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.

What a lovely thread this is! Funnyperson you brought a tear to my eye, and I second everything you said. Bravo!

Have just caught up after a week of frantic gardening and tidying in readiness for our first family holiday -eek! DS in one next week, so DH and I are going with PIL to France. How will I survive without a daily update on here?!
There are the most vibrant fuschia pink anenomes blooming as fast as they can in the front border Most pleasing, as I've never grown flowers before this yr. Funnyperson, like you, I lurked a while, gleaning tips before taking the plunge this spring, so thankyou everyone.

Runner beans have just germinated, have planted out delphiniums (pacific giants), hollyhocks (white), and sown some oriental poppy seeds. Fingers crossed they come.

Enjoy a fabulous weekend one and all!

I have just planted my cerinthes. From a pack of seed I have two, possibly three, viable plants. It would have been markedly cheaper to buy the T&M 6 plug plants for 1p offer, if I'd been quick enough off the mark!

Tomroow I will plant out some ammi majus and cosmos Purity for my world-renowned ::wink:: monochrome border.

And happy holidays, rhihaf!

That is a lovely post FP. When I joined I was mostly doing my allotment and mostly growing veg. The garden was a poor second but I've been so inspired by this thread that I have started focusing on it so much more. My garden thanks you all. The garden and this thread have helped me hold onto my sanity during Mum's diagnosis which has been a very difficult time.

More planting this afternoon. I got a couple of peonies, a number of small pink alliums which caused a stir amongst the other shoppers when they were in the trolley, margarites, gazania, geraniums. And then when at the till they had some calla lillies which I made the mistake of enquiring their price. At £1 each I couldn't leave them, took 3 and she gave me two free ones. Everything is in and I'm enjoying looking out at it all.

Wynken and Notanother i'm probably not going to say anything.i don't know whether the stem grew into their garden itself or it was helped a bit.I can't remember when i noticed this rose last time.But i noticed it immediately when it was missing last night.The thing is they are very nice and have always offered to pay halfs for things in the past.This rose is growing up a focal point of their garden,whereas i can't even see it from my house.I think i would have made my point already.
Dc's have helped me plant Dahlia tubers,Gladioli and Dutch Iris today.All rather late i know.I have some Chrysanths and Sweet Peas to plant up tomorrow.Plus masses and masses of weeding[and lawn mowing].Loads of buds on my peonies at the mo.I am really looking forward to seeing the first flowers on my Bowl Of Beauty plants.The tree peony seems to have survived being run over numerous times by the mud sliding dc's luckily.

A brisk 6 degrees outside this morning, but will be sunny all day and up to 16, which explains the vigorous weeds. They'll be getting some attention today as I have a mountain of exams to mark and reports to write, and any distraction is good.:o

Pottering down the side of the house I found a velthemia capensis about to flower. I keep it under the carport as they hate to get wet when dormant. It's now in the front garden, on a table where I can see it as I'm writing this. The flower spike should last about 4-weeks. I divided the bulblets last year and only 1 bulb took. Boo hoo.

One more cuppa, then off to the study, red biro in hand.

I've just Googled the velthemia. Wow! That is a truly architectural plant.

Lovely post Funny . I've said many times in these threads that if it wasn't for being on here I wouldn't have grown a single flower, just veg. And I love my long bed. Full of colour from alliums and aguilegia and valerian and glasnevin solanum at the moment and so much more coming up.

I had an epic four hours in the garden this afternoon. The veg plot is now sorted and my conservatory is empty of most things (unless still too tiny or intended to stay in there). As a result my back is killing me; but satisfying none the less. Some minor jobs to do tomorrow and then the hard stuff's over and I get to sit and wait for crops and admire things generally.

Cerinthe seedlings: 9 have survived from the packet: they have gone in the garden bed outside today having spent a fortnight hardening off and growing in the seed tray outside. Those that went in the flower bed 2 weeks ago from the other seed tray didn't survive. Cosmos seedlings: 8 survived from 1/2 a packet: they went in last week, 4 in one place are fine, 4 in another place have disappeared.
Delphinium from seeds: seedlings that went into the flower bed 2 weeks ago have disappeared, those that were potted on in pots have thrived and are going in this weekend: about 5 healthy little plants. I may even leave them another week. Sweet peas on the other hand all did well and are thriving in their final pot positions. Echinacea seeds are germinated but very tiny so still in the seedling trays. Lotus seeds have germinated!!

You are right, Maud, if plug plants are available cheap, they are probably as good if not better than germinating seed. On the other hand I think I have perhaps been planting seedlings out too early before there is a good root system.

teta I think you dont need to say anything but you do need to resume ownership of your rose. Just cut off the stem before it goes into the neighbour's garden. It will regrow back into your garden and flower there where it belongs. You can do it this weekend. After pruning you can put a 4 in or so layer of organis compost at the base of the rose and water in, to give it a boost. It will take at least two weeks to grow. Make sure any ;eaves from your side aren't infected with anything which could affect the cut off stem and get rid of any infected leaves.

Actually Teta I think you are right not to say anything. I know I would have gone bananas but DH would have got the brunt of it. I don't think I would actually say anything, just retrieve the stem as you have done and rant at home. A lot.

