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 am a sucker for pots and my collection grows every year by at least 5 more
I have about 30 dotted about the front and back garden. Lilies is the main theme this year but i also have hydrangea, fascicularia bicolour. fatsia, a half dead fern i bought in the bargain corner of the garden centre that i am nursing back to health and a small christmas tree. The lilies will be under planted with bedding plants.

Hello Onefewernow, your garden sounds like it has huge potential. It's nice beginning with a blank canvas like that, you can build up slowly rather than rushing here and there trying to maintain stuff you don't really like and want to change but haven't time because you are so busy rushing here and there maintaining things... I know what you mean about garden greed...

Mousy the blue flowering shrubs you describe could be ceanothus. There are many varieties.

We spent the day at Sheffield Park Gardens today. The weather was perfect and it was just bliss, really. Such a pretty garden with a number of lakes and bridges and woodland to explore. Full of bluebells - English bluebells, not Spanish. It's so rare to see them these days I'd forgotten quite how much prettier they are than the Spanish usurpers. Dd ran around without stopping the whole time we were there, then passed out in the car on the way home.

This of course meant that she didn't go to sleep when put to bed and we were then treated to an hour long monologue about willies and bottoms through the baby monitor.

yes, that could be.
thanks.
a large one (with large rhododendron-like leaves) is a few streets down from us. the one in my garden has very small leaves (like peppermint leaves). needs a good pruning....

we were then treated to an hour long monologue about willies and bottoms through the baby monitor

I am assuming that DD is not fourteen ::grin::

I used to do mixed pots but in recent years have tended more to one specimen per pot. Iheartdusty is inspiring me to do some mixed pots again.

My front garden is all in pots but I am trying to have fewer pots in the back garden. That said, because the soil is so heavy, I put all my lilies in black pots which I then station in the flower beds so that the pots are hidden by the other plants.

Gosh, I used to PANIC if DS fell asleep in the car. Fatal. at monitor monologue

Those sound like lovely gardens Rhubarb. I love the scent of bluebells. So delicate and elusive.

I have done all my lilies in pots to keep them away from the cat as i didn't want them to be at his level. He wont nibble at them but i worried me might brush against them at get the pollen on his fur and then ingest it when grooming himself.

Rhubarb sounds a lovely day out.
I had a lazy morning as we went out for a meal the night before but my peace was short lived due to teen boys in and out the house all day either looking for food or money to buy food.

thanks all. google tells me it's a ceanothus thyrsiflorus it's quite tall, about 5 meters.
now I need to find out how best to prune (or are experts worth it?)

rhubarb oh yes the quiet talks about bodily functions, my 3yo likes to sing them in the tunes of nursery rhymes...

Ha, no Maud she's nearly three . Although there are definitely times when I see flashes of a teenager in there.

Lilies and cats - v bad combo, you are being eminently sensible Cantspel. My brother's cats ended up on drips after chewing lilies when they were kittens. Fortunately no damage done (to the kittens anyway - I can't say the same about the lilies).

Birds and cats - another bad combo. My two dozy beasts have only caught two pigeons and a solitary mouse in the seven years we've had them. Then suddenly in the past 24 hours they have dispatched a greenfinch and a blackbird.

Pots. I had far too many pots at the last house. The watering was the bane of my life, but I loved them. I had to leave them all behind and now I don't have a single one. It's strangely liberating, but I doubt this state of affairs will last long.

::Fist pump:: at lucky guess knowledgeable identification of ceanothus.

You left your pots behind, Rhubarb? That must have hurt. When we moved here, much of the space in the van was taken up with the pots from the roof terrace that until that point had been our only garden.

I have been on Ebay. I seem to have bought an agapanthus (for a fraction of the cost on Crocus) and am bidding on some pots. I blame Iheartdusty.

It did hurt. Especially the peach trees and the Albizia. I had planned to take them all with me, but due to bastard vendor stalling last minute hitches we ended up homeless for two weeks between houses, so all our stuff had to go into storage in a container while we crammed four of us into a one bed flat. Taking plants was impossible. The only exceptions were a small gooseberry bush that I'd dug up and begged a neighbour to take care of, and a little primula that I smuggled into the car when dh wasn't looking. Both had come from my grandpa's garden when he died and it would have broken my heart to leave them.

Lost my long post on pots.

Love pots.

I am planning on planting cerinthe among the venetian dahlias and delphiniums. How tall and bushy do the plants grow, maud?
The echinacea will go in among the crocosmia and in front of clematis viticella abundance

My (probably unreliable) memory is that the cerinthe grew to about 18 inches/50 cm. The RHS says it can reach a metre. Some of mine might have been a bit stunted by being in the shade, of course.

rhubarb thats a bit heart rending about your pots. Here have some in memory. Leaving a garden is always a bit sad. Though I take comfort that it will grow in a different way. Pots are so transitory anyway though. A garden really only lasts while one gardens it. Someone else comes along and it changes.

