Blooming into Flaming June

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Keeping the potting shed party going from the previous Rhubarb Society thread and all threads before it.

Please feel free to join in all gardeners, whether novice, professional or aspiring. Plenty of blackberry gin for all.

That bloody goose just attacked me! It wouldn't go in the house as it was sitting on an egg on the pile of rubble. We normally move the eggs in the daytime but must have missed this one. I went over the rubble from the back to usher it into the house and it went for me and I fell over backwards with a flapping goose on me. On to a pile of rubble.

That goose is LUNCH, I tell you.. Well, it isn't. But I feel I should have let the fox get it. I can't touch birds, they are yuk. If they play up DH he just holds their neck at arms length and they can't reach him. I am not cut out for hobby farming

sorry Mousy, I am not sure of rose etiquette - I am sure others will be along soon.

humphrey how scary.
when growing up our neighbours had geese to fatten up for christmas. I got attacked quite a few times, as it was a nice shortcut from the school bus home. blue shins and bottoms and feeling deaf for a while from the wings.
but so tasty!

Eek, Humph.

I have a grapevine but am pretty clueless about vine maintenance. It's quite new but I'm hoping for fruit this year.

Mousy re your roses I would take out inward pointing side shoots and leave outward ones. The aim with roses is to create a 'goblet' shaped plant. Don't worry too much about it though, you could just leave it to do its thing and then bear this in mind when deadheading and autumn pruning.

I had a lovely day at Chelsea today. I found the Telegraph garden very contemplative and it really grew on me, and Roger Platts centenary garden was impossible not to love. I thought the Australian garden was fabulous (made me think of Echt, and now I know what a Kangaroo Paw looks like). But my favourite was the Stoke on Trent council garden. Not for the design, particularly, but the planting was just so exquisite and refreshing with its burnt oranges and burgundies.

I think I'm having something of an orange moment actually; I kept being drawn to orange plants in the Great Paviliion. Think I may have to do an orange/burgundy/lime/cream border. Hmm.

I also found myself nosing round the Alitex stand and asking for ballpark costs for the sort of three quarter span lean-to I have in mind. Reported back to dh, and he made a humphing noise and asked if that included VAT. So he didn't laugh hysterically and say 'No, just no' as I'd feared. I think this is positive.

The hoi polloi went to chelsea today from this neck of the woods. I was so excited I couldnt sleep and got asthma and diarrhoea and had to be medicated upto the eyeballs. Mum convinced herself it woud a be too crowded and too much and said she wouldn't go. Dad got excited that we were going so then he got ill(ish) so I ended up going alone at the crack of dawn and got there at 7.30 am thinking I woud get back home by lunchtime and see dad and then go and watch summer eights final day and cheer on DD. rofl.

Did you stay all day FunnyP? The crowds got the better of me by 1ish so I didn't hang around for the sell off. Which gardens did you like?

The weather was gorgeous and it is fair to say that my mouth was probably open (when it wasn't smiling) and my eyes popping for the first hour at least. Dear Readers I tell you now that any gardener who has not been to the Chelsea flower show at the crack of dawn and stayed till the incredible sell off on the last day has not lived. The gardens are stunning. But stunning. The tv doesn't do them justice. Not even remotely. The flowers are incredible. The people who design the gardens, and the garden companies who come are so pleasant and informative to talk to. The sculpture stalls are wonderful. There is every kind of wacky garden fountain on display. There are artisan retreats. There are arias from la Boheme being sung live. There is Purbeck ice cream. There are birds, butterflies, trees, and it all smells of outdoors and green and garden and flowers and the whole thing is a sight for sore eyes.
The Australian garden was beautiful and I too thought of echt. The physicians artisan garden was very very pretty. The Laurence Perrier garden poncy in a very very good way and very relaxing to watch.
Will talk plant detail tomorrow.
Main themes were purples, whites, greens with splashes of orange. Lots of purple aquilegia, white anemone blanda and purple irises. But those gardeners are genuises. Their planting is subtle and varied and never looks OTT.

I stayed till 5.30 and had lots of breaks (well, coffee and cake at 11, veg miso soup at 2, choc ice cream and another rest at 3.........you know, hobbit fashion)
The place was quiet until 11 when I think it is fair to say it heaved and having breaks was the sensible option. It then got quiet again at about 3.30.
My favourite gardens were the Physicians artisan garden by the Welsh botanic gardens team, the Australian garden, the Laurence Perrier garden and the Bradford garden
The trees in the Japanese garden were stunning the homebase garden was also stunning. Which did you like best?

