A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!

[MaudantWit]

Join us for ongoing gardening chat in the MN potting shed. Blow the cobwebs off a deckchair, help yourself to a glass of elderberry champagne and tell us about your garden.

Of course you've got plenty sun there echt sounds like VB prefers to self seed than grow in pots!

VB sounds like one of those awkward colleagues who you have to go round the houses with to get them to do what you want! Caper spurges are like that too for me - suddenly they pop up, and I have a beauty this year. It's enormous with such bright lilac stems it almost glows.

i had to google electric daisy - they sound amazing.

This year a lot of things have just 'popped up' in my garden too (along with new weed species ) it's the extraordinary amount of rain we had . The St. John's Wort is amazing.

Oh no. I have a big infestation of rosemary beetle. It has seriously damaged 4 rosemaries, 5 perovskia, and 3 lavenders. That's pretty much my entire dry border. There are still a couple of lavenders untouched so far, and a purple sage which looks quite happy, but these are all the plants it likes to feed on. I only bought the lavenders and some of the perovskia this year.

No natural remedies to be bought, apparently. I don't do insecticide. I think I will have to replace the lot.

Any ideas for drought tolerant plants with purple flowers, fragrant or aromatic if possible?

My commiseartions. Several years ago, lily beetle killed off my lovely rosemary.

Would nepeta fit the bill?

Nepeta has the looks, but I have a bit of a cat problem with neighbours' cats, so have always avoided it.

I might try a hebe or two, part of the purpose of this border is a semi-evergreen backdrop to my mainly grass/gravel planting.

How does caryopteris fare over winter in a mild position? Does it just become bare stems, or might it keep most of its leaves, can anyone tell me?

It turns out that Verbena Bonariensis is a perennial, that it likes full sun, a little feed in late spring and flowers in August.
Various websites recommend 1)gaura and cosmos purity 2)bishop of llandaff dahlia 3)echinacea purpura for companion planting.
So maybe my seedlings are doing fine and I just need to plant them out the front. The back garden is too shady.

I have just had a successful session, tidying up and cutting back while DH mowed the lawn (a rare occurrence but very transformative when it happens). I always plant too densely and I have just taken out a few things that are not earning their keep and crowding other, more favoured plants.

I noticed too that, because I was too timid in my spring pruning, the clematis jackmanii is flowering right at the top of the apple tree, where I have to crane my neck to see it. What with that and the two climbing roses, there is hardly space in the tree for any apples!

Traviata, how about some salvias?

Rhubarb, just a thought, but do you think that the electric daisy was hidden in the tractor bonnet in some quest for a power source? Makes sense really, them being electric and everything. Bit like a floral battery

It is nice when the lawn is mowed. DH did ours today too. Which roses do you have climbing Maud? We are going to put climbers in the trees at the top of the orchard, next to the rectangular veg patch.

rofl at the daisy under the tractor bonnet
why do children do these things?

Verbena bonariensis in this garden only seems to seed in the cracks of the path. It is most unfortunate.

Ah yes, salvias. I have seen some very nice blue ones.

One of the climbing roses is Spring Bride which, frankly, is a bit of a thug. It has outgrown the fence, outgrown the trellis that I added to the fence for it and now fills the top of the apple tree. This too (in hindsight) should have had a hard prune in the spring. If the dreaded Japanese knotweed does invade from next door, it may get entangled in Spring Bride and I wouldn't be too upset if I had to grub it out (except it would mean woman-handling yard after yard of thorny growth). The other climber is New Dawn, which is looking very spindly this year. Again, this may be due to inadequate pruning.

On the subject of pruning. My white summer jasmine is too big for the obelisk up which it grows. The first few feet are bare stem and all the leafy, flowery growth is at the very top of the obelisk. Is it likely to respond well to a very hard prune, to reduce its height and get the flowers down to eye level? (There is also some younger growth I can tie in, to hide the bare stems).

