He who dares not grasp the thorn should never crave the rose

[Blackpuddingbertha]

New thread for the potting shed crowd using Rhubarb's rose suggestion and Squeaky's quote for the new title.

Spring is underway with promises of summer in our gardens big and small.

Elderberry wine for all

I had red, pink, purple, gold and cream roses in my bouquet. My sister made it, it was beautiful. I have a very clever sister, she can make two sticks in a jam jar look like SOMETHING ARTY.

Castle your sisters wedding sounds lovely!

Haven't started my sweet corn yet. Not sure where it is going either. DH and I have a kind of silent war going on the veg patch front, it used to be MY domain but then I had a baby, HG and SPD and he took over. He is more methodical than I was but I think our yields are not much different. He has always done the fruit though, only he would plant that many raspberries

Your sister is indeed gifted, Humphrey, because my friend had fewer colours than that in her bouquet and it looked a garish mess a little unusual. It's all about the artistry (or lack thereof) with which the individual components are combined, isn't it?

DH has been planting tayberries and raspberries on the allotment.

I have had a useful couple of hours in the garden. I have emptied the pots of mostly-blind Queen of Night and Prinses Irene tulips and planted the liquidambar, rose Nuits de Young and bamboo that are going in pots in the front garden. I was much heartened to see that the thalictrum delavayi (which always gives me a fright by surfacing late) and rodgersia (which never does anything very much) have emerged and I have flowers on the clematis Wada's Primrose, nibbled by slugs though they are.

I'm on the J Parkers website now, Humphrey. I sense danger ahead.

Ok, so I had very dark red gerberas with white roses and ivy. I had a bit of an ivy theme as it was an Autumn wedding. Lots of ivy (it was free). MIL did my flowers but I did the table decorations myself and pinned up lots of ivy

My wedding bouquet was white or cream lissianthus, that's it, done by a shop and delivered to the wrong hotel coz I forgot where I was staying. Tracked them down eventually phew.

I'm just back from Poultons park and needing a gin, every Rainbow, Brownie and Guide from Dorset was there having some sort of jamboree!

They're doing quite well with topiary animals - I took a few photos and will upload them later. I found myself admiring a giant bug fashioned out of sedum and spiky grasses. I couldn't take a photo as on a roller coaster! I'm wondering whether to attempt the same scaled down version with an upside down hanging basket.

I clearly remember the night you tempted me with that thalictrum. It is the only thalictrum I have ever seen that I like enough to have in the garden too!

Yes, I remember luring you to the dark thalictrum side. I am now plagued by the thalictrum that doesn't flower (don't know its full name) but creeps about producing foliage that looks rather like maidenhair fern. Another thing I would never have planted if I had known what a beast it would become.

Yes Lush that looks a lot like it!

Just watched GW. Those irregular box balls are just wonderful, I do hope they are spared the blight.

We need more tulips in this garden.

There was a beautiful Thalticrum at Sissinghurst Thalictrum rochebrunianum. Apparently it grows very tall: the spring foliage was a beautiful mixture of colours.

I got my miniGreenhouse from Wilkinson's: it looked like my existing one in the box but turns out to be quite a bit bigger (a good thing) and not to have rings for attaching to things (not a good thing, as I once lost a lot of plants when my greenhouse blew over). It now has string wrapped round it and it is attached to the things that hold back the patio doors so it should be safe. It is lovely and big but not an object of beauty. Showers permitting I shall be potting on tomorrow. In the end ii got as many cardboard pots as Wilkinson's had, and will make paper ones for the rest. Great excitement for BearleighJunior as his veg. seeds are mostly through.

That thalictrum does look very lovely.

I am wrestling with whether to buy a new mini greenhouse. As longstanding readers will know, we are replacing the fence soon and my plan then was to get a proper shed, in which to keep all the clutter that currently fills up the mini greenhouse (actual plants go in the cold frame). But the mini greenhouse is on the point of collapse (it's several years old and the joints have gone, so it no longer stands upright) and the clutter is now mostly stacked unattractively over the patio. So I'm tending to think I should bite the bullet, and get a new mini greenhouse just to get everything looking orderly. But I won't want a shed, a cold frame and a mini greenhouse, so would this just be profligate spending of which I do enough, as far as the garden is concerned.

What would you do?

Just caught up with GW. I love those box balls too, I'd love to make a little box grove like that. I thought the Erythroniums were rather enchanting too; Nymans had some lovely ones blooming when I was there a couple of weeks ago.

Loving the wedding bouquet descriptions. Mine had Amnesia roses, dusky pink and cream roses, pale pink peonies, sage sprigs, green blackberries, ivy and a traily thing whose name escapes me . I had a garland of the same in my hair. My wedding dress was embroided with dusky pink roses and ivy. Happy memories.

Lush I think I'd just go for a new shed, if you don't use the mini greenhouse for growing things.

