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 was despondent, but Rhubarb and your kind gift of have perked me up, Funnyperson. Thank you.

What has also perked me up is going into Lidl to buy salad and leaving with a pear tree - V-shaped with Beurre Hardy on one spur and Williams on the other. We don't eat many pears in this house, but as long as it produces blossom in the spring I won't mind. I reckon it's a good shape too for growing a clematis up it.

I have also made a hanging basket for my pater for Father's Day, using fuchsias and trailing pelargoniums that all came from the Shelf of Doom at Homebase. Perhaps bedding is selling badly in this unsettled weather, as there were about 10 Shelves of Doom with some very nice things on them.

Oh, and I'm sorry you have been talked out of William Morris wallpaper, Funnyperson. I am sitting here in a room that also badly needs redecorating, but I can never muster the enthusiasm for interior decor that I can for gardening. Must change that. Anyway, on one wall I have a sample of the paint we have chosen (whenever we get around to it) and of the William Morris wallpaper that will got with it. I love all things Morris and collecting Morris plants - roses and acanthus especially - is one of the themes of the garden.

maudantWit as you mention clematis, can I just ask how to grow a clematis up a young apple tree? The tree is about 4 years old, I think, it's about 9ft tall with several branches, but the trunk is still very slender. Do I need to lead the clematis up to the branches on a cane, or something like that?

Hmm, well I have to admit that my method isn't failsafe - it worked with a clematis Jackmanii in an apple tree and Nelly Moser in rosa glauca, but completely failed with Arabella in the other apple tree (although that may be a slug-related death). Anyway, don't plant the clematis right next to the trunk, as they will be competing for resources, and lead the clematis towards the trunk with canes. I find this works best if the clematis is quite a big plant, so that there is some prospect of the shoots reaching the lower branches quite soon, and it also helps to use long canes, simply so that the lower branches can help hold them in place.

Both my clematis have been in place so long now that they just scramble through the tree/shrub and I have to do very little tying-in.

thanks Maudant, I am looking forward to a nice effect later.

Maud I'm glad the pear tree has cheered you up! How clever, with two varieties on the one tree! Will it fruit this year?
My unidentified apartment patio apple tree has more than 50 apple buds on it, after 4 barren neglected years! So exciting! The Beauty of Bath did the job, but failed to produce any fruit buds itself. I think I might have read somewhere that they only fruit every second year though...

I tackled the bank again today. I began to weed the end where I only recently sowed the wildflower seed (has no hope, if the other end hasn't yet germinated...) and I transplanted some of my hardy geraniums - the bargain Aldi ones grown from twiggy bits. At least something may grow on it this summer.
We will be moving into the new house in 6 weeks or so, and I have soooooo many pots to move. Going to try to transplant all of the geraniums, 4 lavenders and 2 thyme plants onto part of the bank. Sort of going with the suggestions offered before the wildflower idea. And if the wildflowers grow on the other end of the bank well and good. If they don't I'll tackle it in the autumn. And when the post and rail fencing goes up at the back I'll plant some rambling roses along...

Such fab weather here today, hope it hurries things along. I am still waiting for flowers from all of my roses and my wisteria!

Thanks for the treats for Nutter, funny! I fear she will return from hospital fat. Not much else to do there except eat, and she loves to eat. She is on a permanent low fat diet at home. I anticipate a programme of chasing around the garden when I get her back.

I farmed out the dcs this afternoon and did battle with snow berry bushes, which have come steaming back everywhere I tried to eradicate them last year. Even the strip along the orchard wall, where I paid someone to hack them out roots and all, is an explosion of shoots. I tackled the rhododendron bed along the drive today, pruning the Rhodis back quite hard so that I could get access to the snow berries coming up underneath them. Then I cut each stem down to six inches and glyphosated them.

I fear for the ferns and Johnson's (Johnstone's?) Blue geraniums which also live under there. I tried to avoid them, but there was a fair amount of run-off.

I also found a thistley thing that was taller than me standing brazenly in amongst the Savoy Hotels. How rude. This is turning out to be an epic year for weeds.

I also have a house in need of total decoration. Going for trade white everywhere here though. Although I'm tempted to go for a quirky hipster downstairs loo and put plywood wallpaper in there. Or an over the top forest mural or something.

Here's a better pic of my campanula which, like everything else, have turned out to be purple. Also, my first lily of he season.

Yes it is an epic year for weeds though in fairness an epic year for early roses and, by the look of nann's photo its going to be a good year for lilies!
wynken perhaps your mm alfred could do with some compost nutrition near its roots?
maud I have Morris in the living room already and in the utility room and a whole load of cushions and home made duvet covers and so forth. The Morris wallpaper in the living room went up very recently to celebrate the last term of the need to pay university fees for the DC and replaced the trade white which the children moaned about when in their late teens and all their friend's houses had on-trend decor with lime green feature walls etc.
Did you mention you have thriving acanthus in your garden?

oh yes, I swear I can hear the weeds growing!

there is a pair of magpies and a fledgling in my honeysuckle.
the fledgling is so cute. yesterday it was practicing 'hiding shiny round things (red berries) in flower pots'.

