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.

Very busy weekend so didn't get much done in the garden. Sometimes life just gets in the way despite best laid plans and it's most frustrating. I did at least get the wisteria pruned and tied in to new wires though, and started trying to sort out the climbing rose that goes over the French windows into the orchard, now that it's finished flowering. It's a very old rose - the trunk at the bottom is as fat as my calf. It's none too healthy though; lots of dead wood. I teetered around on a ladder cutting out what I could reach, but I'm going to need a bigger ladder for the highest bits.

wow that rose sounds amazing.
have just today found out that my old rose is 'gloria dey'.
it's quite thick at the base, but nowhere near the size of my calf, that's just amazing! hope it responds well to your treatment. mine has maybe a bit less than an inch.
do roses have year rings?

I will try ti tackle some of the dead branches, but it's a lot, and the tree/bush is about 4 meters high...

I don't know if roses have growth rings. I guess they must have, but whether they are clear enough to count is another matter. I shall have a look if I am cutting any down.

I have just put in a fruit tree order for the autumn. Three different cobnuts, a Victoria plum, two different greengages, a peach, a nectarine and a King James mulberry. All that empty space in the orchard shall be filled! Hurrah!

Hurrah for fruit trees!
I am wondering how to grow mistletoe.Apparently it grows well in apple trees.

I ordered the winter clematis. The crambe has arrived!

humph and others : do tell us about roses which look good even as they fade.

I've picked 57 Roses this weekend, my house is full of them!

They look and smell amazing. My glut of strawberries continues, yesterday I made strawberry ice cream, today it was chocolate dipped strawberries.

Just about to make strawberry cream to go with the Devon scones I've just made for dh to take in for a staff meeting tomorrow.

I'm pleased with my sweet peas, I've never been able to grow them (I know, they're supposed to be easy!) - now have a lovely jug of them next to my bed.

That's a lot of roses Laurie! Your house must smell amazing.

Funny, I remember reading about mistletoe, you have to get the seeds and rub them into cracks in branches where you want them to grow, or something like that. Don't think it's an easy process.

Picked the first kohlrabi this evening. Ate raw as soon as picked. Very nice, sort of mild, sweet radishy flavour.

My runner bean flowers aren't setting. The arch looks good though, but actual beans would be nice too.

Might take some veg plot pics tomorrow for FB. It's looking very green in there.

Wow Laurie, you must have loads growing to have picked 57! I bet it looks lovely.

We picked the first of our strawberries today, those the squirrel has not eaten. Also got lots of gooseberries (I am going to cook with elderflowers) and the raspberries are coming on fast.

Kohlrabi sounds delicious.

As for the roses - I only know about the ones I have planted but Blush Rambler fade beautifully. They stay nice until the petals all fall off at once. I think that the worst are the Blush Noisette as they are either going brown or balling. Rosa Mundi fades paler and looks lovely as it does so. Debutante goes rather shaggy and does not stand up to rain well, but is worth it for the lovely colour and habit.

Rhubarb I cut my rambling rose, of a similar size to yours right back, down to the base last spring, and it looks gorgeous this year. Mind, a climber might not respond as well...

My Teasing Georgia rose (a yellow David Austin English Rose) looks good as it fades - gets rather blousy, and paler.

I have to say I really recommend Mara des Bois strawberries - they taste divine, and, as I have happily discovered, having forgotten to net them, the birds don't eat them (some slug damage but not much). My Alexandria wild strawberries are doing really well this year too - such large berries - I don't know if it's the variety or the rain earlier in the year (probably both).

Bertha I haven't any flowers on my runners yet - just masses of growth. But great excitement - I have some teeny yellow courgettes. Little Bearleigh's vegetables are doing nicely too.

I picked all the redcurrants on the bush on Sunday - 15 1/2 oz, and made Jane Grigson's/Eliza Acton's redcurrant jelly - so much simpler than any other recipe I have tried - light covering of water in bottom of pan, melt berries (no need to destalk) with equal weight of sugar - when sugar dissolved, boil for 8 minutes, strain through a sieve, pot. It's beautiful - maybe not absolutely crystal clear, but so little work!

Funnyperson, is there mistletoe where you live? I used to live in the south, where I saw none. Now ion midlands, where it is everywhere and people moan about it, as it kills apple trees too.