By mini greenhouse do you mean the type with gazebo poles and plastic cover? If that is the case I loved the one I used last year from lidl, 6 foot by 4 foot, and really cheap. I've passed it on to a friend who loves it. Was great for tomatoes and cucumbers.

If however you just want to store pots and clutter how about a bench with lift up seat?

Aha. A bench with storage could be just the ticket, as I have been contemplating getting rid of some pots by the back door and putting a bench there for tea-drinking purposes. Adding some storage might kill two birds with one stone.

But yes, I meant one of those cheapy things with a slot-together metal frame and a plastic cover.

Mine blew over this afternoon. I'd moved it briefly to dig the manure into the bed underneath it; unfortunately the newly disturbed earth didn't hold the pegs sufficiently in this afternoon's wind. Just remembered I hadn't resurrected it but after a quick check on the weather I think the plants will be fine on their own tonight.

Mine's on its' forth year and is doing very well apart from the occasional overturn.

Today was savage in part: I beheaded two more agave attenuata stuck them in pots and left them to get on with it in the back bed under the tea trees. While doing all this, I stopped to admire a prostrate rosemary, still in flower, and as I thought, a bee busying itself. I thought it looked a bit odd, and close inspection revealed that it had been caught by a praying mantis who had torn it in half, and was chowing down on the head while the body still wriggled. Coming back later, the mantis was finishing the bee off in the manner of a person eating corn on the cob. We have lots of mantids in the garden, though they're hard to see. They are absolutely unafraid of humans.

More nurturingly, I planted a callistemon "Dawson River Weeper", which should be a whopper, at least 3-4 metres and provide some shade and screening from next door's balcony, when the trees on either (their) side get pruned or chopped. The flowers attract birds, too.

A saw banksia we planted two years ago has had its first flowers this year, and we couldn't be more pleased. I'll prune it when the flowers are over as it's getting a bit leggy, not good in the high winds we often get.

Hi all including silky and bubbly

Would offer you all some elderflower wine but am useless at making it, it tasted foul (at least the ones that didn't explode did)!

My wedding bouquet had red pink and yellow roses to look like the roses on my mum's old country roses china and she bought me similar for my first anniversary. They are the ones I shoved into the first space I could find on a cold dark December night by flashlight and did ok last year but are really struggling now so really need NDN to put new fence in so I can transfer them.

Am going to harrogate flower show today so will let you know what I get. I will invariably buy some kind of ornament decoration. This is because three years ago the night before I completed my move into DH's some not very nice person stole all my garden decorations etc and most of my potted plants and !

ECHT do you have flower shows over there or is it a peculiar British thing?

Yech at the nature red in tooth and claw in echt's garden!

Going to a flower show sounds like a lovely way to spend the day. I'm sure we discussed this before, but is anyone planning to go to Hampton Court?

Yes, there are flowers shows. The Tessellar tulip show has just gone, but the price and limited range of bulbs compared with the UK makes me go meh.

Begonia and native orchid shows are big items. Today I put out ten bowls of native orchids in the flower beds to catch the light in time to bloom in the late winter/early spring.

There are more and more open gardens every year, though as Victoria is about the same size as England, the distances are considerable. Victoria has desert, alpine and temperate rain forest, though the latter two can support a great range of plants.

Bearleigh and Lush, I've got a sweet little Wilko's greenhouse tent (6 x 4). I only picked it up at the beginning of the month, good to know it might last beyond the year. It's got alicante and yellow stuffer toms, some lobelia, foxgloves and aquigelia, and various daisy types left over from my giant J P Morgan order.

My clematis aren't doing too well either - two have been planted out and stress and slugs have stripped them bare. I'm still hoping. Baby Salvias are having a hard time too with the slugs. Any suggestions what to do about sluugs with a ravenous and curious cat? Egg shells seem useless on these superslugs!

The third clematis (Niobe, and my final hope) is back in the greenhouse - I'm scared of planting it out now! But I did untangle it from the meccano greenhouse shelves, and leave it out overnight to see if I can harden it up a bit.

This has fallen off my active threads so just sticking myself back on after a pleasant hour of GW and Beechgrove Garden. Chris Beardshaw was showing how to do a hot bed on Beechgrove which got up to an impressive temperature. Can't remember what as find his voice quite memorising and got distracted. Have visitors so no time o catch up properly now but back to read what you've all been up to later.

Hi to anyone new. Nightshade, caught your post about show gardens. Very interesting, thanks for posting that. Not long now till Chelsea.

crikey, I go offline for a few days and you've shot pages and pages ahead of me! Just had a quick scan though, I will catch up later.

yes I did design/build show gardens but my last was 2005 - I then gave it all up and had babies instead!!

I haven't decided on my wedding flowers yet.........8weeks to go! eeek

You're getting married in eight weeks?! How exciting!

Lush I'm going to Hampton Court. I've got tickets for the preview evening on the Monday.