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'll have to riposte with the lovely Botanical Gardens at Cranbourne, all Australian, and ditto for the fabulous Maranoa Gardens.

I know I said autumn had arrived about umpteen pages ago, but it promptly turned back into summer with 30+ for quite a while. Anyway, it seems to be really autumn now. The tibouchina is in flower, a vivid, almost luminous purple, as are the various plectranthus, more purple and pale lilac.

The change of season announced itself with howling gales, though it was the gust which did the damage, and my 8 foot tree dahlia fell over. I promptly chopped up the stem, and each piece will grow a new plant next year. They are so weird, growing from nothing to 12 feet in a season, but very susceptible to wind damage, yet too big to be staked.

I've planted an Indian hawthorn (neither Indian nor a hawthorn) at the bottom of the garden; very hard to work with as it is shady in the winter and scaldingly hot in the summer. In a more reliably shady part I've planted three plectranthus eriksonii which grow to about 3 feet, flower in late summer/early autumn, and don't mind a ferocious hacking back if they get out of hand.

Oh yes, the gardens of the Alhambra with the water flowing down the balustrade!
Also the gardens in the ancient townhouses in Pompei.

The botanical gardens in Oxford, and the Oxford college gardens

There are so many gardens I must visit on your list rhubarb. I have never been to Harlow Carr. Yet the rose named after it is so pretty.

echt what is a tree dahlia?

I am listening to the birdsong from the garden. It sounds like a little bit of heaven.

Hello, funnyperson, I see you're up early doors. I've just checked on the clock we keep set to UK time for Skype.

The tree dahlia is called dahlia imperialis and its stem is rather like bamboo in construction but not hardness. It's not easy to grow in our garden because we're on a hill (sand dune really) so get lots of wind. I should say it's very easy to grow, but so often gets felled by wind, so the flowers never arrive. If you google it - I'm terrible with links - you should get Burke's Backyard with info. I would imagine it would grow in the south of the Uk quite well. It blooms in mid-winter here. It;s a bit of fun really, because you might only be able to grow it where you can't see its flowers on top of 12-15 stems.

Your mentioning of birdsong made me nostalgic, though we have blackbirds here and, very rarely, the song thrush. Usually it's the melancholy gargling of the magpies. Two weeks ago I was thrilled to the marrow to hear a kookaburra, very unusual for a suburban area. It was soon seen off by agitated ravens, though.

Hi all, I'm new to this gardening lark but very excited. I have a Witch Hazel and an Acer to plant out today. Is it too cold to plant out my summer bulbs at the same time?

rhubarbgarden, I'm also in Sussex and have just had my garden cleared for a very reasonable price. Do you want me to pm you their details?

Hello, Gin, and welcome.

I think the answer to your summer bulb question is "it depends". Is your soil very cold and waterlogged? If it is, I'd wait a week or two.

my soil is good actually. I dug manure into it last autumn, and the garden is sufficiently sheltered not to have got to wet. so I'll plant them up today.

I'm so excited! The garden was a total overgrown disaster when I moved in last summer and today is when I finally make real progress. After years of living in flats it's amazing to finally get a garden.

I'm sure I'll make lots of beginner's mistakes

I still do.

I have just done my first bit of gardening for weeks, potting up my latest delivery of T&M plugs (I got bit carried away with the ordering). I have put the tougher ones in the unheated growhouse but will nurture the rest indoors for a while.

Well hello all, what a lovely day it has been (even if cold cold cold).We threw open the french doors to the garden this morning and put washing on the line (which I now need to beseech DH to bring in before it gets dark and truly freezing out there).

I (and DS, not entirely usefully, but he is only 3) dug over 3-4m of veg bed, have no plans for it yet. I dug and installed a new row of stone edging between the lawn and the pond fence, where primroses and other bulbs grow and I will need to think of something to sow there for the summer - cosmos and stocks I think.

Came in at 11, had other chores today to do. Also, need to get my gardening mojo back slowly, not exhaust it all at once!

Welcome Gin. Please do pm me your gardener's details, thanks v much! I love witch hazels. I made a lovely winter border at our old house, which had a couple of witch hazels in it. They always brought me so much joy in the depths of winter. Which one did you get?

Lexy I had similar 'help' from my two year old in the garden today. Her input mostly consisted of questions like "where is the worm's face?" and a fascination with the wheelbarrow full of composted manure when she realised it was a kind of poo. "Put more poo in the hole, Mummy!" etc.

I did get another stretch of yew hedge done though. Hard work - more and more lumps of concrete and old bricks the further along I get.

Any news of the piggy babies? I enjoyed listening to the lambs in the nearby field while I was digging. Rather pleasanter than the soundtrack of police and ambulance sirens we had back in London.

I enjoyed hearing about your kookaburra Echt. I found myself singing the kookaburra song while I dug, actually!

Have pm'd you rhubarb

I'm afraid I don't know what type of witch Hazel it is [bublush]. I'm v new to this gardening lark and so can just about remember the type of plants!

I spent a really pleasant afternoon planting up my border. Having had the ivy cut back last weekend, the sun finally came over into that patch of our garden [bugrin]. I had to guess whether I put things in the right place, but I hope so!

I can't wait for everything to come out now!

I surprised myself watching the start of GW on iplayer the other day when they showed (but didn't name, I think) three examples of some shrub that was in Carol's garden, and I thought 'viburnum', not really expecting to be right, and then when it came to the full item, it was!! I was quite chuffed with self.

