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

That looks lovely, Bertha, and will be even lovelier when it's in flower and the lanterns are lit.

Hello kinkytoes and kitsmummy. Pond envy here too! I have had a crazy idea to dig a hole for the trampolene and when the dds no longer bounce ta dah pond!

Love the fairy ring Bertha, Electric Daisies are doing well, do you know off hand how big they get?

I have done lots of things arse about tit, when you read the seed packet and it says sow mar-May, I've done March and made a whole lot of work for myself. Monty did sweet corn seeds, well my plants got planted out a few weeks ago and are not looking very happy. I'm not sure whether to sow more or whether the warmer weather will convince the ones I have done to start growing?

Glad the teen party wasn't too vomity. Dd2s turned into a water fest, they all arranged amongst themselves to bring swimmers bar the only invited boy and chucked water down the slide and at each other. Of course the poor lad was saturated and went home in just his pants! Annoyingly I'd spent bloody ages straightening dds hair!

The fall out over pass the parcel made me smile, we do a version now with a dare between each layer which always goes down well!

I love the fairy ring. great idea!

we had some excitement this afternoon, we have found a sloeworm (sp?).
we have put balcony flower pot upside down in a shady bit with one end resting on a brick. hope it will be happy in our garden and eat all the slugs!

yes to the sweetcorn, mine is out for about 3 weeks now. actually not looking too bad, but not very big yet.

when monty says 'whatever you do, don't...' you can be sure I've done it :o

Electric daisies get about 8"-10" high but quite bushy if I recall correctly poggle.Mine are still loitering as tiny seedlings but they did that last year too and then suddenly kicked off.

Oh yes that fairy ring is very cute!

We have a stream running in front of our house and we set the hosepipe up this afternoon to suck out water from the stream down into the pond to cleverly save us lots of money filling the pond probably highly illegal but the resulting trickle was so disappointing I think it would take about 6 months to fill!

Does anyone here have a gunnera? I really want one but think it might be a bit out of place in our cottage style garden.

I have one in a pot, and seeds to grow more. I think they look lovely by water and eventually I will have them round a pond. I don't really have a look to my garden though, still learning and get things I like or have seeds for, with out much thought

Hello every one and especially Kitsmummy and kinkytoes. We were discussing a gunnera today, they are FAB but I think it may be the wrong thing to plant in our orchard.

We had our first campfire supper of the year with friends on Friday, much hoisting of hot dogs into the tree house with pulleys etc. DC have played in it every day.

DH has been busy making a new garden in the pigscot (it is a walled enclosure attached to the small building we kept the pigs in), he cleared the cobbles so they show and built a wall thingy around the corner for the bottlebrush tree that was a present from a very dear friend a few years ago. We have not known what to do with it until DH was inspired . He put in two purple elder in pots, bought a big tree fern, used all my scented geranium that are in flower, planted up a mexican hat pig feeder with sempervivums, squeezed in a couple of chairs - it looks really nice.

I have been busy with the greenhouse and getting all the outside tomatoes planted and staked, planting sweetcorn, potting on sunflowers, feeding pots. We put the salvia I grew on from cuttings in the corrage borders and planted out cosmos purity in the front garden amongst the geraniums.

Castle lovely news xxxx

Your pigscot sounds fab Humphrey, and the fairy ring looks as good as it sounded Bertha.

My FIL got a Gunnera many years ago, and in the weekly round robin letter to all his children he kept us informed of its progress. Every Week. He lived in the rainy depths of Wales, and it was planted by a stream, but it never seemed to be very satisfactory. They seem to grow like weeds everywhere they are planted, but are clearly not as easy as they look.

I was busy tidying yesterday and today was glorious so I just sat in a chair on the lawn reading ^Sense & Sensibility' listening to the bees, and noticing, ta-daaa, that what I thought was a poppy is in fact a self-seeded Knautia Macedonica, that I can move into the front.

Here's a picture of my Convolvulous Cneorum, which thinks it's a climber:

I love Kanutia Macedonica, such a lovely habit. Concolculous pic is wonderful!

That looks splendid!

As ever, Humph, I am in awe of your creativity and hard graft. The new garden sounds lovely.

I have done no gardening today but have great plans for tomorrow ...

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone

And thank you MaudantWit for that link. I went out today and took the the secateurs to that honeysuckle with wild abandon confidence. Looks much better now.

DP mowed the lawn and we had our first barbecue of the year. Stunning day!

I have some planting to do which was on today's list, but will have to wait till tomorrow now.

kitsmummy cottage style is what I'm after too. Trying to stick to gentle colours like purple, pink, white, yellow and blue.

My knautia Macedonia self seeds with great abandon. I started with one plant a couple of years ago and now have about twenty of various sizes spread through the long bed. Spotted one self-seeded in the fig pot yesterday; it will be moved when big enough. Mine are not far off flowering now (the bigger ones anyway).

