…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 CAN swap but the default position is that I am doing it. I have to book my time in if you see what I mean. I expect I will get a bit of time in the morning. Sorry to moan on...

You have been busy rhihaf. Pergola sounds lovely.

You have my sympathies Humph, dd2 was clingy it's tough. Her saving grace was a 3 hour nap with a dummy. I didn't garden though, sat on my arse did house work.

Rhihaf your pergola plans indeed sound lovely, we're planning one ourselves Dh will build it when he gets time, I hope this year. Are you planting before you build it?

Oh Humph, I feel your pain, I really do. It has been nearly four years of gardening frustration for me with this whole darn mothering experiment. Sitting looking wistfully at the garden and seeing tasks going undone while tied to a baby or entertaining a small child. Obvs the kids are great and all that, but... sigh I have managed to gradually shift the default position at weekends at least to being dh lead child carer, which is great and necessary for my sanity, but sometimes he goes off doing sporty stuff (of sorts) like this weekend.

Great poo pile though!

Rhihaf that must be very satisfying to have got that lot done.

Nasturtiums - yes perfect for containers. Beautifully traily. Mix the compost with grit and don't over water.

See you all at GW with a bottle of sloe gin (which autocorrect just tried to change to slow gun - I'm feeling a bit grumpy but not that bad!)

Poor Humph. Have a . Could you put bubba in a sling/backpack? The metal-framed backpack style ones are pretty supportive (DS is a hefty little thing!). I gardened last summer (he was 12-15 months)

Bumbez - I've planted one climbing bare root rose last wknd, and we have a honeysuckle growing up the front wall of the house, so I'm planning to arch it out over the path onto the pergola... haven't really planned much further than that!

Echt, your ozzie garden sounds so exotic!

Happy gardening everyone!

I feel your pain about little children not being that conducive to gardening.

They can be useful when they're older though - BabyBearleigh is now 14 and did an after school club when he was about 9 onwards which basically involved the children helping a teacher to clear woodland in the school grounds that had been planted with rare trees in Edwardian times, then had got overgrown and weedy - mostly sycamore. They cleared a 'woodland walk'. BB was going around wielding a mattock, and chopping off branches. He helped to chop down trees, and to lay hedges. I would never have let a bunch of 9 year-olds loose with mattocks and saws, but they were fine.

As a result, he's now very useful round the garden when anything needs chopping, and he also laid a little path all on his own. He wanted to complete a circuit as he likes to walk in a circle while thinking, so just got on and finished it off one day. He also likes growing vegetables and fruit: flowers bore him, but he is now good company in the garden, and helpful.

Oh how heartbreaking - really felt for Monty ripping out his box.

Lovely to hear from you echt! I wonder will your grapevines bear fruit??!!! How exciting to have a mini winery!

Rhihaf your pergola plans sound divine!!!

I'm loving hearing all about Spring arriving into everyone's garden! I saw my first bumble bee, but no butterflies yet! As for the birds, they are in their element. Our daffodils are all out at school, and my roses and bulbs are coming along nicely at home in their pots.

Was away last weekend at my sister's Hen party so am relishing having a long weekend (thank you St. Patrick! ) at home and am planning plenty of pottering and stomping about! The building site is transforming every day. DH seems intent on doing things backwards - we haven't begun the plumbing yet, but plenty of landscaping and ground works are underway.
The road down to the house has been widened, and we now have a bank 1.5 - 2.5m in height/depth and about 75m long from the top of the hill down to our house. DH is going to top it with post and rail fencing (lined with electric wire for the cows) but that leaves me with a HUGE project!!!! What will I plant on this bank??? DH wants to buy grass seed, but after that has been sprinkled it is completely up to me as to what I plant along it. It is in a very open and sunny spot, in the sunshine for most of the day. The entire length of it will also be visible from the house. And it lines the only approach to the house.
My initial thought was vinca, and rambling roses. But I am a complete novice, and presumably the vinca would take ages to spread...heather might be nice I suppose. Help me! It is perfectly primed for planting!!!

What will I do?

Bearleigh that's nice to hear. I look forward to the day that the dc are helpful in the garden! For now I just focus on enjoying their enjoyment of it. Ds, for instance, is so entranced by daffodils at the moment. And we were late picking dd up from nursery this afternoon because he wanted to stroke the aubrietia flowers. So sweet.

Ooh Castle what a wonderful project. I would love it. All that space to fill with plants, but daunting too, I know. Because it will all be visible from the house, you will need some interest all year round. How steep is it?

Rhubarb that is so sweet. You must get a pelargonium sidoides. They are fabulous to stroke: very velvety, and a delicate perfume to the leaves. My cuttings failed, but the original plant came for a friend so I shall ask her advice, so may be able let you have one in due course.

