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.

There were four overgrown shrubs, and I'm afraid I got rid of them [bublush] I wanted to have a blank canvas and as they didn't add structure or colour they went!

I've replaced them (yesterday!) with a Witch Hazel, an Acer, a barberry. I've also planted two peonies (do they count as shrubs?). The witch Hazel and Acer will be more like small trees I guess, but they're tiny now!

I chose the witch Hazel as it's a lovely shape and looks bright in late winter, the Acer for the red branches and structure. And the barberry because my husband liked it!

I'm worried I might have a little too much, but it's so hard to judge being a newby to all this.

I also added a couple of ornamental grasses too. (I may have got a bit carried away! )

I love Acers. We have two in pots. Too scared to plant them in our horrid ground and they seem quite happy. The one on the front door step catches the evening sun and glows when you come down the drive. It's lovely.

I have been planting! Carrots, spring onions, leeks and broad beans outside but all under cloches. Purple climbing beans, runner beans, basil, bronze fennel, electric daisies, borage, one type of cucumber (more to follow when warmer), three squashes, one type of courgette (more again to follow of both of those), tomatillo, nigella something or other and possibly other stuff that I've forgotten. All that is either in the conservatory or upstairs in a spare bedroom on a camping table by a radiator for those that need more warmth to get going.

DH has started building the arbour and we finished prepping the area it's going on. Just need to finish the construction, get it in the right place, build the planters and cover the area with gravel. Mmmmm, quite a bit to go I think.

I'm off for a spa night with a friend to recover

Wow, Bertha. That is amazing. I thought about sowing some seeds today but the sun never came out, so I wimped out.

Hello, apparently there's gin around here?

I'm a gardener (weekends and evenings at present since I'm also temping in an office for a few months) and having spent the day relocating hydrangeas I'd just like to say...

....oooh, my back.

Hello Leucan. My spa night just got cancelled, so I'm going to join you....my back aches too!

At one point Maud I was actually gardening in snow flurries but then the sun would pop out again. The DDs were in the garden most of the day too and they've gone to bed with bright red cold burn faces!

Hello, Bertha - I'm sorry about the cancellation, or are you quite relieved?

It snowed on me a little today, too. But lovely and sunny most of the time. Think my red face is more to do with the bowl of stew, glass of red wine, and sitting about one foot away from the fire... [bublush]

I took my gum tree prunings to the dump today and found they were selling lovely organic locally produced compost. I bought 3 large bags for a tenner which sound fill my pots ready for the dahlia to go in once they star shooting. I have 20 bulbs so quite a few pots will be needed and they will fill a shady wall on the patio.
I also managed to get a very healthy looking hebe from morrisons for £2.50, some seed compost from The range buy one and get one free and a reduced seed propagator.
Grass looks like it is ready for its first cut of the year so i must fil up the petrol can in readyness and if we get a few more dry days i should be able to crack up the lawn mower.

No, I was quite looking forward to an evening in a spa with wine Leucan. But we've only postponed until tomorrow so I imagine my back will still be aching then.

Any pig news, humph? And a genuine question, what is the difference between a pigscot and a sty? Is it a regional thing?
Thanks all for the cherry tips, I think what I meant was that I have seen them in the catalogues but always assumed that they never actually fruited, it was just a bit of optimism on the sellers part, unless you lived in cornwall with a heated greenhouse and vibrantly green fingers. Like those exotic seed packs that say you can grow bird of paradise pants, or similar, from seed but I bet noone ever has!
Not much gardening here, tried to do some general sorting out but it was so cold that the dcs were getting whingey. Heavenly to see the sun a couple of times though.

Aargh, plants, not pants. Bloomin autocorrect! Hmmm, bird of paradise pants, could be a moneyspinner......

Hello Gin thats interesting that you have a north facing garden with the far end getting sun. I suppose its the east facing wall gets sun too. Thats quite a good place to put a fruit tree.
Well your spring bulbs are good to go in the far border, and summer flowering things such as clematis, roses in the east facing border. Roses and honeysuckle might do fine in the west facing border too, if the sun reaches the top of the boundary, as will ferns, grasses and hostas and hellebores, astrantia, alchemilia mollis, ceratostigma, crocosmia, winter jasmine etc.
Like Monty said there is loads of choice out there and soon will be the best time to plant up, and in a way I think it is useful to decide what kind of garden you want: contemporary or cottage or naturalistc or tropic, structured and symmetrical or rampant and informal, bright pinks and yellows or whites and creams or burgundy and green and orangey and so on cos then you can make better choices.
Plantsforshade is a good website for plants for shady areas. RHS website has lots of good advice.
I really like the sound of the acer in a pot Bertha How did you manage to plant all that veg out? Was it already sown indoors?
Welcome cantspel Brioche all got eaten: I will cook some more when I get round to it.

Haha listen to me giving gardening advice! I am in fact a complete amateur!

no piglets yet! We worked out it could be couple of weeks from now. The suspense is getting to me.

We call it a pigscot because that is what the farmer called it when we bought the house from him, no other reason that I know of. It is a low stone building with a large stone walled pen attached, divided in two. We had the pigs in the field before but it got too muddy for them to stay overwinter.

Examined the clematis on the rose walk today. We lost about 40% of all those we planted last year, and those that are alive didn't do much. Hopefully they will find their feet a little this year.

Sorry funny - 'planting' may have been the wrong word. I have been 'sowing'. No actual plants to speak of but lots of trays and pots of hopefulness!

Humphrey - should we stop asking about the piglets? Is it like when someone is 42 weeks pregnant and everyone phones up to ask, 'have you had the baby yet?' I remember scaring a lady on Sainsbury's checkout by shouting saying, '2 weeks ago' when she asked me when the baby was due.