Happier with Monty's scarf tonight. Do you think he took note of our disapproval?

The sun came out today, unfortunately no gardening opportunity as we had a house full of people and chocolate fuelled children. Tomorrow I am planting regardless of weather, DDs, DH, dog...I need to know things are growing. This stasis is getting to me.

Sorry, forgot to say welcome to Gin.

hello everyone

no piggies yet - the suspense is running high in the Cobbler household.

I have come to the realisation that we really need a greenhouse. I literally have nowhere to grow anything on in this weather. It is a ridiculous state of affairs considering how much space we need to fill. Last year we used the outside part of the pigscot as this is sheltered but sunny but the pigs are inhabiting it this year. I have bought one of those plastic ones three years running and they have been blown away and broken each time - our garden is rather prone to occasional violent wind because we cut down everything that obstructed the view without considering the fact that those leylandii had been put there for a reason

Welcome to Gin. It is lovely to finally get a garden after wanting one for so many years. I was so happy to find out it was even better than I thought it would be

Thanks everyone, you're a very welcoming bunch

Carol Klein's scarf was disturbingly thin though. And I normally won't hear a word against Carol.

Bosvigo is now added to the list of gardens to visit.

I am about to start GW on iPlayer.

I might also go back onto the RIP Corner thread to invite them all to join in some more optimistic garden chat here!

Hello and welcome gin.

I've potted up all the weedy basil plants DH grew into one big pot. Big enough to put a head in now I think of the Keats poem. While I'm on the topic of burying the evidence, I had to dig a hole to pour in the noisome contents of our liquid fly trap. Bloody unbelievable stench, but well worth it; in the 24 hours that elapsed while I put the jar at the back of the house before digging the hole, a fly got in. The stuff is miraculous, only one fly in the house the whole summer. Believe me, prior to the pongy fly trap, it was fly Gallipoli here.:o

I'm off now to watch Monty on iPlayer.

Soo.. finished watching GW. The bit I loved was the close-ups of Carol Klein's earth-blackened fingernails. The Lady Macbeth of the the garden. I see by this programme that I'm impulsive and untidy, just stuffing the beds and seeing what takes.

Any way it's feet up tomorrow as I'm off to see The Boss perform at Hanging Rock. I'm not a particular fan, though I can see he is very good but DH is, and Mr Springsteen may not be back any time soon.

Good morning echt ! I see I'm posting a bit late today! I had to attend to non gardening matters- one of the DC came back late last night with three big black bags of laundry. I think he may have done no washing at all this term and I am a bad bad mother for bringing him up like that. However he looked very tired. They both looked very tired, and are now fed and hugged and lauded and are in their beds, and lots of the laundry is already done. I put a hellebore on the top of a book case in the hallway and its nodding flowers also welcomed them!

Yesterday was a good gardening day. I potted on the delphiniums and cosmos, and the dahlias and alchemilla are starting up in pots too. And I mulched the borders! Technique a la Monty, who looked very comfortable in his woolly jumper and blue neck thing. That blue colour suits him. His greenhouse and cold frames are state of the art, utilitarian and not show-offy.

I was blown away by the Hertfordshire garden shown. I am sowing some echinea seeds as they went so nicely with the sedum in the 'naturalistic garden' and I have been looking for a companion plant for the sedum for a while.
Gardening is such a varied creation- so many ways of planting - as varied as the flora of the world and the people in it too, I suppose!

On a more sombre note I completed the RHS survey on climate change and gardens. Windbreaks, greenhouses, cold frames and mulching , with raised vegetable beds are the way to go to adapt apparently. It seems a bit expensive. I think I'm going to need ways of gardening which require less 'kit' if you see what I mean. Anyway, the olive tree and lavender and oregano will do well in the new climate, and I have a wonderful feeling the canna lilies will too! Happy Easter weekend to everyone [busmile]

sorry echinacea even.

Springsteen at Hanging Rock !!!!!!!! [buenvy] [buenvy] [buenvy]

Sorry- forgot- Hello Gin welcome! Do have some camomile tea. and home made gluten free brioche. Very nice with honey! Tell us more about your garden. It is wonderful having a garden of your own. Or even a patio or a terrace. Or even a verandah. Anywhere where plants can grow. But especially a garden.

Hi! Yes, it's lovely having a garden. Thanks for the brioche!

my garden is quite small. It's about 8x12m. North facing - the bottom end gets quite a lot of sun, but one wall and our side return never gets the sun.

It's all paved initially we thought about digging up enough to give us a lawn but we've decided not to just yet.

There used to be a summerhouse at the bottom of the garden, so that bit has a concrete base. I dug out borders around the edge of that, and have fixed a trellis to the back, and will have climbers. On the other side, where the sun hits, I'm going to put a herb garden. so the concrete will be our sitting out spot surrounded by climbers and herbs, and plants in herbs [busmile]

then I've dug out a 1m wide border. I'm aiming for a bit if all round color and country garden planting. hopefully

next year, I'll probably dig up some paving stones on the shady side and build up some planters for shade loving plants like hostas. But I probably won't get around to that this year, as we still have lots to do on the house and front garden!

Can I ask a question? my borders look very sad and empty at the moment. In the autumn/winter I'll dig in spring bulbs and I would like hellebores. But in the meantime is the anything (not too expensive!) I can plant up?

Do you have any shrubs, Gin? When I started (and my garden is about the same size as yours) I didn't really bother with shrubs, but I have gradually added them because they do give some structure all year round. There are sometimes bargains to be had in pound shops.