Clematis COuntess of Wessex looked very pretty indeed on the clemaic stands. Lemon dream looked good too, I thought of Maud. The roses were interesting because as they were all in flower, one could smell them and immediately one pink rose could be seen to be better than another.

In short, Gentle Hermione smells rather odd whereas Queen of Sweden is rather nice.

The sell off is amazing (prices very very reasonable for fantastic plants and all reasonably sedate not the scramble the newspapers make out) and fine because it means the plants are going to good homes, and watching the plants being taken home at the taxi stand is very amusing indeed. As is getting ones own plants home. Those who fared best had fold up plastic IKEA type trolleys.

The only thing is the outing is an expensive one. Therefore not an everyday treat. I will stop posting now. Sorry.

It sounds WONDERFUL. rofl at hobbit fashion, I do that. You sound thoroughly happy.

I was surprised at how television does not do justice to the gardens after my day at Malvern. I must go to Chelsea next year.

It has been wonderfully sunny and warm here today. A lovely day.

This is the sensible sort of thing to take
www.esedirect.co.uk/p-3300-folding-box-cart.aspx
as it keeps the plants you buy safe from being squashed.
Did I have one of those??DId I heck.

I do by the way wish to explode a common myth about Chelsea which is that the only people who go apart from royalty and tv commentators are 60 something females.
This is not the case. There were loads of very hunky men there, 16-60 average age 40 something. The younger the male the more technically sophisticated the camera inevitably hanging round the neck with the macro lens. Most men, however, appeared to be with partners.

I have one of those for the Hampton Court jamboree. The trouble is, one isn't enough...

Queen of Sweden is my favourite rose. I need to put some in here. I have also decided I need Lady Emma Hamilton and one I saw today called something like hot chocolate although the scent was a bit odd.

You are quite right about telly not doing the gardens justice. I saw the Stoke on Trent one on telly and thought meh, but in real life the planting was an absolute joy.

I have ended the day feeling very upbeat. Yesterday I went to bed fretting that my garden is too big for me and out of control; tonight I see it as bursting with opportunity and it doesn't matter that the weeds have gone feral and I haven't had time to do this, that and everything else because I have years and years to shape and mould and nurture this quarter acre.

Chelsea is very inspiring.

Eek comedy x post. Not a hunky man, a folding trolley thing that is. Although I do think one man is indeed not enough

haha at man/trolley thing
Yes Chelsea is inspiring, even for the commoner gardener, which surprised me.

I think it is interesting that the gardening camera work doesnt do it justice. Its not like the Attenborough programmes which are as much about the camera as about Attenborough. Gardening programmes are primarily about the presenters and gardeners and only therefore tell half the story.

I am green with jealousy at anyone who has been to chelsea whilst i had to make to with odd snip its on the tv.

On the brighter side the battle against the ground elder is going well but i am not sure what to do with the roots and soil i have dug out. I cant take it to the dump as they will make me put it in garden waste so bits of it will turn up in compost for the next 50 years and I cant burn it as i have also removed lots of soil which is infected with bits of root.

Looks like i could be putting small bags of it in the wheely bin each week for the next year or so.

I think the municipal compost heaps get hot enough to kill most things (except Japanese knotweed) don't they?

New plants were planted today and the errant lily was finally moved. I also dug up some self seeded stuff from the drive and popped it into the bed. Have left some though as an experiment to see how long DH will ignore things growing in the gravel as it's always me who weeds it so I have left some cosmos, catmint, lavender, dianthus, alliums and something I can't remember the name of. My gravel is obviously quite a good growing medium for seedlings.

Your day sounds fabulous Funny

Cantspel well done on your progress against the ground elder. You'll be fine to put it in garden waste. Everything is hot composted and it can't survive that.

I've been doing battle against the hateful snow berries the last two evenings. Horrid invasive stuff. I cut out a whole raft of it along the side of the drive and revealed four rhododendrons hiding underneath, all flowering merrily to themselves. Didn't have a clue they were there.

ground elder should be fine in the compost bin.
you can eat the fresh leaves as well, tastes a lot like spinach, maybe a bit more iron-y. doesn't shrink as much in volume.

you can cover the area (if not too arkward or big) with tarp after weeding as much as possible. leaves also make good green liquid fertiliser. You can also use a flame weeder to burn the roots in the ground.