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.

TyneFilth it's nice to hear you are being so well looked after. I found my pregnancies so different - first time around, I was working as a professional gardener right up until I was eight months. I can remember being on my hands and knees, weeding a border, thinking what a comfy position it was. I'd initially got sacked when I told my boss I was pregnant (such is the lot of the self employed) but a week later he asked me to go back and work as long as I could. I was happy to do so. In my spare time I also completely redesigned, cleared, rotavated and replanted my front garden. At 38 weeks I was tying in my tomato plants to the greenhouse roof, balancing on an old wobbly bar stool, at 6am. Fell off (inevitably) and dd arrived two weeks early. Oops.

Second time around, too knackered with looking after a toddler to get much gardening done!

Yes Rake, glad you are being well looked after. Quite right too.

Rhubarb, this pregnancy has been so different to the others. I think it is my age. I have not had hyperemesis before, thank god. I would never have done it again if so. I had it mildly compared to some. It was still appalling.

Funnyperson, lots of people think the teenage years are the time they need you the most.

A lovely day in the garden. Grey and calm. The roses are just POISED waiting to open. I did cut some guinea roses as they are yet too small to climb the back wall of the house and are just flopping over.

Thanks for the code Cantspel. I weakened (again). I'm glad you're both OK Humph and Rake. I agree that Teenagers need you a lot, all that angst, insecurity and dipping of toes into the Adult World.

Just been looking at my kitchen step Autopots and beginning to think m Cherokee Trail of Tears beans might not be. They are looking suspiciously squat and bush bean like.

Glad someone else is as weak willed as i am when it comes to special offers.

I took my new lawn mower back today. I bought a Bosch Rotak 430 Ergoflex about 3 weeks ago as it said it was suitable for larger gardens. But they lie as after only using it twice the engine was burning out.

Electric as just not powerful enough to do more than a smallish lawn so i bit the bullet and spent the afternoon stripping down and repairing my trusty petrol mower. Less than a tenner worth of new parts and a bottle of oil and we were up and running again. It is like driving a small tank around the garden but at least the lawn now looks nice again.

Just seen the mystery oriental poppy is a deep, dark red. I am very pleased by this.

Well done for stripping down your own lawnmower. I wouldn't know where to start.

I love the thought of driving around on a lawnmower. Weeding at 38 weeks, however, sounds a lot less appealing!

My T&M perennial plugs arrived today. I have replanted all 108 in John Innes with a tiny bit of slow release plant food and popped them on the windowsill. Fingers crossed.

I don't get herrucheas, can someone please explain the attraction?

They are lovely. All shiny and deep coloured. They act as a brilliant foil to other plants and I have not managed to kill one yet.

Yup, that's the attraction of heucheras for me too. The flowers are something of a non-event, but used in moderation the coloured foliage works very well in mixed plantings.

I bit the bullet and spent the afternoon stripping down and repairing my trusty petrol mower is one of the most impressive things I have ever read on MN!

Yes, agree with that, very impressed too. Go girl.

Oh and what did we think of Carol's geumfest on GW? I thought it was luvverly.

tis not that hard to strip a mower and the knack is remembering to put things back in the right place.
I tend to be quite good at practical things mainly because after 20 years of marriage to a husband is who pretty useless at anything that involves a screwdriver it has been a case of learn myself or forever be wasting good money that could be spent on plants paying for things to be serviced.

Loved Carol's spot on geum on tonights GW and there were some pretty impressive alliums in Monty's garden as well.

Yes, I liked the way she started with the wild Herba Benedicta form 'Geum Urbanum'. That was actually quite exciting as it identified the weed I have been pulling up. I will now keep a little clump growing (if I can find any left) for its medicinal value.
More on the wild geum here
botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/a/avens083.html
Monty's irises were also impressive. I wish we could see more of his garden.
Our local blue tits eat all the aphids. They perch on the rosebuds and slurp them up, leaving the buds intact: it is quite a sight.
One of the neighbours has the most flamboyant orange honeysuckle in flower. I looked them up. Most likely it is 'copper beauty' but there is also an orange form widespread in America, Lonicera ciliosa, which is attractive to Hummingbirds!

You're too modest, Cantspel. It seems to me rhs stripping your own lawn mower is the embodiment of female empowerment! I share your attitude to extending the plant budget.

Funniest thing for me about Carol's spot on geums is that we've talked on this thread in the past about the weed which looks like a geum and now (obviously, duh) I realise it almost certainly is a geum. I may allow one to flower, experimentally, to confirm this. That geums like rain explains why Mrs Bradshaw is thriving in my garden in a patch where other things seem to have drowned over winter.

Were Monty's alliums Purple Sensation, do we think? He has mentioned those in GW magazine and the intense colour was lovely.

And thank you, funnyperson, for the herbal info.

Honeysuckle is the most gorgeous plant. Belgica is flowering for me now. It's usually the first to go.

I am looking forward to GW on geums. I too never knew that that weed that keeps popping up is wild geum, and am very impressed at the lawn mower stripping!

I have just received a pack of 6 mixed hellebore plugs. I think I'd better pot them on and plant in autumn. I've only got one hellebore, a self-seeded foetidus, which is magnificent, and grows happily under a holly tree in a south-facing border, (so not the moist dappled shade that RHS recommends). What conditions do they grow happily in?

The plugs were about twice the size of the T&M ones, and came from this outfit which I hadn't come across before:

www.hayloft-plants.co.uk/

I bought those same hellebores from Hayloft Plants. I grew them on for a few months and have just been planting them out. I have put them under the tree peony in a semi-shaded spot and will put the rest in odd spots around the garden. Some will go under the apple tree (so dry shade) where there's already a bit of a hellebore colony. Several of my hellebores - including my beautiful black one - didn't flower this year. Has anyone else found that?

