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

Apparently morning glory, can't go out until temperatures are above 10 degrees at night. I left mine out for a few days, and their leaves went yellow, I've bought them back in after googling when to plant them ,they seem to have perked up.

Good news re bigger orchard, could you just pot the clematis into a deep pot until you decide where it can go?

Gardening gloves - I don't know mine are ok cost £15 but I don't know what make sorry.

I am seriously considering Mme Alfred Carriere for the pergola. Needs to like heavy clay soil, and not mind poor knowledge of pruning.

FP I didn't prune it but did notice one shoot gor cut off when the neighbours pruned something. But there is still a lot of it left though as it put in a lot of growth last year. It's on a north facing wall and increasingly shaded by next door's hawthorn. However now the conifer has gone it is getting far more sun than before. Think I planted it closer to the walk than I intended.

Just emptied 2 watering cans over it and found some rose feed in the shed so gave it that. All my other roses flower with the exception of an wild rose in the wrong place. I've even got Ballerina and Arthur Dickinson under the chestnut tree which is a ridiculous place to have put them but I was stuck at the time. Even they manage a few flowers. My yellow rose has the first open rise of the season here today which just highlights the failure of my Mme Carriere! Fig scones sound delicious.

Castle, definitely get all the hard work done for you. The Morning Glory may well grow new growth from the base yet. When you say the flowers have fallen off, do you mean the flower buds or opened flowers? Maybe stick it in a pot for now and then put it in once the digger has been and gone . Not sure about gloves as just grab what I can find, sorry.

I've just given up the allotment. It's to far just to go for half an hour and I really don't like gardening when there are a load of tourists wandering around. That was never the deal hen we signed up. So I am trying to make the most of what I have in the garden. My 'veg patch' is in desperate need of compost but I don't have any and it is very very stony. These are coming in handy round the greenhouse however.

had to work today :(
but good to hear what you have been up to.
my rhubarb is wilting. why?
it's in a sunny spot between the strawberries and a rose bush.
lots of snails and slugs, though, and I have put slug pellets down.

I don't bother with gardening gloves, used to have them for hard work, but then they end up in the shed getting mouldy and full of spiders.

wynken its still early in the year maybe your rose will have buds now its had some extra food.
My Dr du Jamain rose has given up the ghost i fear. Its last remaining shoot came apart the main stem so I dug it up and repotted it. The root system looked very scanty and I doubt its grown at all since it was planted 2 years ago.
I do worry sometimes because some of the roses do very well indeed in pots and just don't do well when planted out. Same goes for the clematis which flower in pots but when planted out will grow and grow but not flower.
I'm ending up with more and more pots!

By the way although the Beechgrove lot are very into bone meal and slow fertiliser I am so scared of the theoretical risk of BSE from bone meal I never use the stuff (and besides I'm a vegetarian) and go for the Monty style organic compost/leaf mould spread-a-layer-3-5 cm-thick-and-dont bother-digging-it-in-option and since I've done this all the plants have been much happier and I put it down to earthworms preferring compost so it improves the structure of the soil and not just the nutrition of it.

Lots of lovely gardening bulletins here tonight.

I gave up using bonemeal (fortuitously) before the BSE scare, simply because everything I planted with it - usually tulip bulbs - got uprooted by foxes.

These are my new gardening gloves. They are thorn-resistant so not entirely thornproof (the rosa rubifolia got me today) but they are very waterproof and dirtproof and I luffs them. For dry but dirty jobs, such as bagging up the garden waste and shifting pots, I tend to use cotton gloves from the pound shop which I throw away after a few washes, when they are too grubby.

hello everyone, I have enjoyed catching up with the thread. You have all been busy.

This morning I went to the garden centre to get some manure compost to plant the 4 peony and accidentally bought a euphorbia and 2 hardy geraniums. I am exhausted, I shouldn't be allowed to buy any new plants until I've planted out/potted on everything I have.

Euphorbia is def a 'mumsnet plant' , it would never have occurred to me to buy it until I heard it mentioned on here. I'm glad I did, it really zings and breaks up the greens and pinks in my border. I will try to take cuttings, a la Monty.

The lidl peony def had more roots than the ones I bought last year. My soil is clay enough to make my own pots - so I mixed in lots of horse poo, grit & sand. Also fungi & slow release fertiliser. They are the most pampered peony, they better bloody live.

I tried to break up the hardy geranium to make more plants, as they do on telly, so have prob killed them. One is white with blue/purple veins, the other is white with pink veins. I'm trying to get away from purple/pink

I've taken my tulips out of pots, to free up space for the pelargonium, deadheaded them and planted at the back of the border. They look a right mess, but I'm hoping they'll come back next year.