I suspect it like cold winters and dry summers, as far as possible.

Hello everyone. Had a rather interesting evening. The local organiser from the NGS came round this evening to have a look and we are going to open next june

She phoned up a week or so ago because our next door neighbour suggested us. I didn't say anything before as I half thought that she would sneer dramatically at the garden....but she didn't.

I am all of a fluster. And I will have a BABY. Gosh. What have we done.

woohoo!
Will you be alright opening the garden to strangers? Did he/she suggest improvements/changes? Will you let forriners or forrin looking people in?(One of the gardens this weekend under the ngs didnt let me and dd and ds in: had union jack in v prominent place outside, luckily the other open gardens in the village were less fussy)
Of course your garden wasn't sneered at- it is truly lovely from the photos.

Yay! Congratulations.

Goodness funnyperson. I am truly shocked at that. How could they be allowed to do that They surely would be banned from the scheme if you pointed it out to the organisers? Failing that, we should go round and spray rude messages to them in weedkiller on the lawn

She didn't suggest any changes. Tbh, she didn't say much to begin with. It was rather intimidating.

Funny, I can't believe that! You should complain to NGS, surely they'd frown (and hopefully do more than just frown) on that kind of discrimination! That's appalling.

And I second the weed killer suggestion!

Talking of weed killer I was working at a large country house estate this week and spotted a walled garden that was secured off with fencing. So, being nosy I asked what was going on, turns out the walled garden has been rented out for the year to a TV company doing a gardening version of the Great British Bake Off. The security fencing is there to stop people getting in and sabotaging other people's plots. Apparently they all have to go at the same time so no competitor can surreptitiously spray weed killer on their neighbours courgettes! This gardening lark is cut throat.

I We sang 'Free Nelson Mandela' at the garden gate instead seriously embarrassing the dc But you are right, perhaps I should write and complain because the ngs is for gardens opening to the public, and we are the hoi polloi public. It did make me think though about people letting strangers into their gardens- must be the only downside of the ngs. It is embarrassing and a bit unpleasant though when one is on a day out with family, esp when one considers oneself to be harmless.
Monty mentions a gardening competition in his book.'Gardener of the year' or some such.

It was at Little Missenden.

Well humph we have been saying it for ages!! Congratulations though. May I offer a helping hand next May (late spring BH?) if you need any last minute dead-heading, weeding, staking, tieing-in, path-sweeping, etc. How exciting!!!

Wahey Humph, congratulations!! FP definitely write and complain, that is outrageous and they shoukdn't be allowed to participate again.

I'm skimming this but totally agree about Mara de Bois, they're delicious. Don't store well so you never really get to buy them anywhere.

My first cosmos has finally flowered. Rather a pathetic specimen but a flower is a flower.

Funnyperson, I would be tempted to report them to the police. Seriously. How bloody DARE they.

Funnyperson that is truly shocking and you should put in a complaint. I cant see the police being able to do anything as it is private property and you can refuse access to your own property to anyone but i would hope that the NGS wouldn't want or allow people who held these sorts of views to be part of their organization.

funnyperson I agree write a letter to NGS.

I have a glut of cucumbers, was wondering about pickling them, can't remember the type but they are small and very tasty.

The weather is just glorious, there are things that need doing but I am tending to just lie horizontal and plan how I want it to be next year.

I do need to prune the wisteria though, I also spoke to my friends Dh who is a tree surgeon about cutting back the undergrowth in the south border. Dh wants to do it, but is so busy .

Congratulations Humph, that's wonderful! I wish I was nearer to visit.

Funnyperson that is appalling. I am disgusted that anyone would do that. I am shocked. The NGS definitely needs to know.

today the giant sunflowers are just about to open up. the dc are especially excited about that!
the new roses in the front are in bloom now, one very lovely valentines-day-red 'pride of england' the other has many many changeling flowers, starting almost tangerine orange then fading to a beautiful peach colour a day or so later.
removed most of the dead branches of the ceanothus tree, now it looks even more bare and sad. hope it recovers and rewards me with lovely blue flowers next year. something in that tree didn't quite agree with my skin, eczema broke out and they are very itchy.

humph that is just brilliant. quite an achivement!