I am very impressed with HP. I also bought some hardy geraniums from them. Very good strong plants at bargain prices. Overall, a better deal than T&M's tiny plugs, I think.

I love Saturday morning. Bit of a lie in then that first cup of tea of the day watching GW. Perfection after a long week. I'm another who had been wondering what Hera Benedicta, I had some flowering the other day by some flowering alpine strawberries and they did look quite pretty together. I got a few Geums as part of a perennial plug plant offer but they aren't close to flowering yet. Am I the only one who found they had rather wet cheeks watching that bit on Lady William's garden? Great use of conifer.

Cantspel don't you dare be modest with your lawn mower stripping ability . I think the blue tits in my garden could do with a chat with FP's, my roses in the back are covered in aphids. There are definitely blue tits around as they sit in the honeysuckle by the kitchen window close to the sofa and are surprisingly tame for a garden with three cats in.

Went to the allotment last night. It's so much easier when more under control. First strawberries starting to ripen. My solitary Borlotti that had ripened vanished so stuck more seed along with lettuce, pak choi, mangetout, Florence fennel, radish and beetroot. There are signs of germinated carrots which would be great as last year none germinated. No sign of any parsnips though. There are loads of self sown calendula all over the place. I've left a load in with the broad beans in a bid to break a bit from regimented rows. I brought some back and am trying to get them to establish and self seed on the raised bank.

I read that now is the time to take softwood rose cuttings so might have a go at that, spurred on by the success of shoots emerging on my planted Cornus cuttings.

Yes, stop being modest Cantspel. I had to strip down and do an oil change on a lawnmower at horticultural college and I swore then that I was never doing it again. I take my hat off to you. Mind you I'm the sort of person who sends off her secateurs to Felco rather than sharpen them myself

Useful tip re orange honeysuckle FunnyP, thank you for that. The orange colour-schemed garden I'm designing for my friend will now be featuring one of those. Perfect.

Yes I like Hayloft plants, I've also been impressed by Primrose
www.primrose.co.uk/plants-c-7767.html?src=directory
who are selling good quality Taylors clematis 2 year old plants cheaper than the very young t and m plants.
I have found in general that plugs need to be potted on before they can go into the garden because they are just too little otherwise.
My hellebores did very well indeed this year: I think they like the spot they are in. Not too dry.
I'm looking at winter flowering climbers at the moment: clematis jingle bells vs clematis wisley cream and winter flowering honeysuckle purpusii vs fragrantissima
Men are doing the fence today : I fear for Dr Du Jamain who in any event seems a fragile climber.

Fence done. Dr Du Jamain survived. Honeysuckle is on the ground wating for the concrete to set. Everything looking far too organised.

Excellent news FP, glad it's ok. I haven't used Hayloft plants but have been dithering about a hardy geranium and hellebore collection. As it currently stands they are still in my basket on the site and I'm not doing it./

My thoughts are turning to next year and I have now ordered alliums and tulips. Today's purchase was a pot of Borlotti to replace non germinating ones and a white carnation called Memories as it had 25% off and a little bit goes to the Alzheimer's society which felt very appropriate .

I realise now how much of a bargain the 4 calla lillies for £3 last week were once I saw how much they were in the other garden centres ie. £8/9 a pot.

Today I bought an astilbe for 50p and a lavender for 20p from the shelf of doom. I think with a decent watering and a light prune, both will be fine.

This weekend was almost entirely given over to writing reports, but I've celebrated the end of the buggers by putting 4 Moreton Bay chestnuts into sand and perlite to propagate them. We nicked a giant pod fallen from a tree in the Sydney Botanic Gardens a couple of weeks ago. The plan is to keep them in pots, as they grow into a tree 140 feet tall if left to run riot, but are perfectly happy in containers, too. They need warmth to germinate so will sit in the main bedroom, where the temperature's the most consistent now it's so cold outside.

Just when I thought I was over my the summer plant spending spree, this thread has got me making a wish list of spring bulbs (own up, who was it?!). Hayloft have one lovely tulip collections (I like triumph mixed) and are v reasonable, but I am trying to trawl through T&M for similar as I have Tesco vouchers (which is obviously not like spending 'real' money).

Cantspel - did you cave on the Russian Snowdrops? T&M have 200 bulbs for £11.99. I'm thinking they might make nice Christmas presents, planted in bright blue gazed pots. I was looking for bluebells, Lilly of the valley & snowdrops - but the Russian look so much more exciting and I could fill my whole shady border a fifth of the price!

I do have a big bag of mystery bulbs that I pulled out last summer. I was intending to replant them but never got around to it. What do you think I Gould do with them? Chuck them in and see what comes up or start afresh?

Nice bargains Maud - how are they looking today?what colour is the astilbe?

Right, I'm off to do some more farking forking.

It was FP, I didn't mention the words 'next year'

My bargains look positively expensive next to Maud's it must be said. Glad you got to the end of the reports Echt, good choice of celebration activity.

Instead of caving on the Hayloft hardy geranium collection I've bought a mixed pack of seeds and will try to grow some. That just leaves the hellebores to think about. I have a wooden trough someone gave me and I'm trying to get it so it looks good all year round with minimum effort.

At the moment it has a patio climbing rose, Clematis Samaritan Jo, a hosta and a calla Lily with some Alysum or whatever it's called. I was thinking that in the autumn if I take out the Lily the put in a couple of cyclamen, a hellebore, several alliums and tulips then hopefully it should look be ok most of the time. Am I on the right track?