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

Pobblebonk pobblebonk pobblebonk good morning spring! welcome crafty and myangels please do tell us about your gardens!
I watered plants and pots last might and everything grew 6 inches!
The potted on sweet peas have done so well that this weekend I will be doing the stick pyramids and tying them in!
Also the sanguisorba has survived after all!
I had a close look at the base of the ornamental grass (it is a spiderplant plant planted outside by mistake not meaning to be trendy) and decided I will cut it to base to let new growth through and echinacea purpura near it.
Are pobblebonk frogs native to Europe? Would they survive here?

Pobblebonk frogs are Australian.

And speaking from down under, my flowering gum has pegged it after only a year, so back down to the shop and try again.

Hello Crafty and myangels

Rhubarb thinking of you and nutter, will watch for news on Monday.

Echt I am losing another potted christmas tree and starting to think I will never have anything to hang my tree lights on sorry to mention it so earlier in the year

Mum is coming tomorrow so will hopefully have some gardening time to weed, mulch, prune and split snowdrops!

Also need to find a place for Pobbledonk!

Oh yes, Christmas tree woes. In a few days, our potted Christmas tree - bought last December at huge some cost because we thought it would last a few years, as it's predecessor did - has gone from green and lush to browning and desiccated. Any tips for reviving it? I've done the obvious watering and feeding.

thanks mousmous

poor nutter :(
one of my friends had a cat with cancer 5 years ago, treated by extensive surgery removing most of her ribs, she is still here.

I've potted on my Christmas tree seems ok and has teeny cones developing.

waves to the newbies.

Both my Christmas tree pots were blown over in the wind twice and one looks like it is going to die. Losing needles and looking brown....can they regrow needles again?

Throwing put an idea here. I haven't found much information online about growing espaliered cherry trees (lots about fans) and I just wondered do you think it could work to espalier cherries along a path to make a 'cherry walk'. I was thinking that it would keep the cherries at a good height for harvesting....what does anyone think? I love cherries! nom! nom!

Hello! As I am now actually gardening I feel able to join in the thread again. Did a big weeding session last weekend (my mother's day treat was to have clear time in the garden). The boy helped plant some sweet peas around a wigwam that will protect a birdbox from direct sun (seeds straight in the ground, haven't done any prepping this year. If they don't come up, hey-ho.) and he's turning into a useful weeding assistant.

Today I tackled the lawn. Perhaps I should have mowed it first, but didn't. I have big clumps (hand-spread size at least) of weeds in it - dandelions, daisies, clover, moss, something seriously invasive that looks like a buttercup/geranium, hairy bittercress... I asked DH if he had any appetite to rip the lot up and start again (the lawn was never very flat) and he said he didn't. Thing is, if it was up to me we wouldn't have a lawn (it's nearly circular, about 4m diameter). We'd have a socking great fruit tree with a bench encircling the trunk, then around that we'd have cottage garden gravellyness with chamomile, thyme, alpines, crocuses, and these weeds would be ok, perhaps in the case of daisies and he teeny blue trailing flowers, they'd even be welcome. But he thinks (and any house buyer would also think) that for a family house you have to have a lawn to play on. Never mind that we back onto woods and fields, and the space in the garden is nowhere near actually enough space to kick a ball properly!

I have loads of tulips out - red ones and cream ones. I'll take a photo in the morning. Needless to say these are "naturalised" - life is far to short to lift bulbs here!! I have got rather congested daffs though and will probably lift some of those and share them around the place. My chionodoxa didn't come up this year next to my yellow crocuses, which I was disappointed about. And my Midwinter Fire wasn't very bright either, although I did follow the advice to prune it.

Really looking forward to the display in later spring on the rockery - fat, healthy leaves on my big bearded irises, globe alliums and crocosmia. Totally OTT bed but I love it.

Thinking about dividing a clump of primrose tomorrow, and giving the lawn a big dose of weed killer. It still confuses me how they can make selective weedkiller that gets the weeds but not the grass...

I like the sound of the OTT bed Lexie.

Castle do go for a quince. Mine is just about to flower and I think it has the most beautiful blossom time of any tree - large soft flowers in a soft pink colour, nestled in large soft green leaves. There is a photo a bit down this page:

ohfortheloveoffood.wordpress.com/2010/05/10/my-mums-quince-chutney/

And the fruit taste and smell delicious!

Spent seven hours in the garden today. Seven. My back has totally seized up and I have collapsed on the sofa watching Frozen with the DDs.

We didn't manage to even get through half the list of 'must do' jobs I'd made. This was partly due to finding that the free source of manure we've been happily relying on for years has gone and DH came back from the manure run empty-handed . Then the mower battery was flat...

