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.

Oh yes Wynken Mara de Bois are the very best IMO I think they are a cultivated version of the wild strawb. The perfume sends me!!

I have Alpine Strawberries in the front garden, dappled shade and yield strawberries the size of a v small pea, I'm going to pull them up!

Paused at the canna lilies in Tesco, wondered whether to get one to go with my Dahlias like Monty but £10 stopped me. I'll see if they reduce them.

My alpine strawberries in windowboxes produce lots of fruit tasting of eau de Cologne (really) but the ones in the flower bed only produce foliage. I was looking today for strawberry plants but Homebase only had planted baskets or singleton plants at 2 each.

I have, though, done very well on the Shelves of Doom today. From Homebase I got some helichrysum to finish off my last patio pot, primula vialli and geum Borisii and a hanging basket of herbs which I have cannibalised to refill the herb pot. I got even more herbs from the local garden centre, as the herb bed looks rather empty now that I have cut back the box hedge to its proper width. I got a lovely lemon verbena and I now have borage for the first time ever, as the 'borage' that my mum donated when I started this garden turned out to be alkanet. Thanks, mother.

Geoff in my experience alpine strawberries like moist shade. I have some growing in north facing clay and some of the berries are the size of a hazelnut. Some are tiny, mind. They vary on one plant which I don't understand, but one plant consistently produces more larger berries.

I grow 'Alexandria' on Sarah Raven's recommendation and they do produce bigger and tastier berries than the bog standard garden centre variety. They do taste of Eau de Cologne, but in a good way...

Ah, perhaps I have Alexandria, then. I buy a lot of my plants at amateur sales - these came from the local botanical garden - and I have got some lovely things that way, but the drawback is often unreliable or sketchy labelling.

Ahh that makes sense, my soil is like concrete at the moment. I'll move them into pots, and see if that helps. Dh acquired an 8 foot wooden ladder to put plants on, by the north facing kitchen door. They might be happier there.

My sunflowers are all out, but not as big as I'd hoped- I sowed the seeds too early. One of them has multi heads which I prefer. Must have been a seed mix up. My teacher present sunflowers on the other hand are looking fantastic, another 4 weeks will have their first flower.

168 visitors! Well done Humph. And beautiful description from Funny.

Welcome Halsall.

Hello! I have had a houseful of visitors for the past week, and was super busy with the village fair and dd's birthday party at the weekend, so haven't had a moment to come on the thread. I've missed you all!

What a wonderful description of Humph's garden, funny! Thank you for that. Humph, congratulations on what sounds like it was a fabulous and successful day.

Loads of other things I want to comment on but sleep is needed. The Big House Renovation begins tomorrow and I have to be up early for the scaffolding arriving. I hope they are careful with my wisteria...

Has anyone any idea what is eating the new growth on one of my roses? The new leaves are eaten all but the central spines. This happened last year to the same rose, which is otherwise very healthy. I haven't seen any creatures on it.

Bearleigh When in london I was growing nice raspberries and a few strawberries and one of the rasp. bushes began growing loganberry type fruits I got all excited and wondered whether to "patent' the first 'raspstraw' but apparently plants often do that!

Do you have to move out for the renovation rhubarb? Good luck!

Bearleigh my guess would be caterpillars.

Ppeat no we are staying here - first phase is just external, so shouldn't be too disruptive, although I'm already bored with lorries and vans filling the drive!

I'm also thinking caterpillars.
saw a big fat one one evening on the mature one, checked again during the day but couldn't see it. maybe they are nocturnal?

The rose damage does sound like caterpillars. I have leaf-eating ants (I think) chomping circular holes out of the edge of the leaves on one of mine.

Had a lovely time in the garden with the dc today. Baby Cobbler just crawls around eating dirt but doesn't mind too much when I take it out of his mouth. The older two were eating copious amount of raspberries and making beds for ants out of fallen rose petals.

It smells heavenly

Good luck with the renovation plans Rhubarb. We will have to move out of this place at some point in order to do a load of work, DH thinks we can move into the potting shed

I have been experimenting with making tea from all the different mints. Orange is definitely my favourite.

All the currants are ripe so I am going to make some redcurrant and mint jelly.