Yes, I have a new weed this year which is popping up everywhere. Annoyingly, it's quite deep-rooted, so if I try to pull it out by hand it tends to break off and leave the roots in place. Grr.

Yes, I have a nice big clump of acanthus mollis which is about to flower. I have concluded recently that acanthus spinosa may be the better plant, but hey.

Oops. Two paragraphs starting with yes. Zero points for style.

mousmous that is so sweet!

castle glad all is well, I bet you must be excited about the move.

maud I had to google acanthus mollis - what a lovely plant I need one!

I've been admiring all the lovely hardy geraniums that some of my neighbours have, consequently I have £50 worth sitting in a basket from Vernums. I'm still dithering, although most aren't dispatched till November.

Dd2 dragged me into pound land yesterday I was pleasantly surprised at some of the gardening stuff and came away with a bumper pack of summer bulbs - gladiolus priscilla, liatris spicata, peacock orchid and oxalis Deppei. I won't use the oxalis if anyone would like them pm me and I'll send them on. I also bought curved canes 3 for a pound and a bulb planter, dibber thing.

poggle was a mouthful so call me Geoff !

I know what you mean NANN: IME most plants described as 'blue' are in fact purple or purply, like that campanula (which I also have lots of). I think the only true blue plant I have apart from annuals like lobelia is Lithodora diffusa 'Heavenly Blue'. Confusingly RHS website says that the common name is Purple gromwell 'Heavenly Blue'...

nann my Campanula is that colour too, I thought it was blue but yes it is purple. What's growing behind yours? Is it Rhaspberries?

Hayloft are currently offering 16 gorgeous geraniums for £24. Luckily I have no space!

My experience too is that very few blue plants are actually blue. Forget-me-nots look blue to me and (although I don't grow them, because they're reputed to be tricky) Himalayan poppies.

Acanthus mollis is wonderful - vey statuesque and easy to propagate. I moved mine and a tiny fragment of root left behind generated a new plant in the old spot.

Thanks maud I now have £40 worth in my basket, the 24 geraniums, hellebore collection and some plants that came up free - more Hellebore and Buddleia. I did notice that if you recommend a friend they will give you £5 voucher, would you like my email address ?

Yes, Geoff, and then I'll sort it out later tonight once I'm home.

Done! There are some lovely things on that site and I'm sure I'll have no difficulty spending a voucher. But are there really things that are free? I do love a bargain and have found some useful bits of gardening kit in the pound shop, too. I have fared less well with pound shop plants.

Have just been planting out all the lovely plants Maud gave me. Thank you again!

Also been weeding all the edges, it makes it all look so much nicer. Am very worried that the weekend of heavy rain will flatten the garden. DH is going to spend tomorrow tying up everything that may go over in a wind. I finally realised that the pelargoniums I was growing on are never going to be bigger than a fifty pence (I am pretty sure the problem was some duff compost) so have bought new plug plants to go in the twelve terracotta pots on the drive.

The Frances Lester is coming out, it looks beautiful and smells amazing. The rambling Rector on the rose walk is just coming into bloom, I am hoping it may be still going strong by the open garden. Rosa Glauca looking very pretty.

I feel I will be v relieved when the open day is done, it is very concentrating of the mind when you open the garden and we seem to be flinging money at it wholesale It also may rain and no one will come, which will be a little dispiriting.

Ooh, do please post photos of "my" plants, either here or on FB!

Mous that fledgling sounds adorable.

Humph it's good to hear about all your NGS preparations. I am excited for you! I can imagine how stressful it must be in the run-up to opening though. I wish I could go.

This morning I called in to visit the garden I designed last year, the one with the hot colour scheme. It was fab to see it blooming. The plants are all massive and exuberantly healthy - testament to my client's hard work preparing the soil before planting, which I'd bullied him into. There is just no substitute for a thorough digging over with a tonne of composted manure, followed by a lovely deep mulch. It pays dividends and dividends. I have never seen such tall sisirynchium! Eye popping. I must put some pics up on FB.

The best thing about it all is that they were complete gardening novices who didn't know a dandelion from a daffodil, and now they are full of enthusiasm and so proud of their garden.

That's fantastic rhubarbgarden.
There is just no substitute for a thorough digging over with a tonne of composted manure, followed by a lovely deep mulch.

Helen Yemm, in That book I referred to a couple of weeks ago said that in her first garden her parents bullied her into digging in lots of muck, and one day a coop le of years later she noticed that the greens in her garden were fresher and deeper than in the other gardens