…if winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 2014 beckons us...

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Okay, so the height of summer is yet to scorch the nethers of those in this wide brown land of Orstrylia, but welcome to the MNettie gardeners of the world. Prop up your sagging fences, evict the rats from your decking, and find a use for that poinsettia.

I'm surprised you had to buy them, Humphrey, as here they tend to blow in on the breeze!

There are no gardens for seeds to blow in from The only plants growing in this garden when we arrived were yucca plants , jerusalem artichokes, bindweed and ground elder..I may be exaggerating slightly . Oh and a billion leylandii. And some rather straggly peach coloured roses.

Bumbez I can't do half term week (going down to my parents in Devon) but Rhubarb I could do Monday 10th or 24th at Nymans, and I can do quite a lot of Fridays until Easter too. It's a trek round the M25 for me though, so I wouldn't get there until about 11 probably, then would have to leave by 3.

Humph mentioning getting the baby into a back-carry in the sling has inspired me somewhat to stop making excuses! I really must move the crocuses before they disappear, and do some weeding in the back garden too.

No worries, I'd have had to bring the dc's any way who would moan a lot. I might be able to do a Friday in March/ April. Dh is planning to start working at home on Fridays. It's a 3 hour round trip for me.

If anyone ever fancies a day trip to the Isle Of Wight, do Pm me I'm happy to collect from Ryde.

Lexi I can do 10th - would have to leave at 1pm ish though so ds can nap. I'd probably aim to get there for 10 so a bit earlier than you but we'd still cross over for a couple of hours. If the weather is anything like it is today though (gales and torrential rain!) I might wimp out though!

Bumbez I think an IoW holiday is still on the cards at some point for us; I'll keep you posted. Any good gardens to visit?

www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/gardenstovisit/9987246/Gorgeous-gardens-to-visit-on-the-Isle-of-Wight.html

My favourite is Ventnor Botanics. I'd like to get to Northcote manor this year open under the NGS scheme.

Wow! I really want to go now. I shall start organising dh and the in-laws and look into holiday cottages. Thanks!

My walled garden book arrived, that Bertha made me buy on another thread. I have been enjoying the garden porn in it all day whenever the kids have let me get away with it. More gardens on my 'must visit' list now, especially, Rousham, Iford Manor and Broughton Grange.

What walled garden book?
I want a Piet Oudolph hardback which costs a lot.
I also want to visit Caerhays Castle when the magnolias flower and paddle in the Cornish sea on the same day.

Caerhays Castle - yes yes! Every time I look at the Burncoose website it makes me want to go.

It's The Walled Garden by Leslie Geddes-Brown. I know exactly which Piet Oudolf book you mean. I keep nearly buying it but being put off by the price.

This walled garden book. I still have the page open on my iPad and still want it. Can you review it please Rhubarb and convince me to buy it let me know if it's any good.

Well, I haven't actually read it properly yet, just flicked through and read bits here and there. But it's a lovely collection of descriptions of walled gardens, both in Britain and abroad, modern as well as obvious historical ones such as Generalife and Sissinghurst. Great photos. Very inspiring. There's also a decent section on their history.

Ooh I had a look at the link for that book - wow! Would so love a walled garden! I have old stone walls along two sides of my field/future garden. (well, they are the sides of old stone cottages.) I have been wondering about trying to achieve a walled garden effect in that part of the garden....

Looking forward to planting my David Austen roses at the weekend. I ordered three, and they are going into pots for a start: Sceptred Isle, Claire Austen, and Princess Anne. Haven't planted bare root roses before! My rose cuttings are all sprouting away and showing lots of buds and tiny leaves. Looking good!

at those of you with walled gardens. The only wall I have is my actual house! All my boundaries are hedges, I'm wondering whether to plant a climber in amongst the scraggy Hawthorn in the front garden to hide the bare bits. I've discovered a self seeded passion fruit in a pot from the last house which might work.

I too would love a walled garden. So romantic.

Spent a very happy hour weeding the spring borders along the crab apple walk bit. Snowdrops and hellebores doing well, primroses and primulas looking promising and pulmonarias with buds on looking rather healthy. They were all swamped with forget me nots and shirley poppy seedlings so cleared space around them and it all looks really nice.

That sounds very romantic too, Humphrey.

I don't actually have a walled garden Bumbez, I just want the book so I can dream about having one. If we ever get to buy the land around us I'm going to build one. I am.

Just did my seed order. Somehow managed to slip some flower seeds in their for my cutting bed the DDs new flower border which DH is not aware that we're making at the weekend . I'm planning to pop out and come back with the wood so he's surprised into it! Going to put it at the outer corner of the play area along two sides of it. The middle of it is going to grow the pea/bean/squash igloo and the ends of each bit will be planted up with annuals grown from seed which the DDs can be in charge of. I will share my plan with the family at some point...

there not their

first bit of the plant order arrived today
3 hostas for the big copper tub
3 Bishop of York dahlias
10 free lillies.

I want a cutting bed too. What seeds did you buy Bertha? Was wondering about the bit we failed to grow a wildflower mix on last year, it is a sort of triangle bit in the irregular beds. The problem is the soil is terribly poor as it used to be under a big cattle shed. Do you think if I bung a large amount of manure in it I could have a cutting garden on it this year or will I need to improve the soil a bit more?

My first plants of the year arrived too - three clematis that were free for postage from GW magazine. They look quite promising, but as so often there has been a substitution because one of the varieties sold out, which is a little annoying.

I didnt order those clematis.Perhaps I should. An apple tree which I don't need and probably won't fruit for years for £8 had to be rescued at Tesco's today. Got a receipt back which said I could have shopped for £2.48 cheaper at another shop. I might plant it next to the stick from Lidl I bought 2 years ago which said it was a plum tree on the box.
Primroses are selling for 99p round here I think I will get as many as I can.
Pulmonaria are one of my favourite unpretentious but pretty plants. humphrey your spring garden sounds lovely.

Ooh everyone is getting ready to plant their new plants!
Bertha your igloo bed plan for the DDs sounds great. Nasturtiums would do very well on it too, with quick coverage and colour and they'd self seed.

Would it be hard to build a walled garden? Don't go putting ideas in my head!! I was half thinking of digging down a bit to create a feeling of higher walls in that part of the garden. It is on a gentle slope, but somebody banked the field up against the side of the cottage. There is about 4 ft of the cottage wall buried below our 'garden' level. I had been thinking of having steps down into the garden and lowering the garden level (giving a higher walled garden effect (I've about 40ft of cottage walls).
Would really need to get advice though in case I end up with a bog. Although the hill continues to drain away from our house down into a lake half a mile away...so I think it would be alright....
Am rambling! Our mortgage came through and I am really going to have a garden soon!!!

Humph a cutting bed sounds heavenly - Sarah Raven's book has lots of good ideas in it.

Enjoy your clematis Maud. I've only managed to kill mine, to date...hoping my Aldi wisteria fares a bit better. Am afraid all my pots are suffering from too much rainfall...

It sounds like you have a budding orchard there funnyperson! What height fruit trees are you planting?