No caterpillars apparent on my nettle patch which is thriving especially for the purpose. This is typical. I am going to make nettle quiche tomorrow.

The ground is really dry here now. I've been watering and throwing buckets of water over the younger trees, but still the clay contracts and the root balls of newly planted perennials in water-retaining organic compost don't contract as much, so the clay is pushing this year's plants up out of the ground! This exposes the roots and some air pruning is inadvertently happening. I might have to go round replanting tomorrow.

The watering is quite relaxing after a day at work. One potters to and fro with the watering can, spotting plants in need, and generally reviving them. It takes about an hour due to the quantity of plants waiting patiently to be planted.

Poor old DS lost his passport and of course the new one hasn't arrived so he isn't off to Scandinavia with his friends as planned after his final exams. They have gone without him.

I too have just come in from watering. I find a cup of tea in hand helps too.

Also just picked a huge bowl full of mange tout from the edible igloo so DH, the dog, and I have just shared them as an evening snack.

your poor DS funnyperson - he must be gutted is it due to arrive at any minute? Will he be able to catch them up?

Oh funny, poor DS.

I forgot to water the garden.

But have cut some lavender for DC's room.

Had a lovely evening in the garden last night! Watering and a little light weeding and enjoying the flowers. Love summer evenings

Also admiring my seedlings which haven't died, had fun potting them on as being frugal tight I used compost from last year which is apparently heavily contaminated by willow herb seeds as I grew far more of this then anything else!

Just so you all understand why I don't grow much in the way of soft fruits, we went to Chinon little sunday market and they were selling; Non treated;

Boxes of blueberries, blackberries (big fat shiny ones!), yellow raspsberries, and normal ones, gariguette strawbs of course, all sooo fresh and cost 4 euros for 2. I made a beautiful smoothie with some of them and a coulis (which was going to be a sorbet but I couldn't resist eating them Oh also gorgeous cherries which I ate on the way home!

Stop it ppeatfruit, just stop it!

My Mara des Bois have almost all gone now though I should get some more - I must water them, or maybe I'll wait and see if the threatened rain at the weekend materialises.

but Oh! they have been delicious, especially lately when they have had some real sun.

The watering is quite relaxing after a day at work. One potters to and fro with the watering can, spotting plants in need, and generally reviving them.

Me too - it's lovely isn't it?

Thaks for the advice re my roses to all by the way. The only butterfly that has any sort of rose as a larval plant seems to be the Grizzled Skipper. Great name.

Sorry bearleigh . I was clearing a bed of all the normal weeds under huge pine trees, so nothing grows there except ivy,violets in spring, brambles and laurel oh some box hedges. I've tried believe me! It's by our front kitchen door and came across some 'fake' strawberries which look like small ones (i've tasted one and lived but they're not strawberries).

Any one with good ideas for what to grow for some colour there? Just white would do.Johnson's blue geranium lasted for one season

ppeatfruit the one thing that grew under our pine tree was a large clump of Crocosmia, it was not directly under, about a metre away. Now just have a large deck underneath , lovely apart from the falling pine cones and bird poo

funny gardeners question time a few weeks ago mentioned that when planting into heavy clay use plants grown in square pots or dig a square hole. Unfortunately I'd just purchased a large amount of round pots so need to dig square holes. Apparently if the hole or pot is round the roots don't spread out but just spiral round. Wondered if this may help your plants pushing out problem ?

My cosmos are out, just in time for Saturday when 65 adults and 20 ish kids are turning up for Dh's second Birthday party of the year. Rain is forecast :(

Phew! DS has gone off to Scandinavia after his passport was delivered by a courier on a learner bike this morning. I wanted to giggle as he looked so well organised and kitted up with beautiful twine knots tying the ground mat thingy symmetrically to his rucksack. I bet he returns with less than half the stuff in 5 weeks time after hiking and camping and whatnot.

ppeatfruit Brunnera macrophylia is said to grow well in the dry acid soil under pine trees. Azaleas, rhodedendrons and lily of the valley are others said to grow well.

callmegeoff thanks for that suggestion: you are right in that the plant roots havent spread into the surrounding soil. My planting holes are never very precisely shaped. I think I havent dug a large enough hole.