I've just been watering neighbours garden and was mid deadheading their geraniums when she came out with a big grin on her face and told me not to stop on her account !! She hadn't said how long they were going so when I saw no car this morning I assumed it was 2 weeks. I'd just taken. All the side shoots off their tomatoes as well. It was very funny and I now have chocolates, purple sprouting broccoli and some brussels.

Funnyperson i pulled the rose back through the slats.Its a bit scratched and damaged but i least i can see it.I think as a gardener my plants are my babies and i notice everything.My neighbours are not, and in fact several climbing roses in my garden are enormous and old and i have said in the past i don't mind them training over their side as they are not in sight of my house.They put my bins out for me and on one occasion babysat my dc's at 7am in the morning.So in the interests of neighbourly accord i shall say nothing[but have ranted to dh who is not a gardener and doesn't understand].

Teta, in the interests of neighbourly harmony I would assume that they hadn't realised it was the main stem and just thought they were making the most of a rose that had got a bit unruly. I wouldn't do anything to upset my neighbour either, he looks after my chickens, waters my plants and has, in the past, gone to the shops for me at 10pm to get batteries for my smoke alarm ( which wouldn't stop bleeping even with no battery and the mains switched off!). Good neighbours are hard to come by.

I got a fab bargain in B&Q today: 3 packets of pretty grey stone reduced from £6 to £1 each, as the bags were split. I was so excited, I was tempted to rip a hole in some more packs I will be off to the pound shop tomorrow morning for some black garden cloth, then will make a pretty gravel garden out of he muddy pit next to my water butt.

I am planning to put the girls Wendy house on it and say it's their own little garden. I also have a bit of this stuff:

www.primrose.co.uk/-p-55912.html?adtype=pla&kwd=&gclid=CN2LmpfO17cCFXMPtAodKiQAXQ

That I want to use with it but am not sure how?

I am seriously so excited I want to go outside and start digging now...

That sounds like a fun project. Could you use the log edging (fairly well-buried so it isn't a trip hazard) to define the gravelled area? Otherwise, as the girls play on it it is likely to spill all over the place.

That was a lovely post FunnyP. I've found this thread incredibly inspiring too. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by my new garden and the epic task in hand, but reading about what everyone is growing and now seeing the pictures on FB (just wow, by the way) has really reinvigorated my enthusiasm and I can't wait to get planting in the autumn.

I've just been away for the weekend, for a wedding, while the in-laws stayed at the house to look after the kids. They've weeded my south facing border, even pulling out all the nettles! So very kind of them, considering they had two littlies to deal with and they are not gardening people. They had carefully weeded around the alkanet though, bless them - I didn't have the heart to tell them it's a weed.

I quite like a bit of alkanet . I have a weed that comes up in the long bed and produces little white (& sometimes pink) flowers which I let stay for a while until it starts to compete for space. Then it gets pulled up until it resurfaces next year.

We went to two lovely NGS gardens today and I noticed alkanet rearing its persistent little head in one of those!

I had to look up alkanet have plenty of those in my garden as well.
oh, well. will leave them for now as they are pretty and the bees and butterflies seem to like them.
a cat got caught in the netting around the strawberries today. i was too scared to get close. it got away on its own after a bit, ripping the net apart. I nearly felt sorry for the cat were it not for the fact that they like to shit between my plants

Alkanet leads a charmed life, because a lot of people my mum included mistake it for borage and let it grow.

Yikes about the cat, Mousy. I have been told today that foxes don't like the smell of moth balls, so will be planting more of those in my borders to keep the foxes away. I wonder if that would work for horrible pooping cats too?

I stood at the cat/fox repellent shelf at a diy store today. what a huge choice!
am sticking to cheap orange squash for now, don't want to poison the veg.
I hope that cat has learned a lesson and will tell all mates about this dangerous garden tonight.

Alkanet in an NGS garden indeed! That actually makes me feel a bit better about the shocking weediness of my borders.

Poor cat. How had it got stuck? I hope it wasn't its collar that had got caught; collars can cause horrific injuries when they get caught on things.

I've found the best way to stop unwanted pooing/rolling in my strawberry patch is to fill it with pea sticks.

If anyone has a suggestion for stopping the rabbits eating my heucheras and cosmos I'd love to hear it. No cat problem around here thankfully.

it got stuck with a paw. it seemed fine (if a bit agitated) when it freed itself.
have stuck as many little sticks in as I could before putting a new net up.

no ideas about rabbits, too many foxes and cats about to have any.

We have been trying Grazers to stop pigeon and squirrel damage, it is supposed to stop rabbits too. So far, so good. The acid test will be if it keeps the squirrels from the strawberries.

Only just got in from the garden. I thought I was knackered but stopped to re-pot a salvia and ended up potting on about 20 foxgloves, 12 sunflowers, two tomatoes, one fern and some apple mint. Once you get started it is so easy to carry on.

The round veg garden is looking really nice. Asparagus and salad in one third, courgettes in another, and concentric circles of rainbow chard, russian kale, red cabbage and lettuce in the third, with broad beans down each edge. There are globe artichokes on each corner. We are not having nearly as much trouble with weeds this year, I think we may have finally got rid of the nettles.

I remember being deeply confused as to what exactly borage was until Maud helped me to understand!