I had to google knautia Macedonia, what a lovely plant, I must get one!

I've just noticed the Elderflower is in bloom, Dh has a significant Birthday party in June and I'm hoping to make champagne, though never made it before!

I have baby cucumbers forming in the greenhouse and every tomato plant has flowers! I didn't sow any more sweet corn, the plants are alive so I'm optimistic they'll get going.

The pigscot sounds lovely humphrey and so does the tree house.

Elderflower champagne - yum.

For anyone without an elderberry bush, but with blackcurrant bushes, I recommend using their leaves. I don't know about champagne but I made blackcurrant leaf sorbet yesterday and it was fabulous - the same sort of muscat flavour you get with elderflowers. There is a recipe on www (Telegraph) which is like the one I used only mine used the rind of 3 lemons as well as the juice.

Welcome Kits and kinky.

Humph, your garden sounds so beautiful. I wish you were just down the road so I could visit it!

No gardening for me yesterday; I did my back in and could barely move. I had to just sit on a chair and watch the dcs playing in the paddling pool, which was simultaneously enormously frustrating and rather nice.

I love the idea of pass the parcel dares.

I have a Gunnera. It's only its second year so it's still quite small. It's in the corner of the middle garden, which is mostly just lawn but one day will be my homage to Christopher Lloyd's exotic garden, full of big-leafed jungly things.

Humphrey, I don't believe we've had treehouse pictures yet...

ive just spent a lovely half hour catching up on everyones garden news.

well I finally got round to planting up the front garden - it looks rather sparse and a few things may need moving but at least its not all lingering in pots to get baked in this heat. Need to get some more things to go in but it will have to wait until after the wedding as that seems to be haemorrhaging money by the second! ive also got gate posts and a gate in the kitchen waiting for me to paint it.

the allotment is weedy and suffering a lack of time but im hoping to get up there tomorrow to do some clearing.

We went to visit my MIL yesterday and she gave me a pot of huge Arum Lilys for my birthday, they are beautiful although it was quite a struggle to fit them in the car.

We went to a quarry today to pick up a gravel sample. It is really nice, pinky/grey and matches the colour of the house nicely. I am SO looking forward to getting the gravel down, the vast expanse of tarmac has always looked very meh, esp as it is really old and knackered. We have held off due to bike riding purposes but neither child cares even a little bit about riding their bikes and both have to be forced persuaded to spend five minutes doing it, so I though we should just go for it.

thank you for your kind words Rhubarb and Maud,

Tree house pics about to go up.

Oooh a wedding is so exciting Nightshade. Sparse is not necessarily bad, I always plant stuff too close together.

New gravel is very exciting. It is transforming in the same way that a new carpet is the sign of house renovation completed - the icing on the cake.

I am loving all the Chelsea coverage on the telly. Can't wait to go on Saturday. Ishihara's and Cleve West's gardens look especially enticing.

Df turned up this morning to visit, and then spent the entire day edging the path and steps that go down from the patio to the main lawn. It looks amazing, and is now about two feet wider than before!

Awaiting new gravel here too, nothing fancy, just need to replenish the paths that are currently dirt and the drive.

at those of you going to Chelsea, I have watched some of the coverage. I don't suppose any of you can recall the plant last night that was with the sculptured L shaped seat - Kausa something I should have rewound but got distracted.

I've managed to plant some ferns and Bells of Ireland round a shady bit of the deck plus pot on teacher present firecracker sunflowers. The latter I am confused as to when they flower, according to the seed packet summer next year. I suppose they could have Electric Daisies which might prove interesting!

ferns and bells of Ireland sound a fab combination.

Your DF sounds brilliant Rhubarb, what a great thing to do!

Gravel IS like a new carpet, isn't it.

Finally got around to taking mint cuttings, although I fear I may have mixed up chocolate and black pepper. Never mind, it is hard to tell the difference anyway. I also moved all the PTFA plants into one place and organised all the bedding/lettuce type plants I am growing on for the ornamental round veg plot. I think I will plant them out the week before the open garden. I have realised that you are not supposed to manage it like actual EATING lettuce and that freed me up just to treat it like bedding! It is v cheap bedding too.

Dear me. I fell off the thread. How remiss of me.

I'm a bit behind on Chelsea watching. I must go to bed early and get onto iPlayer.

I have just potted up some pelargonium plugs from Parkers. I have been a bit disappointed in some of the things I've had from Parkers in the past but these look good - nice and substantial plugs. I also potted up the free-for-postage tomatoes and chillies that came from GW magazine. My tomatoes never fare very well outside and I've never grown chillies but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Much rain here in the last 24 hours. The lawn is looking a tiny bit better but everything is snails-a-gogo.

Ah, just remembered a question for the rose-growing sorority.

I have a shoot growing from Buff Beauty that I am sure is coming from the root stock - shoot and leaves are a different colour to the rest of the plant. Should I cut it off at ground level, pull it off below ground level or what?