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.

I was in Camberwell, Maud.

Funny you just can't beat fresh young rhubarb straight from the plant! I have worked out where I want my rhubarb bed here - against the north facing wall in the orchard. I fancy trying a few different varieties, but the first will of course be the ancestral rhubarb. I just have to figure out how to get some here; whether to try to persuade my Dad to have a go at digging me out a bit of crown or to make a special flying visit up north, if I can get a child free pass one weekend. Obviously it's the wrong time of year now, but these things need planning.

Ah, quite close to me then, Rhubarb.

Maud sarf london is so different from the west side (does hand sign for 'w' like DS). I was driving through Greenwich and Black Heath the other day and saw children riding on scooters to school across the Black Heath. Very idyllic. I will be taking rose cuttings today for you from the Olympic roses.

It has taken a very long time for me to work out that under deciduous trees such as oak, there are 6 months in the year when plants are not shaded because there are no leaves. (duh!) Therefore it makes sense to plant loads of thing which flower Jan-Early May, and October-December: in short any spring and late Autumn flowering plants, provided one can then keep them happy till the Autumn leaves have fallen.

That said, plants with shallow roots, such as spring bulbs and annuals, are probably best, because the tree roots do dry out the ground and so the top layer of soil needs to be well enriched so that it will retain enough moisture for spring plants to grow and to carry on growing through the year.

things, even

Please can I join?

I am a fairly keen gardener, and have been for a long time. However, less keen in cold weather!

Rhubarb, I love Herefordshire Hampton Court too, and went there three times last year. Desperate for June, to get a second look at that yellow and blue border.

Pull up a pew, onefewernow, and take the weight off your slingbacks.:o

You'll be starting a new day, while the evening has drawn in here in Melbourne. A long day at work, so no time for the garden today. I'll be rushing home for the next few days as it'll be an unseasonable 23, no rain, so time to zap the oxalis in the lawn. It's a pest.

Welcome to our new friends, enjoy the potting shed gin!

I forgot to list one more bug from my wildlife tally yesterday... LILY BEETLE!!! Little bugger has already comprehensively chewed the young leaves of a giant oriental lily which has come up for the second year (ie it was planted as a bulb last spring and left in). I managed to cup my hands under the plant and then knock it off, so it didn't just fall to the earth and disappear. I will be watching out for any others like a hawk.

Now I haven't seen a lily beetle since I moved to Australia, but then I haven't tried to grow any. They were buggers in the UK.

Lily beetles. Ugh. I am squishing about a dozen a day and fighting the temptation to reach for the Provado.

Sorry, onefewernow. Didn't mean to ignore you. Welcome.

Hello onefewernow welcome! Pull up a garden chair, have a cool cocktail with ice and do tell us all about your garden. In detail please.

Holly blue and orange tip butterflies sighted today! There are queues of cars around, we have been told, but we (including poor frail dad) are sitting in the garden and being lazy reflective.

W. H. Davies

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare??
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Oh poor Maud! offers what a complete idiot. I'm sure we are all feeling your pain, stupid blinking twerp non-gardener.

I do love the word 'twerp', my gran used it on a regular basis before the dementia stole her thunder (not that I'm insinuating anything Maud!).

Here's hoping you haven't had a coronary xxxx

Obviously, my last post was about 4 pages ago

I have had a bonkers few days, and managed to acquire a new job! English teacher in my old school, so feels like moving back here is working out

My peonies have sprung up another 5 inches in the last week, it's truly amazing. What I thought were tulip bulbs, rescued from an overgrown border before it was dug out, have turned out to be bluebells! They are lovely.

My lavendar which I thought had died over the winter is sprouting glorious green little leaves everywhere, and I have hollyhocks, gladioli, welsh poppies, and sedum going great guns in the front (newly dug out and replanted) border.

Happy gardening everyone!

Funnyperson, I am a living lesson that garden greed is not good.

I had a 10 x 60 ft town garden for years and wanted more. We moved and I got a gorgeous early Edwardian 40 x 150 garden, terraced in three levels, with York stone and heaps of large beds, and a veg and fruit plot.

My H doesn't garden, so it nearly killed me off!

Last year we moved to a house with garden in parts. There is a piece of garden which wraps around the front and side of the house, about 13 ft deep, and probably 30-35 ft each side. But most of it is patio, with a one metre border running round the edge. It is east to get to both sides, as the front drive is a metre below, so the area, although level with the house, is effectively raised.

At the back there is a brick parking area, quite large, about 30 by 20ft.

Then a set of dog leg steps leading up to a very neat but dull area which needs much work. It is 50 by 15 ft, but narrows from 15 ft to 11 at the back. It is neatly fenced and with a shed at the end, the whole width of the garden, but not deep (10 by 3).

This land faces East but with good sun from the south as well. It is sunnier on the left as you look along it, although sunny altogether at the end.

That land is sloping, 4 ft drop probably front to back.

It is entirely lawned at the moment, with a single red leaved Acer half way up, a bit too bright, sadly, as the only plant there.