Still, lots of other jobs done and we should be able to squeeze in a couple more hours tomorrow.

Did I say I was out there for seven hours?

can I sneak back in, I have .
I haven't been able to keep up with the last potting shed thread with one thing and another but im fully back on-line now.

In garden news I have stripped half the lawn off to create some new bed space, we have put in a hazel hedge and my snowdrops were/are fantastic. I however, managed to lose a whole load of tulip bulbs (as in lost them before I got them in the ground ) I have looked in all the likely and not so likely places but not a trace - ive even searched the garden in case a small pixie planted them whilst I wasn't looking.
The case of the missing bulbs ensues.

I also took tenancy of an allotment plot a fortnight ago which is very exciting

Ooo, gardening thread! Not been on for aaages & not read thread but marking place for later

. I need cake. New allotment; very exciting!

Welcome back too Grockle.

Thank you Nightshade!
Welcome to Grockle. Love to hear about everyone's gardens!

seven hours?

apart from admiring the tulips and watering the lawn, not much got done here...

Tulips out- yellow with red splashes.
OTT bed sounds nice Lexi how is the new baby shaping up?

Have posted a thread about orchards, so that I don't keep harping on about them here!

Am armchair gardening this weekend at my mum's house. Tomorrow I'll help her plant the lupins and delphiniums I gave her for Mothers Day last weekend.

Next week's job will be to dig the geranium bed by the stables and plant out my little growing Lidl geraniums. Out of the 21 roots I planted 17 are looking very healthy!

All the tulips sound heavenly!

Seven hours?

Thanks for the cake, Nightshade. Welcome Grockle.

I managed to motivate myself today to get out in the garden. Weeded, watered and mulched the ground under the new stretch of yew hedge.

Trundled off to the garden centre in a 'sod it, the feline chemo is probably going to cost us the new kitchen anyway' mood and splurged on new pruning saw and loppers (to replace the ones dh ruined chopping up firewood and leaving them out in the garden in the rain), mulch of various types, pots and trays for potting on, a pair of Gold Leaf gloves and a rain hat.

Felt cheered up.

Oh and waves to Lexi!

I have Gold Leaf gloves, I love them. I have Reynauds and cannot tolerate getting cold or wet hands.

I went out and happened upon a garden centre. Some more mint (peppermint and chocolate) fell into my basket, along with an Ann Folkard geranium for the gap in the front borders and some sweet peas to make up for the Old Times that failed to germinate. Will have two Spencer Blue wigwams, one Old times and one pink. I hate buying sweet peas but I have had real difficulty in germinating Old Times, which is a shame as they are my favourite.

Seven hours! Fab. No wonder you are tired out though.

Had some worry that we had got the dreaded box blight, but after much discussion and googling we came to the conclusion it was probably wind burn.

Good job Rhubarb! I find retail therapy helps every time. Glad it has cheered you up. Give Nutter a cuddle for me x

Castle, you can harp on about orchards all you want

Hello, Grockle

It's early doors here, but I'm an easy riser, as well as befuddled by the clocks going back this morning (that's tomorrow, for you). Time travel, eh?

I celebrated the first day of Easter break by, er… marking. DH was aghast, but I'm determined not to spend holiday time anticipating the dreaded stuff, and then actually doing it. It's like doing it twice.

Today will be better spent going to a local Sunday market where cheap plants can be got. I'm looking for westringia to underplant a gum tree, very tough, easy to grow and can be shaped very easily as they grow so quickly, any errors soon sort themselves out.

I met a lovely lady today, who observed that the enthusiasm that, as a teenager, she devoted to clothes she now devoted to plants. I had to agree although I do still seem to have a lot of clothes.

I was very controlled today and restricted my retail therapy to one canna and chocolate cosmos, to go in the front garden.

Maud you're a woman after my own heart. :o
Though DD is now extremely interested in the very clothes she thought were, like, bleurghh only a couple of years ago.

I restrained myself plant shopping today and bought only the westringias and callistemon Dawson River Weeper I'd intended to buy.

It's been beautiful today, and I got round to planting stuff out that's been languishing in pots: a bougainvillaea magnifica trailii, some coleus canina, though not for their cat-scaring qualities, and a prostate rosemary for a part of the front raised bed that has seen off every native plant so far.

In an effort to keep the ivy geranium-chomping possums at bay, I've placed some wobbly plastic wire in an arch at the top of the fence they walk along. Apparently they're not keen on wobbles, though having seen them run along the phone wires, I'm a bit We'll see.