinking of the fact we mainly use terrace for weekend/special occasion drinking and enjoying and will probably forget to water it quite a lot

I found slugs on my mint this morning I thought they hated herbs?

My hollyhocks from Poundland have finally sprouted! I think the Sarah Bernhardt peonies have spurred them on

Info on growing figs here

It is actually dark and DH is still out planting box hedge. He must be doing it by head torch

Beautiful sunny day and dh working from home - perfect opportunity to get some gardening done. Alas, woke up with a stinking cold complete with fever and shivers/shakes. Blinking marvellous. No mowing or digging out for me today; dealing with the offspring almost finished me off.

We did have a meeting with the house renovation project manager and architect though, and I fought hard on the greenhouse front. Got it in the second tier list of priorities so not great but could have been much worse. At least now it seems to be accepted as a given that we will build a lovely Victorian style lean-to on the side the house that opens on to the orchard; the issue is just when - if the tier 1 list of priorities eat up all the budget, it could be a few years away.

The architect appears to think he will be designing this greenhouse instead of us getting Alitex a greenhouse company in.. I asked if he had experience of proper horticultural standard glasshouses and he replied that he could do a bit of research. I had my face on - I would feel more confident if he (and everyone else) would stop referring to it as a conservatory/orangerie. It's a GREENHOUSE, people, for growing things in; not lounging around on wicker furniture in.

On the upside, I discovered today we have a beautiful clematis alpina flowering on the wall by the patio. Little indigo bells. Enchanting.

Bad luck, Rhubarb - hope you feel better soon.

Humphrey, I remember you posting about your slugs last year; the image you painted was so horrible that it has stuck in my mind ever since. They destroyed loads of my veg plants too, I am determined not to plant anything out this year until it is tall and sturdy enough to have a fair chance of survival.

I went a bit wild in poundland today, they had bare rot roses.
one of each colour.
7 in total.
a few will go nicely in the sounth facing front garden. he rest will keep my yellow in the back company.

I need to go to wilkinsons as all summer bulbs have gone half price so i might find myself in poundland too.

Hope you feel better soon Rhubarb. Your house sounds lovely indeed. Are you dealing with Grade 2 listing or is it more onerous than that?

That is my plan to MooncupGoddess - that and concentrating on stuff they don't eat.

You can NEVER have too many roses Mousy

I'm much better today thanks. Although I managed to lock us out of the house this morning in torrential rain - so we will probably all be coming down with pneumonia next after getting soaked to our pants whilst sorting it out. Except ds, who was of course toasty and dry in his pushchair w

Oops

with his rain cover.

The house is grade 2 listed, Humph, and we are in a conservation area in a national park. I even had to apply for permission to prune the bay shrubs by the front door, it's that fernickety round here. The Parish Council actually refused us permission to cut down the thirty foot high Leylandii hedge but fortunately the county council are a bit less cats bum about everything and they overturned that.

I agree about the roses! The more the merrier.

My dog doesn't dig Bertha but ate all my plants in pots plus plastic plant pots when a pup. Thankfully she seems to have improved and I'm starting to reintroduce things to the 'back' garden which is actually L shaped round the back and the side. The majority of things are in the front but we don't have direct access to the road, have to go through neighbours so we've got a lawn with flower beds outside the front door, driveway then a triangle of what was grass in the corner and is now where the greenhouse and pond are.None of the bits are very big but it feels like we've got 4 bits of garden. I only trust dog in the back.

Glad you're feeling better Rhubarb, hope you've all dried off.

2 Chelsea tickets arrived this morning and it's GW tonight, so a good day. Shame about the weather, hear it's getting cold again.

I often go wild in Poundland. The joy of it is that one can get utterly carried away and grab every seed collection, bare-root plant and obscure DIY tool on offer, then get to the checkout and still have only spent £17. This is not the case in most garden centres.

Good god, permission to prune? What a bind. Worth it for a lovely Georgian house though! Thank goodness you got your way about the hedge, some of the decisions are bonkers.

I know, it's mad. It's that kind of village. But, it is very pretty here and the advantages outweigh the permissions craziness!

My secateurs just arrived back from their Felco service all sharp and shiny

Reading you lot after a wi-fi less week in the nhs is as good if not better than watching Gardeners World! Arf at Montagu Don though!
There seems to be a definite fig theme. Its no use I will have to get one, and a nice pot for it to go in.
fragglewump dont break the pointy red thing off as lexy said it will unfurl into a leaf, and at that point you could upturn a tall pot with a hole over it (alternatively known as a rhubarb forcer) which will make the stalk longer because it has to grow towards the sunlight, which makes it taste better. 2 weeks after upturning said pot over the rhubarb, you can take it off and let the rhubarb grow normally as its not very good for any plant to be deprived of light. But rhubarbgarden will know the details of the rhubarb forcing malarkey, which I incidentally would be most interested in also.
Currently flowering (cant remember if I've said this already, sorry if I have)
Magnolia stellata, camellia, pieris, aubretia, wall flowers, tulips, daffodils, rosemary, roses, hellebores, japonica, royal blue squills, violas, blue wood anemones, forgetmenots, primroses. How wonderful to drive up home to possibly the most glorious riot of colour in the front garden which I have ever had!

Permission to prune? Interesting.

Can anyone please point me to some reasonably priced lilium regale?