Potting shed summer party

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Following on from the Blooming into Flaming June thread and all others before it.

The potting shed is open for summer. Elderflower wine aplenty and room for all. Monty will be along later...

But only as long as he doesn't wear the hat he's got on in tonight's GW .

Do you mind if I join?

I have got quite into gardening since I had dc, we do mostly vegetables, with mixed results Am still pretty inexperienced though, so it would be lovely to have people to bounce ideas off. The only person who knows a lot about gardening here is MIL and she is a bit intimidating as she is so good at it, so I feel a bit of an idiot asking her questions normally

im back, sorry lost you all last month for a bit - typing (and gardening) with broken wrists was rather difficult!!!!

hi. I'm here.
having a moment to myself on dc's bed whilst they pretend to fall asleep

have mowed the lawn today for the first time in 4 weeks. it looks better now, amazing what one downpour and one little shower can do for a scorched lawn.

dfil is getting better, but the travel insurance is now playing silly buggers. I'm leaving the dealings with them to dh, I might scream at them through the phone. sooooooo frustrating. basically the hospital say he's ready to be discharge but can't because we can't care properly for him at our home. and the insurance says they will not transport him home because he is well cared for here...argh

anyway, planted my new rose, a glas of homemade lemonade + pimms is waiting for me!

outch nightshade, that sounds a nightmare. I hope it's healing well!

Welcome Whispers, I only did veg until I started on this thread and now I have flowers and all sorts. Be careful, the people on here can lead you into a wonderful world of gardens!

Nightshade - ow, what happened?

I did a good superman effort over the bar of my bike! then rode on the left one already broken for a month before crashing and giving in and taking a trip to A&E!!

all healed now but have damaged the nerves in my left so no grip strength, so long as im careful and don't over do it im ok to start in the garden again

I'm in! I found a lovely deep terracotta effect plastic planting trough in somebody's skip yesterday. I was so embarrassed picking it out but oh just imagine what I can fill it with... Tumbling succulents maybe?

can I ask a lawn question?
do I need to feed it before the winter? are these 'patch up' products (seeds mixed with feed) any good?

Hello new thread and welcome Whispers.

Mousy you can feed your lawn in the autumn but make sure it's a product designed for the autumn not the spring. Spring feeds are high in nitrogen to green up the sward during the growing season. Autumn feeds are high in potassium and other goodies for building up roots while leaf growth slows down during the cold months. It will say on the product which season it is aimed at. Apply in late September/October once the hot dry weather is over.

Thanks for the welcomes

We have got a few flowers but I am hopeless at remembering what any of them are or their proper names or anything

So, at the moment we have growing: 3 pumpkin plants, 2 courgette plants, strawberries, potatoes, three tomato plants and two bell pepper plants. Plus various herbs etc and nasturtiums.
We've already harvested so far this summer: carrots, radishes, blackcurrants.

Will be back in the coming days for advice on pumpkins and tomatoes!

Ah, new thread. Come on in, whispers. i'm merely contemplating the garden at the mo, as I'm in bed iPadding this. I can hear the birds, a bit lively now as we only have a bit of winter left and they'll soon be nesting.

No gardening done this week as full on at work, and darkish when I get home, still, was displeased to see a departing tradie had decapitated my velthemia capensis, so that's it for this year for that plant. I expect today's work will feature much weeding.

Just peeked through the curtains, and a spectacular pink and orange sunrise is on the go , though the rush of cold air from the windows made me hop back into bed, sharpish. Time for a cuppa, brekkie courtesy of DH, and a listen to The News Quiz.

We're going to see Pacific Rim this morning, as only giant killer robots mindlessly whacking each other will do right now. By afternoon the day will have warmed up enough for the weeding, and who knows, I might be motivated by the killer robots and get medieval on their weedy asses. :o

Hello everyone!

