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.

I am not doing brilliantly at the gardening at the moment, dd has kept me up at night as she is a little poorly and I am knackered. My head is firmly in the sand about newborn sleep deprivation...

Not next weekend, sadly, as it's the unmissable school fair.

Commiserations, Humph, on the sleep deprivation.

Hopefully she is on the mend now so a sleep filled night looms

The current thing going on here is debate about putting gravel down on the vast expanse of tarmac that is our driveway. It would look so, so much nicer but will take 66 tonnes (or tons??). So not cheap.

Dh lifted the tulips and daffodils from the pots and put in the pelargoniums that I have been carefully nurturing in readiness. They need to grow a bit but look much better than the dying tulip foliage.

The crambe cordifolia in the front garden is blooming! I must have bought it randomly when we first had the garden, put it in and then we forgot what it was for two years. It was only when we bought another one for the cottage borders that we realised what this strange plant actually was. Took another year for it to flower but it looks wonderful now. The one is the cottage borders is nearly there too.

I am catching up with Friday's GW and feeling the astrantia love. Ooh and Monty is planting ammi majus but my plants are so much smaller than his.

Thanks for that Bertha. Maybe I'll pop along and see how 'my' teasel is doing, and if it's not happy, dig it up and move it back...

I felt the astrantia love but the companion planting looked messy

Is anyone watching the programme about Johnson and Hidcote? I switched on late, but it's lovely.

I have seen this before, it is lovely. I keep meaning to go back there in tulip time.

We went years ago, before I got obsessed was so interested in gardening. We have just resolved to go again.

I so want to go to Hidcote. I've never been. I can't see me getting there any time soon, either; it's too far to drag the kids for a day trip and child free days are few and far between. Boo.

I have woolly aphids on one of the old apple trees in the orchard. To spray or not to spray, that is the question.

Your Hidcote time will come, rhubarbgarden, I am sure.

One year I painted my woolly aphids with meths, I think, but have never bothered since.

I have a hazy memory of Hidcote with DS age a year or so old, toddling around and loving it- there was lots of lavender and a kind passer by stopped where we were sitting on a bench, and offered to take a picture of us with lavender etc - said it might be one of the few with the whole family in- and he was right! We still have the photo in DS's first album.
So much to do, so little time. Plants to plant. Gardens to visit. On Monday evening I looked at the sky a lot. From my garden chair. Upwards. For quite a while. It was very pleasant.

the rose walk is starting to look lovely

the middle bit, where it goes a bit roundy (technical description) has a proper canopy above it for the first time. Four New Dawn on the corners, with Debutante in the middle supports and the Rambling Rector has also reached the middle from both sides

I love reading about all your gardens and have had to google a few of them.

rhubarb I love gunnera not that I knew its name I've seen them growing at a pub, like gigantic rhubarb.

humph re the snake it's quite funny thinking back dd said 'sh mummy look' as she crouched down by the strawberries. I was expecting a fledgling. 'Snake' she whispered as if it was a perfectly normal thing to find. My neighbour retrieved it thankfully.

I feel the need to start hacking at some shrubs everything is so overgrown I feel like sleeping beauty being engulfed by thorny trees. Unfortunately there must be a bird nesting every 5 meters of hedge.

I've nurtured some weeds not as bad as a trellis for bind weed, and accidentally pulled out some summer bulbs.

I didn't get round to the elderflower champers, sorry I might try next week but it may be too late.

Presecco any good ? Cheers :)

Your rose walk sounds gorgeous, Humph.

Bumbez I can't wait for my Gunnera to get gigantic. At the moment it's only about 25cm high!

William Lobb out today It has not really done very well before but is looking very healthy this year. It seems a good year for roses.

I would love a Gunnera. One day we will clear the overgrown bit by the big weeping willow where the death pit well is and turn it into garden with Gunnera. I have no idea HOW though, it is feet deep with nettle roots layered up on each other.

This evening after putting the kids to bed I made a decision. I am going in. I waded into the big west facing border (which has been annoying me intensely) and butchered hard pruned the straggly viburnum tinus, in the hope it will become a currant bun shape. Eventually. Then I lopped the Pieris which was a distinctly odd shape. It's a nice shape now (though it may sulk for a couple of years as a result and refuse to flower). Finally, I took in hand the feral beast that was the Kerria. About seven feet wide by five feet deep, plus arching stems, this monster had swallowed up an inappropriate chunk of border and was smothering various other plants. As I hacked it back, I revealed the skeletons of other shrubs it had swallowed up in its rampant march. But also were revealed blinking into the sunlight a living hydrangea, hardy fuchsia, spiraea and a load of flowering campanula. Hello, plants that I didn't even know were there.

It was not a nice job. The Kerria was riddled with brambles, nettles underfoot and wreathes of goose grass. I am lacerated, stung and all manner of wildlife fell on me.

Immensely satisfying though.

Well done Rhubarb. You went in and conquered.

Well done. There is something very satisfying about beating unruly plants into behaving themselves again and even better when you find new plants you didn't know were there.

Brilliant, Rhubarb. I have been doing some vigorous pruning myself (particularly the willow, which has shot to about 12 feet tall and is trying to take over the neighbour's garden). There is nothing as therapeutic after an annoying day at work as getting out there and hacking away. And I now have space in my newly visible borders for the T&M perennials that have been patiently growing on since March.

Impressive Rhubarb, having googled campanula I realise ive got some in the front garden- I thought they were wall flowers untill they flowered

I did a bit of pruning last evening too, flipping annoying hay fever made me retreat inside after an hour, that and daddy blackbird squawking at me!

There is a mahoosive hebe in the middle of my garden, hasn't flowered yet . It's 6 foot by 5 foot sphere shaped thing and is annoying me though Dh likes it. Also on the annoying lists are Dh's motley collection of yuccas in pots - I hate them. They hark back to the days of our flat and roof garden. They really need planted out but just look wrong in our garden. For the time being I've lined them up among the brambles in the hope they'll die from neglect stop brambles spreading.

If a plant annoys you, Bumbez, get rid! Make space for things you actually want. Tricky if they are DH's, admittedly. I find a judicious squirt with glyphosate works wonders "Oh, dear, look it died. What a shame."

A question for garden machinery supremo Cantspel (or anyone else good with mowers): my new Hayter has developed a fault; when I release the dead man's handle (to empty the grass box) the blades have stopped switching off. Any ideas how I can fix this? I rang the dealers but they just said "bring it in and we'll take a look at it" - easier said than done when they are a four hour round trip. Can't drag the kids that far.

sorry cant help but there is a good lawn mower repair place just up the road from me in goring hall. It is is still a little way from you but no where near 4 hours.
Let me know if you want the details as i have one of their leaflets somewhere.

Thanks Cantspel, could you let me have their details? I was considering folding it in to Saturday's trip to Sissinghurst as the dealers are the far side of Kent, but figured I'd end up with about half an hour at Sissinghurst and hours and hours faffing around and driving. Also just discovered that dh has broken his bike - I know what's coming next; he's going to need to get it fixed at the weekend and that will be my child free Saturday morning gone. I just know it.

Sorry vent over I'm off to do some angry strimming. It's been a bad day on several counts.

Here you go

J.S MACARA
132, Aldsworth Avenue, Goring-By-Sea
BN12 4UU
Phone: 01903 241755

They are just off the A259

I am so glad my boys are now teens and as long as there is food in the fridge and the wifi is working they can be left to get on with it