I am always happy to discuss the pigs! Although I know what you mean, I once sobbed to my DH at nine days overdue when I had told the sixth person to phone that day that I WASN'T in labour..

trays and pots of hopefulness - what a great way to describe it

I found an effective way of jump-starting labour. At 38 weeks, 6am one morning suffering from insomnia I decided I absolutely had to go out to the greenhouse and climb up on a very high stool to tie in the tomato plants to the greenhouse roof. Predictably, fell off stool, bump side down. Dd arrived shortly afterwards.

I don't recommend this method.

Hello ladies. Good to see you here, Leucan.

A tiny bit of sun yesterday has made me more optimistic about the garden. After last night's internet horti-shop today I bought a lilac and another clematis in Lidl.

funnyperson - Just because you're an amateur - as most of us are ::genuflects to professional gardeners:: - doesn't mean you don't know whereof you speak. I often act on your advice.

Morning all, Happy Easter. Here's a for Gin and Leucan- would offer wine but it's a bit early.

I'm in Holland, it's started to snow again and there isn't a tulip to be seen. To be fair we're practically in Germany and it's a bit confusing to know which language to try in the nearest town as it's split in the middle. In fact everything looks decidedly dead where we're staying and the reception staff sound even more depressed than we are about the absence of spring .

Happy Easter! [busmile}
Maud [bushock] that you take my advice!

It is a wonderful sunny morning here, frosty but bright. The robins, blackbirds and blue tits are flying about in pairs, digging for grubs (let them get every slug I say) and chirping their hearts out. Spring is late but it is on its way. I feel it in the air, like Mole in the Wind in the Willows. I think it will be a very warm May and I too have an urge to go out and get lots of seeds and sow them asap like Bertha. I like reading about how the arbour is coming along.

Wynken Sometimes I get serious angst about my garden but then at other times I remember going back to see a garden I once gardened, 15 years after I left it, and the change made me realise how much the garden had in fact depended on my input, and how much lovelier it had been as a result even though I didn't always think so.

Clematis here are very slow, and I have put extra mulch round them to protect the new shoots of the summer and autumn flowering ones. Hosta and rhodedendron died and the pesky squirrels chewed the tender tops of the tulips which were coming through. But the Japonica is finally blooming.

HumphA Pigscot sounds like Blandings. A pregnant pig must be exciting and nerve racking for non farming mortals. Are you choosing names or will that tempt fate? How do you look after piglets?

Welcome Leucan Please accept some and a choccy egg. Please tell us about your garden.

Happy Easter [busmile]!

Our day is fully booked, but if this lovely sunshine persists, I will make a start on my seed-sowing tomorrow.

::trills::

I take your advice FP, you always sound as if you know exactly what you're talking about

Bit jealous if you've all got sun and can hear bird song. It has stopped snowing now though thank goodness. I'm looking forward to tomorrow as that's the day we're off to see my Aunt and her garden with the Cherry Tree. Bet it looks smaller looking at it as an adult, will be interesting to see.

That is definitely quite a drastic way to start labour Rhubarb, take it you didn't fancy a curry !

Happy Easter everyone.

The Temby daffodils I planted in the orchard look wonderful. They have spread really well in the last three years. That was practically my first gardening act in my new garden, it made me so happy to see them this morning. It is a beautiful day.

We won't be naming the piglets as they are eventually to be eaten. Naming is terrible, DS named the pigs we have Spot and Ginge, they should have been eaten last year....instead they are happily grunting around in their pigscot! The whole eating animals thing is strange when you have children. When he was younger DS just accepted it was what was going to happen, he is more resistant now. Butchering day can be a lovely family occasion though, lots of children running around whilst the adults work.

Humph, you really need to open under the National Garden Scheme. We'd charter a charabanc.

Thank you, all, and Happy Easter.

Don't invite me to tell you about my garden...

Oh, ok. [bugrin]

It's about 30mx50, SE facing, bordered on two sides with hawthorn and blackthorn hedging with honeysuckle, with some random silver birches and rowans (I recently added a cherry, a quince and an apple), and a clump of silver birch near one corner. The third side is bounded by a river (yes, it floods), but with a mess of blackthorn, willow, beech and lilac between the lawn and the water.

There's an awful lot of lawn, so large scoops and curves of it are let to grow meadow'ish, with paths in between, and plenty of papavers, meconopsis and ox-eye daisies shoved in (keeping them unstrangled is more effort than it's worth, I sometimes think).

I have two smallish blobs of herbaceous borders next to the house, and one long one against one of the hedges, five large (2mx3m) veg patches, a greenhouse, and every herb you've ever thought of either lurking in the beds or in pots on the patio just outside the back door. Fruit is scattered around - gooseberries, blackcurrants and redcurrants lurking near the hedge trying to blend in, raspberries up against the house, strawberries (alpines too) sharing with the veg.

The front is a dead zone - cobbles, shade, piercing wind. But this year, the vinca in the trough has already surpassed itself.

Sorry. [bublush]

30x50!!! [buenvy]

Wow.

I have done some late bulbs along my 4m front path and mulched with compost. DS was pretty good at the compost distributing, less at the bulb dibbing...

Also planted a gooseberry I got off the bargain shelves in about Sept. mulched the gooseberry/raspberry row (4m across front of living room window) and observed with despair the disastrous level of weeds already getting established well ahead of the bulbs, phlox, etc in the rest of my total failure R/W/B patriotic 2012 front garden.

The shed has been damp over winter so I am expecting some stored stuff to fail. I bought 50 dahlias in a bag (dark stemmed/leaved type) for 7.99 at Costco which I don't think I will get planted today because my back hurts already. It is time for me to have a restorative snooze while DH/DS do more of the bank holiday DIY jobs round the house...