So happy you have a new thread!
I dont know anything about lawns, mousymouse except that patch stuff never seems to do much good. Like most people I feed it in the spring and Autumn and rake it from time to time to scarify the moss and leaves and stuff. I dont water i much. Mother, however, waters hers and it is luscious.
Today I cut back Mme Alfred Carriere who has ended her first flowering of the year which this year was truly sumptuous.
Then I sat in the garden swing seat and chatted. Then I moved two lots of university student room contents back home. After this arduous task we sat in the garden eating ice cream and drinking cordial and chatted some more.
Lovely day, and how lovely to have a pleasant garden to sit in.

If it is bald patches that are concerning you, autumn is the perfect time for dealing with these. Rake over them to loosen the soil a bit, scatter grass seed, rake in and water. You can apply a top dressing if you wish - this is basically just a thin-ish layer of new topsoil spread over bald patch, then seeded as above.

The buddleia is out, this year it has turned a deep and fashionable purple (last year it was pale lilac and I pruned it back very severely) and the butterflies are lovely- mostly white atm though.

Ooh x loads of posts.

Lovely sounding day, Funny.

great, a project for the autumn them. we have a victorian stone roller, I guess I can use it to press new seeds into the lawn.

all my roses look glorious atm. again the question about the care before winter: feeding? how much and what? my mother used to cut them right back down to maybe 5 inches and cover them with mulch. but that was in an area with much harsher winters. hardly any frost in my se garden...

my honeysuckle doesn't look very good this year, not many flowers and the few that it has are not as even. they were spectacular last year.

My lawn never gets anything which is probably why it is mostly moss

I bought DH a massive hammock for his birthday, I reclaimed a bit of woodland and cut the undergrowth back and tonight we hung it between two of the oaks. We then spent a happy hour lying in it staring up at the sky and the oak canopy. Very relaxing. Beer helped.

::rushes in to defend Monty's rather rakish straw hat::

Well, "Pacific Rim" was very silly, and the weather had clouded over by the time we got out, so to heck with the weeding.

However I bought a bowl of orchids at a yard sale for $10. Stunning, and ready to be divided as soon as the flowers finish. I've no idea what kind they are, but probably not native, but they are grown outside in a pot, bloom in winter, and are moved around out of the sun in summer. I rather like this idea of having small potted plants I can leave under the carport for the summer while they are dormant. Of course this only works for plants that mostly don't need watering.

Currently waiting for DD to fall asleep for her nap before I go out and try and get my head around pumpkins.
I have planted three, which in hindsight was too many as they are now fighting for space, but it would feel too mean to get rid of one or two now also, am I more likely to get actual pumpkins if I leave them as there are more flowers and thus more chance at pollination? On one of them, the leaves are so huge that they are blocking access to the flowers which probably doesn't help!
What's particularly annoying is that I had quite a few pumpkin and courgette seedlings so gave them away to friends... Theirs are all starting to produce stuff

my pumpkin plant is huge and has lots of flowers.
but the female ones so far have fallen off.
I have sort of trained in an S shape in the veg patch so it is more compact.
I wonder what I am doing wrong or if I need to do something?

I have a mostly clover lawn. It needs to be mowed but I keep making excuses. Today would be a good day to do that before this evening's storms roll in though, and I need to take down the gazebo which probably won't like getting rained on so much. Perhaps I will get my big bottom off the sofa soon. Only issue is, I have a napping nearly 4yo using 35 weeks of tummy as a pillow. It's rather sweet.

I have three buddleia out the front which were supposed to be red white and blue but are purple, lilac and purple (J Parkers, grrr). The butterflies love them, the bees love the sedum, comfrey and lavender, and I don't mind all the weeds now that they're all out. Must cut back the geraniums for a second flush.

I have a heavily laden blackberry, but the propagation by layering hasn't worked. I think I need to cut back the underplanting to see what's going on there, and rearrange some stems in advance of next year.

All my terracotta pots of herbs have been neglected by DH to the point of extreme dessication and I don't know if they are possible to rescue. Odd really as he says he's only interested in herbs and fruit. Not enough to bloody water them....!!!

oh and there's a springwatch special on iplayer all about butterflies and moths. Fascinating! Am saving Monty for later. Anyone notice at the bottom of a recent email from RHS (or maybe GW) that he is casting for people to be in a new series about making an 'extraordinary' garden from a small space?