So boring as hell. Oh, and it is clay and stony and possibly has never been planted, other than the neat lawn, so it is HELL to dig- and I'm used to clay, always had it.

So that's me.

Never mind, rhihaf, I'm grateful for your concern! Congratulations on your new job.

My cosmos seeds have sprouted - hooray - and I've just had an enjoyable couple of hours sorting out the herb bed.

Hello

Went to Hampton Court Gardens yesterday, we had a lovely time but it was slightly too early. Not really a spring garden. It was still rather fabulous though, especially as there is a waterfall you can walk behind and a medieval village was visiting.

Heavenly day in the garden today. I watered the wildflower bed and the herb beds. I dug up some more bindweed from the herb beds, this is SO satisfying! Moved a trough into the greenhouse for salad and then planted some orange opium poppies in seed trays as the instructions on the packet said. I have never done this before, as I thought they did not like being moved, but who am I to argue with the instructions on the packet? Mixed up a gritty soil for my thyme. Sadly I got rather sick in the afternoon so I then went to sleep on the swing seat instead of getting any more done.

In the evening we went up to the hill fort to look at the bluebells. We were slightly too early, but it was spectacularly beautiful nonetheless.

The calendula in the greenhouse have sprouted, as have all my cosmos and courgette seeds. It is a revelation how fast things germinate in a greenhouse. I have only had north facing window sills before.

DH was as busy as always and is still out there now. He planted out the sweetpeas in the tripods in the cottage borders. I need to focus on the round vegetable bed, it is currently empty apart from the asparagus. I have red cabbage and russian kale to go in, broad beans and the courgettes and sweetcorn will go there in time. There is some dissent as to how to plant it up, DH is insisting on strict rotation of crop and I know he is probably right but I lean towards bunging it all in where it will look best.

I hope you have all had a lovely Bank Holiday Monday.

That all (apart from the sickness) sounds wonderful, Humph.

I have some opium poppies still to sow. I have done them in modules before - I have always heard that, having one main tap root, they are very sensitive to root damage and so sowing in a tray and pricking-out won't work, but sowing in modules and then transplanting them as a block of compost and plant should be ok.

I have been doing loads of planting, trying to get a better idea of where the gaps are and what more I might need to sow. I was delighted to find just now that the geum Borisii I bought at Hyde Hall last year and split, channelling Carol Klein, has made several nice plants. Unfortunately, geum Lady Stratheden didn't take so kindly to the treatment and seems to have died.

I am trying to free up a bit of time to go to Arundel Cathedral for the feast of Corpus Christi to see the carpet of flowers.
I i only live a few miles from there but the traffic is always a nightmare which tends to turn me off the idea of going.

I should have put them in modules - oh well, if they germinate I will just try and scoop out the contents of the tray without disturbing the root.

Geum Borisii looks lovely and exactly like the one in my garden I didn't know the name of. ah ha!

That sounds like a fabulous outing, cantspel. There was a lovely flower festival in Southwark cathedral, but I missed it.

I do love geums. I have a lot of Mrs Bradshaw too.

I have been doing pots today.

A silver metal bucket with a magenta senetti and silver senecios and white trailing pelargoniums.

A blue glazed pot with a deep mauve senetti, golden trailing helichrysum, a yellow diascia and a bronze-leaved geranium nigrescens.

Three pots of lilies with various assorted trailing pelargoniums and fuchsias tucked in.

A window box with pink/white verbena, blue diascia, and more of the pelargoniums and fuchsias, and silver senecio.

I have some cerinthe major plants coming from hayloft which I forgot I had ordered. They look really blue in the picture, but I've never seen them in real life. Has anyone got any, and what have you put them next to?

have not done anything today. have been working.
on the way home I noticed some fabulous flowering bushes (or trees?). bright blue, like bottle brushes. I am really crap with the latin names so find it difficult to find images.
at the end of the garden I have a similar tree but the flowers and leaves are much smaller and the flowers are less bright.

It is a lovely cathedral even without the carpet of flowers, quite modern in cathedral terms but very peaceful with great views over arundel and the stained glass is always worth seeing.

Dusty your pots sounds great. Mine are given over to lilies this year bar one with chocalate cosmos and the troughs on the shady side with begonia.

I am trying to decide how many pots to do this year. Each year I vow that pots are too much trouble, but they're just so wantable, aren't they? Those sound gorgeous, iheartdusty, especially the blue glazed pot.

I grew cerinthe from seed a few years ago and have some tiny seedlings now. They are very glaucous and blue. I used them as fillers, and put them near (variously) ophiopogon planiscapus nigrescens, blue aquilegias and various geraniums including Ballerina and Brookside. This year (trusting/assuming that they make decent plants) they will probably go next to geum Borisii, eryngium planum and various geraniums on the sunny side of the garden and next to alchemilla mollis and various other geraniums on the shady side.

Mousy - Could it be ceanothus?

I need to do one spectacular windowbox for our summer show. Generally, I think the key to success with pots is bigger and fewer. Some of my pots are just too small to make the sort of display I want.