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.

we have a sewerage leak on our allotment, its only in the back corner, as opposed to all over the plot, but its where my bumper crop of blackberries are and my other fruit bushes. Water company are coming out later but Im going to be really peeved if they dig up and damage stuff.

• there is history, last year (before we got the plot) there was a huge sewerage leak and the water company eventually came and replaced the pipes and 'fixed' it (it took them 8 weeks!!) but it looks like its failed

Oh no Nightshade, what a pain . Love that card Squeaky heart !

Very jealous of Hampton Court trips. I'm hoping to go next year as a treat for surviving DC'S GCSE'S (assuming I do).

If anyone needs one of those slimline water but to, Tesco has them for £14, which includes the stand and kit for the downpipe. You can pick them up in store to avoid postage.

hello

One of my favourite quotes is the title of this thread - so I hope you don't mind me joining you, especially as I finally now have my very own garden.

(moving in mid August) DH and I haven't at all decied what to do with the house but we already have (big) plans for the garden, including perhaps the aforementioned

"Fringed pool,
Fern'd grot"

Hi Glacierchick and welcome . Love the fact that the garden plans are taking priority !

Hello Glacier chick, tell us about your soon to be garden unless you haven't exchanged don't want to jinx it :)

Sewage on an allotment sounds like an environmental hazard, I do hope it gets sorted nightshade

I've watched 1 and 2 of HC loved Thetbury community garden, what an achievement. I hope you get to go FP I am concerned that you are still ill. I do hope it's nothing serious.

Have a great time maudant look forward to hearing about the sell off.

My tomatoes are begining to ripen and tumbling Tom are yellow instead of red, dc's are refusing to eat them [hmn]

Thanks geoff: at the moment its looking like Sunday after all as DD has promised to come and trail round with me and plant trolley thingy just in case anything falls off the plant shelves, but we will go early enough to look at the gardens before they are dismantled and will be taking the car.

Welcome 'glacierchick' do you already have a pool in the new garden? (if you have exchanged etc)

nightshade there is a often a method of reporting sewage leaks to the council on council websites as they can be a public health risk.

The sweet peas are flowering beautifully. I went looking for the verbena bonariensis and found the seed tray but with the tiniest of seedlings in, so have moved it to a sunnier spot. Potted on the agapanthus and some forgetmenot seedlings and some pinks and ajuga and a hepatica which I am nurturing.

The sanguisorba has buds, I am so thrilled it survived the winter and when it flowers I will know where to plant it: probably out front with a golden grass and the knautia. If I get enough seeds to propagate it I may also use it as a plant to provide continuity through the coloured border: there are two varieties; officinalis and red thunder: how much I use them depends on the tone of the flower colour because the foliage is nondescript.

Flowering cerise pink Gaura, Knautia and a purple/blue Salvia fell into the basket when I went to get some twine and netting from the local garden centre today. Expensive twine.

Hello all you experts,
I am looking for a feature plant for my front bed, that was cleared last year by DH (who also cleared some decent plants because he didn't know what they were!). It gets sun in the early morning (to 11am) but that's it. So far I have- a couple of roses (doing OK), a couple of fuchsia (again OK), a camellia that I bought in a sale- I don't like the leaf shape and it didn't flower this year- and a couple of dwarf azalea.
I may replace the camellia but also need another plant, preferably for all year interest. What do you think about a box ball? I like hydrangea but obviously not evergreen.

Hi have been a bit busy but now am sitting in my parent's garden sipping iced mint tea.

my mum's secret for blue hydragenas: mineral deodorant

I love hydrangeas too they aren't deciduous though but come in pink or blue (depending on the ph of your soil).Also multi colours and white (i think) I've got plain old pink in our limey soil in Fr. and in london we had blue because the soil was more acid, and they're happy in semi shade.

I'm pretty sure that box needs a lot of sun though.

mousmous how does your mum use the deo? Lovely colour

she has a dedicated watering can where she put a deo- crystal. but I have to ask her how often she waters with this. she has another which is very pink which just gets water.

I have hope for the box, I cut it back and the stems are mainly juicy and green.

Maybe I'll have another try with blue hydrangeas then! We go to Cornwall on holiday, and I have really grown to love them.

Greyvix how big a plant do you want? If it can be big, how about Euphorbia Wulfenii? It is evergreen, a lovely soft grey green and for much of the spring it has acid green bracts. I had one in my front garden which also gets the morning sun, that I loved. They are big though (which is why I no longer have it there). Smaller Euphorbias that are also evergreen are available. Or you could try a small Hebe: also evergreen but they flower.

OOh thanks mous I've got an old deo crystal i'm going to try this!

I second the suggestion for euphorbias. I love them!

There is a Euphorbia trial at Wisley at the moment: it started last year and we saw them just after they had been planted. Wisley seem to leave the plants to their own devices with trials, and it is interesting that quite a few of them seem to have died (!). Lots more looked pretty scraggy, but the one that I noticed looking particularly good still is E. Seguieriana.

Does anyone know what might be eating my rose leaves? Despite Googling I can't work it out. It's the new growth on a couple of my roses. All the green is eaten leaving just the central ribs looking very dead. This happened a couple of years ago. It's strange that it's only some roses (and not the ones with black spot - clearly this creature has standards)

I have the same issue with a couple of roses.i think it might be snails ?

Anyone finding a lot of black spot on roses this year ? We went to a specialist rose nursery yesterday which is winding down stock for refurbishment. The ones left looked very sorry for themselves.

Thanks for the advice. I do have a hebe- golden globe I think, but it has no flower. I will have a look at euphorbia.

Sugarplum yes I am finding a lot of black spot, early in the season especially on roses that haven't really had it before.

Jealous of funny and anyone else who went to Hampton Court today.

I took the dcs to the garden centre to buy some sweet Williams for nursery teacher presents, and they had a sale on. Got an absolute bargain that was too good to miss - a seven foot tall standard/cordon redcurrant tree, wide mature stem, dripping with fruit. Reduced from £40 to a tenner. It will be perfect on the east facing wall of the orchard. Getting it into the car was a bit of a comedy though.

I was so excited by it that when we got home, I parked the dcs in front of Frozen (dh is away this weekend) so I could measure out and mark with spray paint where the side borders are going to go. Just need to strip the turf now!

That's a great bargain rhubarb

I've spent the day at home with poorly dd2 who was alternating between needing painkillers and cuddles, to making loom band bracelets.

Whilst the looming was going on I managed to weed 2 borders, remove 4 Borage before they seed everywhere, plant 12 foxgloves, 2 aquilegia and 2 Delphinium plants.

I have 10 more Delphiniums 4 Hollyhocks and 4 Lupins to plant. Some of the lupins are already in flower - I only sowed them in March!

Had a lovely afternoon with funnyperson and her delightful daughter at Hampton Court. I got a few goodies in the sell-off, so it's planting time tomorrow. I've just put a few photos in the FB potting shed if anyone cares to look.

How lovely Maud! I so wish I had been there with you.

Hello never been confident enough to post before but have wine so what the hell.

I don't have a huge amount of plant knowledge and a v small garden but these are my delphiniums from earlier thus summer.

Welcome, Nothing! If you can grow delphiniums like that - rather than the slug-mangled stumps I have produced in the past - you are obviously a proficient gardener!

We did think of absent friends, Humph, and enjoyed reliving the highlights of your gorgeous garden.