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

Hope it all goes well for the poor cat Rhubarb, and the time passes quickly until she is back at home.

Haven't done much in the garden as DH full steam ahead with the tree house, so I am on baby duty as always All done now except for the roof.

Really looking forward to going to Malvern tomorrow, despite the forecast 21 mph winds and rain. Monty is going too!

I potted on the courgettes I foolishly planted too early. I now have large plants cluttering up the greenhouse but I am hoping to get away with it!

bearleigh yes she still has it.

humph not as foolish as me, I planted the courgettes out and they have been slugged! Treehouse sounds great.

bertha my dogs a doodle too 3/4 poodle, 1/4 springer. Mad as a box of frogs!

Very keen to see tree house pictures Humphrey. My courgettes are cluttering up my conservatory, I'm going to pot them on where I can and move them to the plastic greenhouse. But I have to empty that of stuff first. So the oca is getting planted out and I'll just have to whip out the fleece if any more frosts appear.

Yep, doodles are completely bonkers in my experience. Ours looks pretty much and acts pretty much full-on neurotic poodle. Gratuitous photo of her sitting on DH just now giving me that, 'I know you're talking about me' look.

oooh what a lovely dog.

will do photos of tree house when it stops raining.

Poggle - how did I miss the Aldi agapanthus? Did you find out the answer? I have some bare root waiting to be planted. On the veggie recipe front, my DDs eat, buckets of humous & pitta and any fried rice type of dish (veggie paella or risotto?).

Traviata - this is the place to learn! Everybody is so good at answering questions.

Rhubarb - sorry to hear about little nutter, wish her well.

Funny - sorry too about ex-mil. My elderly aunt is travelling from the Kent coast to the royal marsden, daily, for radiation treatment for breast cancer it must be exhausting, I don't know how she does it.

Allotment challenge: Shirley & Victoria were robbed, rupert & dimi should have gone.

I am tempted to sell my Chelsea tickets, apparently they're going for over £500 each!!

My mum brought a phormium back from spain in the 80s. It took over our little London yard, so she split it into smaller plants and shared them around the extended family's larger suburban gardens. Several are still going strong and always remind me of that holiday. My mum def has 'the touch' when it comes to getting stuff to grow.

All my 'blue' english bluebells have suddenly come out (the white ones have been out a few weeks). They are stunning - really bright, deep, violet blue.

This is only my 3rd year in this house and the 1st year I've felt like the garden is truly mine. All these lovely plants, which I forgot I put in, keep popping up and I am amazed at the sheer variety. My DDs pulled down the curtain pole in the lounge while I was at work today and I'm not even cross as it gives me a lovely view of the purple sensation alliums poking over the top of the hebe and bowles mauve wallflower

Healing thoughts to funnyperson's ex-MIL, NANN's aunt and Nutter.

Yes, I love it when things I had forgotten about (or thought had died) spring into life. Yesterday I saw green shoots that may turn out to be the lathyrus vernus (as seen and admired at Hidcote) that I thought had died over winter.

The treehouse sounds wonderful, Humph.

my cougettes are still tiny and new tomatoe seedlngs just coming up.

we don't have many slugs in the garden, but lots of snails. so will use pellets when I plant out the seedlings so the can establish themselves.

£500 re agapanthus apparently will flower. I bought them in Aldi ages ago along with 10 Hostas. Have been avoiding Aldi mustn't buy any more...

at your alliums nann were they the 50 free ones we all got from Thomson and Morgan? Mine are comming up but in a shady border which was the only place I could find for them, so won't look that impressive.

Humphrey - if you'd like to borrow the lovely dog I'll swap her for your DH for a week so he can come and build me a tree house.

Thank you for all the lovely thoughts! Sorry to hear about the others going through radio too. The vet tells me that cats deal with it far better than people; they experience no side effects and don't appear to be at all bothered by it. They do have to be anaesthetised to keep them still though, which isn't great.

£500 for Chelsea tickets! That is seriously tempting!

Thanks for healing thoughts for ex-MIL. I am v. fond of her actually. Though as she's an ex-MIL I have to tread a delicate line and not appear too involved in case ex DH feels upstaged. Convenient.