It is tough leaving pots, plants and gardens. Even now I wonder what plants in every one of my old gardens ( three in total) look like now. I also regret all those plants I didn't move!

Yes Rhubarb, the blank canvas is at lest a bonus.

I'm terms of design, I keep changing my mind. My usual is formal structure, with a framework of shrubs and with lots of romantic planting.

But the garden has stunning views over the town and the hilly countryside on the hillsides behind it. I suppose you could say the hill we are on is a mirror of the hills opposite, the hills are a patchwork of fields and wooded areas. It's really tempting to think of a way to refer to the view somehow in the design.

Re bindweed, which someone mentioned, I had some success in the last garden with a tip from a Beth Chatto book. It involves making up a strong weed killer, then putting on rubber or latex gloves them a wooly glove on top. You then dip the glove in the weed killer and stroke the weeds. It's great if the weeds are mixed with other planting, as you don't get both!

I don't use much artificial product, but sometimes needs must.

I have noticed bindweed near the grapevine and ground elder near the honeysuckle on the back fence - I may try the Beth Chatto method, as the paint-on glysophate just doesn't seem to be working.

Today's job is to tie in the rose New Dawn and clematis Jackmanii that grow through the apple tree. And I have a dentist's appointment right next to the pound shop, so who knows what bargains are to be found there?

I have a hankering to move house, but know I could never leave this garden!

When we moved last year we didn't complete on the old house until 2 months after we bought the new so i did keep going back and digging out a few of my favorites. Wish i had bought more with me but didn't want to leave the garden bare.
The garden is looking lovely in the sunshine this morning. The pink of the cherry blossom behind the white of the magnolia is stunning.

Thinking on pots, our first six years in Australia were in rentals, so all we had was pots. 15 massive pots of aspidistras, 10 of agave attenuate and 3 of kangaroo paws. We gave away many of the agave, and planted much of the aspidistras as ground cover, though the few pots left have multiplied fearsomely. Now there are 20 aeonium purpureum 6 new jade plants - succulents will grow in any soil you poke them in - and 4 gardenia.

I feel a plant sale is coming on.:o

We always say we'll cut down on pots, but always give in, usually by potting on cuttings and divisions. I refuse to give up the gardenias. I chopped them back a treat five weeks ago and they've come up trumps with little leaves sprouting already. Can't wait for the heavenly pong in the summer.

I seem to remember that Queen Victoria had gardenias around her coffin while lying in state, and their perfume was so overpowering, some of her guard fainted.

Current mostly longstanding pots:
purple sage. dill+fennel+tarragon+thyme. clematis integrifolia with cosmos purity. sweet peas with tripod. dahlia bishop of landaff with calla lily with begonia x2, cerinthe will go in too. magnolia stella. pieris. rhodedendron alba. 5 pots with roses. pinks. daffodils with chrysanthemum which comes through when daffodils fade.tulips with squills. meconopsis with hepatica. The purple sage with the bright red pieris looks stunning atm.
Pots themselves are mostly terracotta, but also one is deep purple ceramic, one bright yellow ceramic, one aluminium bucket from IKEA, one very successful large plastic terracotta look-alike which should be naff but isn't, and doesn't get as dry as the untreated terracotta pots, which evaporate water really really fast.
It is lovely watching people linger in the front patio, just looking before they come in.
I am hopeless at window boxes and hanging baskets.
I dont use weedkiller. The rose alberic barbiere has black spot on some of last years leaves so I'm going to have to do something.

Funnyperson - Where did you get your terracotta look-a-like pot? I was just about to start a thread asking for recommendations, as I need to repot the Christmas tree and, for the size I need, a genuine terracotta pot would be too heavy to haul in and out of the house every Christmas.

Your pots all sound lovely.

morrisons were selling large terracotta pots for £4> Pretty basic pots but very good value for the price.
I might have a photo of one in the garden. hold on and i will put it on my profile.

Sorry but it is very small but it is the end pot by the stairs. It is not as light as plastic but it is quite light for the size as it is just like a giant flower pot.
The urns next to it in white are plastic and i got them very cheaply from a local hardware store. £2.99 and sitting waiting for my glam rock hydrangea to arrive. They will go in the pots for this year then into the garden next.

Cantspel - is the Glamrock hydrangea from T&M? I saw it on there a while ago and have been dithering ever since. We don't have a hydrangea and I love it (it was in my wedding bouquet).

DH just finished cutting both lawns and we have lit the BBQ! I do love sunshine.

Lots of the Poundland bulbs I planted in the new border are sprouting - hooray! For some reason my courgettes and peas from T&M have failed miserably to germinate, despite other seeds sprouting away. Any tips? They're in my greenhouse in pots.

Love the baby monitor story Rhubarb! Talking of rhubarb, I need to manure mine.

the bare root red currant bush has a few very tiny leaves, only planted lat week, so very pleased with that.
no sign yet of any leaves on the roses. hope that massive (7£) poundland investment was not wasted.
only one of my pumpkin seeds germinated, but hopefully that one survives the snails and slugs and produces one tasty pumpkin.