I also bought some bare root agapanthus (dark blue). Any tips for planting these?

I think I am addicted to buying new plants. I know you will sympathise.

We had friends round for a BBQ yesterday and they described our patch as 'the perfect garden' and like entering 'a secret garden'. So I think it's all been worth it

Just caught up with the thread after being away in Wales for the weekend. Everyone has been very busy! Congratulations to Castle, what lovely news. Don't stress about the wild flower bank. Sometimes you just have to let things go.

I managed to squeeze in two garden visits en route to and from Wales; Hidcote and Powis Castle. I've wanted to see Hidcote for many years, and it lived up to expectations. The colour scheming was beautiful, and the tulips in the old walled garden were breathtaking.

It was fun to see the famous 'twmps' at Powis - giant clipped yews, which began life as formal topiary, were allowed to grow naturally when the landscape movement kicked in, then clipped again when fashions swung back to formality.

My favourite gardening gloves are Gold Leaf ones. Expensive but worth it.

I do indeed sympathise, NANN. How lovely that your friends were so appreciative of your garden.

I guess I got into euphorbias because my parents have quite a few, and when I started to make this garden my mother used to turn up with boxes of plants - including some euphorbia polychroma.

My agapanthus knowledge, such as it is, is that they flower best when the roots are congested, so better to plant them in a not-too-big pot. They also like good drainage, so mix in some grit. I have several different varieties and they all got through the winter, but some of the plants are still quite young and not well established, so I'm not expecting many flowers this year.

YY to Gold Leaf gloves. I have Reynauds and cannot bear cold on my hands, these are great.

I went to Powis years ago and saw the Hollyhock collections, all single and amazing.

Went to Brian's Ground today, it was a lovely garden.

I hadn't heard of Bryan's Ground but have just been looking at pictures and it's lovely.

Oops. Poor choice of adjective there.

Wow to Bryan's Ground - I love the idea of a Sulking House.

My favourite gardening gloves are the cheapo cotton ones from most garden centres, as they fit snugly, so are accurate, and when they're dirty I wash them. When they get wet, say when I'm watering, I put on a clean pair.

When it's muddy or very cold I wear ones a bit like Lush's, but they are green - also from most garden centres. They don't have liners, so I use an old pair of the cheapo cotton ones. MrB got me a posh pair of gloves last Xmas, but I still like the cotton ones just as much.

Everyone's been very busy. How were the shoes Rhubarb?

I got a nice surprise on Sunday - a £1.79 clematis I had got from Morrisons a couple of years ago planted & and forgotten about, is flowering through a hedge - it has lovely dark leaves and double pink flowers - I think it's Clematis 'Broughton Star' AGM, and it's gorgeous.

Ooh I'm off to check out all the gloves links! Thanks

yes, the sulking house was brilliant!

Joining thread late. I've got to read through it all yet, I will enjoy that tonight.

I'm going to a nursery for work tomorrow that specialises in phormiums. If anyone has any phormium related questions ask me now and I'll work them into the totally work related conversation while I'm there. Agapanthus is also on their specialism list along with cordylines, ferns and grasses I believe. I love nursery clients and frequently get distracted during visits...

hmm, phormium. I thought I had one in the front, but it has a stem, a bit like a yucca, but with brownish silverish leaves.

watching grand design australia and thinking of echt.
the woman has a lovely rose garden (adelaide hills).
my blues show a bit colour through the buds.

Bertha how lucky you are to get to visit nurseries through your work! Sorry I couldn't make it to Nymans on Monday. Going away for the weekend had resulted in the housework and laundry situation to reach dire straits - how come I can manage to keep on top of things whilst looking after small children, but when dh is doing it, it's child care only and I should apparently be awarding brownie points for this...

Weed situation also dire straits, but nothing to do with me going away, just everything to do with not enough hours in the day. Argh.

Sorry meant to say shoes were a success, thanks Bearleigh, very comfy!

I found a clematis too, bearleigh spotted this flower by the garage, poor thing didn't even have a support and was creeping across the ground!

This shrub is in flower now in the front garden having recovered from Dh's father hacking it down, is it Deutzia?

Rhubarb sympathies with the housework mine piles up whenever I am away or work, or garden.

Completely non gardening bit of news , in an effort to get dd2 veggie for 8 months (because she loves pigs) to try different things we are all as a family trying meat free for a month. Lentil lasagne tonight she has promised she will try it! Any vegetarian recipes that are dc appealing greatly appreciated