Unfortunately sage is one of the plants that the beetle likes, and presumably salvias are closely enough related to the herb form of sage to be on the menu. I've never had any success with salvias anyway, they disappear without trace.

So far I have in mind a new colour scheme;
dark blue caryopteris, deep pink hebes, lotus hirsutus, convolvulus cneorum, and a small Buzz buddleia at one end and a sambucus Black Lace at the other. The hebes and convolvulus should be evergreen, and the caryopteris will have decent seedheads until it gets cut back at the end of winter.

That sounds good. I like convolvulus cneorum, but it can't cope with my wey clay soil.

sounds great traviata. I love dark blue and deep pink.

Arf at electric daisy powered tractor! The little sod monkey was pulling the heads off Calendulas today in his sister's flower bed. Then she started doing it, which was quite out of character. I got really cross with them. I suppose it's probably my fault for confusing them by getting them to help with weeding sometimes - how do you explain why we rip out some plants but water others? The world must be a confusing place if you are two.

traviata I once killed a Caryopteris by pruning it too early. Lovely plant though. How about a Stachys if you want silver leaved purple flowered?

Nutter sends throaty purrs for all the good wishes. Thank you. She caught a mouse this morning so losing no time getting back on form.

stachys also a good idea, thanks to everyone for suggestions.

I checked up on my glyphosated snow berries this morning. It's looking hopeful; I had to re-do a few bits but mostly stone dead. Hurrah. I've only done one short experimental stretch so far though, I'm going to need a tonne of glyphosate to deal with the whole garden.

Also discovered rampant field bindweed throughout my Savoy Hotel rose and lavender border. Argh. I wonder if it came in in the composted manure.

Drum roll....there are some flowers on the wildflower bank!
Just a few. Two different varieties of purple flowers I've never seen growing wild around here, so they must be from my seed mix! They have appeared at the top of the bank, and then beyond that, in the field, where I didn't plant them but where they must have blown to....

Unfortunately thistles and brambles still rule on the bank...I had better get weeding before DH sprays the entire bank, flowers and all, with roundup....!

Sounds lovely traviata

Castle hurrah to the wild flowers, and great re mouse rhubarb I've actually just been wondering the same about bindweed coming in with manure as I seem to have more too.

I tackled the Hawthorn hedge yesterday prickly fecker! I also pricked out seedlings - forget-me-nots and black pansies, and potted on lupins, and Delphiniums. I'm quite pleased I managed to grow from seed 14 Delphiniums, apparently they are tricky and I read somewhere not to bother

whoop whoop for wild flowers and rhubarb cat.

we have one stray sunflower growing. might be from bird food?

Bloody hell, a pane of glass has smashed in the roof of the green house, glass every where. No obvious cause either :(

Eek, Geoff. Could it be because the frame of the greenhouse has warped in the heat (not that we've had so much heat in the last few days)? How alarming.

I went on the prowl, looking for more evidence of Japanese knotweed last night. I attacked the bindweed while I was there; my latest toy is a pop-up Roundup applicator that looks a bit like a giant deodorant.

traviata about yr rosemary esp your perovskia; I keep meaning to buy some because its soo pretty; the councils plant it by the roads and on roundabouts here. Although it loves full sun so maybe not for me!

Is your beetle like the lily beetle? I hate insecticides too so I just knock off the beetles from my lilies it works quite well!

Agree about sage if you get a hardy one like s.officinalis they are amazing for bees and butterflies. You've probably got buddleia! I saw a butterfly 2 years ago on mine which I nearly dropped through the floor after googling it; it was a large hawk tailed, zebra striped and, according to google, only breeds on papaya plants !!!

Just in from cleaning up the glass, I think your right maud it's been getting up to 35 degrees in there and last night I forgot to close the doors. The other thing I do is repeatedly trip on the door, on the way in/out I'm such a clumsy oath I've probably knocked the frame out of kilt. Any way not too much damage, the 3 Melons copped most of the glass and tbh I had little hope of getting a melon any way, lots of flowers and no sign of fruit.