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.

::accepts gratefully::

But I have cerinthe seedlings. And my Parkers order has arrived (although how long ago I'm not sure, as I found it by chance in the back garden, where it had been thrown over the fence).

If they're not gardeners maybe he doesn't realize what he's done.

People can be really crass/unthinking. I remember a window cleaner just letting his metal ladder fall straight onto a beautiful canary-bird rose in full flower, crashed straight through it breaking it and scattering petals everywhere, and he didn't even understand why I asked him to move it.

I second humph's offer of . I don't think I'd be able to resist telling him how bad it is, TBH.

Oh Maud you must be steaming. People can be so stupid and thoughtless. I think you may need a whole packet of with the , I know I would . It sounds like your apple pruner may not have known what he was doing. Was he/she properly qualified or experienced? Fruit tree pruning is not difficult but it needs doing properly.

LRD it looks like the leader (main upwards pointing branch) on your apple was not removed when the tree was a whip (ie after its first year). You could remedy this by doing it now and starting again, but it's a bit nuclear. Or you could cut it off above one of the nicely branching side shoots, as low as you can bear to. Then as new shoots appear over the summer, tie them off to the left to balance the tree. I have had to do similar surgery to some youngish trees in the orchard here that hadn't received any formative pruning.

Apple pruner knew his stuff, I think, but I suspect the problem was that the long-handled pruning saw he used so that he didn't have to climb into the tree wasn't quite up to the job, and so the bark got torn. Every time I pay someone to do a job in the garden, it goes slightly wrong. Sigh.

Sadly there's no substitute for doing things yourself. I've had the same problem.

DH went to get me a few barrow loads of well rotted horse poo today from my secret free supply. I've been laid a bit low with a mystery sicky bug and the poo cheered me up! Hoping I'll feel up to spreading it over the pumpkin patch tomorrow.

More in sympathy here Maud.

Hello LRD

done nothing today apart from admiring the bluebells.
bloody cat has dug out one of the roses. I'm getting fed up with the digging. I thought the fox was bad...

my fingers are still a bit grubby from the digging yesterday.
do you have any good tips?

I wish I did, Mousy. I keep extra soap and a nailbrush at work, so that I can try to make my hands look presentable.

Gloves, gloves and gloves. I never do anything without my gloves.

I have a phobia hatred of muddy hands. Gloves here too.

My bluebells are just starting to flower in the woody bit of the garden. I love bluebells.

I find the dirt permeates the gloves, but then I mostly wear pound shop inexpensive gloves.

I wear a pair of leather gloves - it buggers the gloves but it is the best thing for keeping my very chilly hands warm. I don't bother in summer, I just get muddy.

that's the think, I like getting my hands into the dirt. it feels nice and I have a better grip on the weeds that way.
I use an old toothbrush to scrub under the nails, but a bit of grubbyness remains.

I also dig out the worst if the muck with manicure sticks. Oh the glamour.

You could try an old trick of my Mum's. Before going blackberrying (v bad for bits under the nails) she would rake her nails along a bar of soap. Post blackberrying, she would just wash her hands; the soap would come out from under her nails bringing with it any blackberry grot.

Like Mousy I love getting my hands grubby, but find that washing my hair is the only way of getting all the dirt out!

Hello everyone, sorry I've just been lurking since my first post.

Hello everyone, sorry I've just been lurking since my first post.

Also sorry about your clematis Maud, I'd be bloody livid. My neighbours think it's fun to grow rampant brambles along or boundary, and I still hesitate to hack them down in case I piss them off forever.

I vote for gloves too, whatever I can find in the shed. Pref women's ones as otherwise the floppy bits on the end of the fingers get in the way. I was trying to pot on some tiny poppy seedlings in gloves today and had to take them off - hence horrible grubby nails that I really need to fix before work tomorrow.

I am aching after a gardening marathon today & yesterday. I lucked out in lidl and have made two lovely flower beds: fuchsia, rosa polyantha & lobelia in the front and a marguerite tree and cobana in the back. Best of all, smothered in lidl super cheap chipped bark, which smells lush, looks lovely & will keep the weeds down all summer

On the dirty hands front, DH always brings up an observation made to him by his mum: " It's funny how you get such clean hands from making pastry". :o

:o
I make my own bread, would that work, too?
:o

Morning all, have been luring rather than posting because I'm such a beginner gardener that I never have advice to offer other people but have been absorbing your wisdom instead

DH and I moved 1000kg of gravel yesterday. Next step is to put the flagstones down. We didn't fill the raised bed part of the gravel/rock garden, have decided to fill with slate chips instead. Have another 1000kg bag sitting out front to redo some of the driveway, but some serious weeding and sieving needed - everything has been pounded down into to dirt the last 10+ years (I've only been here 6 years, btu DH closer 15+) and we haven't been looking after it (DH said that his DGF - who lived here before us - was out everyday hoeing the driveway).

Also sowed some sweet peas directly onto the raised veg bed.

More plans for the next few weeks - want to make another raised bed to match the one on the other side of the garage door, cut back the rest of the dead creeper I butchered last year (deliberately - horrible thing, grows ridiculously fast and takes over everything) and start clearing the space wich will be for DS.

DH continues to be infected by the gardening club bug. I really want an arch somewhere in the garden and he was resisting it, but yesterday was browsing on his tablet for an hour for one and found areally nice one with a gate which would be fab.

Morning everyone!

It's a beautiful day here. I am enjoying my neighbour's rose which is huuuuge - it's spread all along the boundary and taken over a good three metres of the neighbour beside me. I've just realized there's a bird nesting in there. After living in the middle of towns for the past few years, it feels really special.

black - I have bluebells too! They're looking great, but not quite fully out yet.

engel I love the idea of an arch - what do you plan to grow up it?

I'm just pondering roses for myself at the moment. I have one rather dull orangey one that someone left in a pot at our old place, which DH likes. But I miss the scented ones. My mum has a thing for roses and her soil does something amazing so the all grow about twice the size they're meant to. We counted them about fifteen years ago and she had upwards of 30 different ones and about 45 plants! So I feel odd without them, but also don't want to buy something that'll get too huge or that the landlord might not like.

What do you reckon? Unfortunately I love the ramblers but I think unless I found a small well-behaved one that's out. I quite fancy something like Shropshire lad.

Or, I guess, just patiently appreciating whatever the neighbour's one is.

lrd
have just bought loads of roses at poundland, the pack said they are scented.
have bought one of each colour, one of it is a pink climber.
but I will only find out in a few weeks if they have taken.

I am really looking forward to the roses this year. My favourite rose for scent is my Gertrude Jekyll but I think it gets quite big? I want to call the baby Rosamund if it is a girl, but DH is not having any of it, due to having a great aunt of the same name.

The spring green tulips in the twelve pots along the drive are not spring green. They are pink . I am annoyed, there are a good two hundred odd bulbs in there, ALL THE WRONG COLOUR. Either we made a mistake or they did, too long ago to find out now.