Bertha the worry dolls are really sweet. :-) Love your Spring growth too!
Mousmous your roses are thriving! Which roses are they?
Humph the mulch looks great!
Have just logged onto the computer and love being able to see the photographs!

Poor Humphrey you sound a bit tired and as if you need a real break. Perhaps you are worrying about the ngs opening.
ex dh used to grumble and groan about not being able to garden or do any diy with little children in his way, though now the children are away from home I gather he potters about happily doing diy etc. I never really saw his point of view as (surprising though it may seem) I am a fairly laid back gardener and enjoy the garden precisely because everything doesn't have to be just so.

The dc used to dig interminably and make mud pies and rivers and dams and plant pansies and mess in the sandpit and run about and cycle about and tell me to not mow the daisies and so forth. I did go through a low maintenance phase of gardening though: I think it is how I found perennials. dd has no eye for plants and cheerfully calls daffodils fuschias and gave the potted clematis bijou she took to halls to the college gardener.ds grows potted chillies on his halls windowsill, loves plants and nurtures them beautifully.

Thanks Bearleigh, DH was going to place huge stones along the base of the bank, but had a change of heart and this is the result. This photo shows part of it, to give you an idea of it... yes I'd need some all-year-round interest, wouldn't I? And realistically, if we leave it just as a grassy bank, it will self-seed with all kinds of crazy trees and scrub etc. And I don't want to have to mow it. In my opinion the road is still very narrow, so I don't really want an intrusive hedgerow on the bank either... any opinions?! This is going to cost a fortune to plant, isn't it? But tell me it will be worth it...

You are all lovely, thanks for the sympathy. I am just a bit tired I think. Baby Cobbler is nearly ready for food so I will be able to lob a rice cake in his direction soon and distract him for that much longer.

I love your description of your children's gardening activities funnyperson, just what children should be doing in the garden. And your son sounds great Bearleigh.

Castle, how exciting! You are ready to plant.

Am worried for Monty's box hedging now, surely he hasn't lost all of it? I have recorded it to watch on Sunday night.

oh wow, castle
that is a big project. how about an edible hedge? maybe some red acers and cherries for colour and interest?

the roses are blue for you (wanted rosa novalis but shipping costs were prohibitive) and hansestadt rostock

Humph I don't know how to console you. I would give anything for a little one to strap on my back! Hopefully you will get out into the garden tomorrow! It sounds like you've had a very productive week! Are your geraniums the perennial kind?
Rhubarb ds sounds so adorably sweet!

Mousmous the rosa novalis is fabulous!!! But so are the ones you bought, especially blue for you - would love to see how blue the roses fade to! Was postage expensive?

Humph it's ready for planting, but with what?! This project only landed on my lap yesterday evening when I got home from work and discovered the plan had changed! Not that I'm complaining, but I'm a bit scared of getting it wrong!!!!

Castlelough - would rosa rugosa be any good for your bank? It's pretty indestructible, I think.

I loved GW. That garden in Cornwall - the polar opposite if my London patch - was gorgeous.

That bank looks amazing, the view looks amazing. Whats the soil like? Thyme and rosemary and heather and lavender if sunny so that the aroma wafts and the bees and butterflies come. You can propagate those with cuttings.
Is it windswept? That section on the oleander hedge as windbreak vs view was interesting in tonights programme. Quite the opposite of the Spanish seaside garden Joe Swift went to last year where they used the garden to frame the view and the landscape. In your planting there must be a way to frame and reflect that incredible landscape. I would know how if I was in any way artistic but I'm not.

postage was very little, but they were bare roots, so didn't take up a lot of room.
haven't actually seen blue for you in real life (yet), but saw the novalis at a garden show. it is indeed an intense colour between purple and blue, like the sky just before a thunderstorm.

rosa rugosa are amazing. very colourful and bees love the,.

how about a flowering quince
my grandparents had them in a hedge. quince jelly is still one of my favourites.

Thanks Bearleigh, that Pelargonium looks gorgeous.

Blue For You is one of my favourite roses. I had some at the last house, and they just flowered their socks off all summer, smelling heavenly and looking so strikingly beautiful I was always getting asked what they were. I shall definitely be planting some here.

Castle that bank is an exciting project. I'd plant some Rosmarinus Boule if you can get hold of some. It's a trailing rosemary and I came across it tumbling down similar banks in a garden in Italy some years ago. Easy to propagate by taking cuttings so you could build up coverage.

I loved that Cornish Garden too, Maud. It made me look forward to summer and the blooming of perennials.

Castle how about [https://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/showrose.asp?showr=110 Rosa Raubritter]? I'm fancying one of these in the corner of my orchard where I have a bit of low wall I want to trail something over. The description says good for banks and landscaping.

Oops

Rosa Raubritter

Oh, that's lovely, Rhubarb. And is that a geranium with it in the illustration? ::squints in the bedtime gloom:: Maybe Rozanne? Fantastic combination.