Perhaps I'll sell off my Chelsea tickets too. Especially as I have 2. Could be almost as good an investment as Royal Mail! Actually I'm really looking forward to it, cant wait to see if I'm as impressed on a repeat visit as I was first time.

I want to do loads of gardening this weekend as I'm behind with some of the planting (again) and sowing. Hope the gales aren't too bad.

Humphrey please could you pm me with the date and place of your open garden? I am thinking of taking time off to go if it isn't at the weekend.

very blustery here.

my 'bue for you' are looking pink atm, hope that will change when fully opened.

Blue for You buds are pink, they open lilac, then turn progressively blue until they reach a beautiful slate colour just before the petals fall. I think that's the charm of it: the blend of shades, together with the beautiful perfume.

sounds great, am really looking forward to it!

Healing vibes from me too to those who need them. There's a mad Doodle here too. Am going to try and post the Weigla the previous owner trained into a tree.

Oh that's lovely Wynken really lovely. England in May is the most glorious time for flowering trees and shrubs.
A neighbour has a smoky tree (cotinius) and a laburnum and purple lilac and ceanothus all flowering next to each other on the grass verge. She/he has pruned them so that they have a base of sturdy stems and then a wonderful flowering canopy at a height of 5-6 foot. Provides a screen for their garden I guess.

The dog looks friendly.

I seem to have gone somewhat overboard on the geraniums: there are 7 or 8 different colours and I'm not quite sure where to place the ones still in pots. Some are clearly back/mid border plants. Others more low growing. However the geranium phaeum black widow is currently making a very pretty picture with forgetmenots, a pink and purple tulip and a pink geranium. It is quite a tall plant with such a profusion of flowers that it makes a very pretty show in spite of its rather depressing name

Had a great day at Malvern Show today. Heaven.

I most enjoyed the school show gardens - the standard was so high, I was very impressed. Had a lovely chat with a couple of the show garden owners, one who was not placed told me all the things that were wrong, which was VERY illuminating to the uninitiated. There were an awful lot of silver birch. My favourite tree were some topiarised hornbeam, absolutely fabulous.

I bought four new varieties of mint, Swiss, Lemon, Eau de Cologne and Grapefruit. I now have fourteen different varieties. This makes me happy . Also got some more sempervivum and six large geum plants, orange but I need to go and look at the name as I have forgotten

I have a glass teapot now and am getting more and more into herbal tea. I am trying to work out where I could put a proper tea garden.

mint is great. my parents have about 5 different varieties. amazing how they all taste so different.

near were I used to work was a persian take away. they had slow cooked lamb shanks as special once a week. served with burnt saffron rice, greek yoghurts and sprigs of different varieties of fresh mint. so good.

now I am hungry

Me too. How about blackcurrant and mint tart to finish:

www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/miscellaneous/mobile.php?rid=misc-blackcurrant-pie

Humphrey's Eau de Cologne mint reminded me of this recipe as the mint should (apparently) be E de C variety. I am from Yorkshire and was always fascinated as a child that there could be E de C mint. I shall have to get myself some and try that tart.

Bearleigh, I will make that tart when the blackcurrants are ripe. I never know what to do with them usually.

Just watching GW. The gardens look so much bigger on tv

I loved that I was looking at your FB photos at the same time as the garden popped up on GW Humphrey.

DH & I had a quick walk at Winkworth Arboretum today. Fantastic bluebells mixed in with red campion. Very lovely.

I don't much care for black currants but may make that tart simply to use the eau de cologne mint!

It being Mothers' Day tomorrow, the time to plant bulbs is on us. Ours go in containers; tulips and hyacinths. We'll cover the pots for a few weeks to stop sappy growth where the plant gets too tall too soon and can't bear its blooms.

Oh, I'm being taken to a posh restaurant in the CBD for Mothers' day lunch.

Lots and lots of rain lately, but next week is one of 19-20 degrees so the weeds will go bonkers.

I've been successful in killing off the lawn and its weeds, with only the late autumn weeds popping up, and they'll get their quietus next week. We're resisting digging the whole lot up, as it will only spread the dread oxalis. As the whole will be planted to native shrubs and dwarf fruit trees, we'll just dig the hole, pop in the plant and mulch. We'll have crushed rock narrow paths between the shrubby bits.

I love a bit of lawn, but when it comes to a decision between the lawn, and less work with something for the wildlife, well….