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.

Where will you put your 'hot chocolate' rose maud?

I have plants still in pots dotted round the borders while I work out the right places for them nothing to do with not getting the spade out

Viticella abundance clematis has flowered in its second year! So happy.

Also Mrs Oakley Fisher rose has repeat flowered, which is good with the ivory flowering hosta in a pot near her and purple flowering sage in a another pot near her. Patio pots are very satisfying.

I dont have a greenhouse, nightshade so cannot help.

My dream is an octagonal potting shed and a Victorian conservatory, neither of which I have room for. My concern about a green house would be the window washing which I cannot see myself keeping up with.

Palram greenhouses are very good apparently, though Gabriel Ash are the very top notch ones.

Hot Chocolate rose would go in the herb bed, which has a green and yellow theme with which I think it could work. It would be near Buff Beauty. But first, I would need to dig out a huge peony lutea which is too big for its space and so is on the condemned list.

Thank you Rhubarb, very helpful. I must buy any new ones taking a bit more care about disease resistance. Lovely photos FP.

A couple of my roses have a fair bit of greenfly but they often do annoyingly. No experience of the lean to greenhouses but I'm sure they will do the job very nicely.

Still no proper rain, it's been weeks now.

I want an Alitex greenhouse. I even have planning permission for one - it's there, drawn on the architect's plans and labelled 'Alitex greenhouse'. But it's gone from being a definite possibility to being laughably unlikely, for the foreseeable anyway. Such is the ebb and flow of life.

The Lacewing one looks like very good value. I would worry about the cost of getting a suitable base organised though - that could really offset that great price. That said, it is so cheap it would almost be tempting to just bung it on my gravel and hope for the best...

Lovely pictures fp I'm glad you met maudant I finally got round to watching the 3rd HC. although did snooze off halfway through was interested to learn that Cleomes were a big seller. I planted 8 in various borders, 3 grew well, 2 are small and skinny the rest got eaten. Tbh I won't bother again. They also smell a bit like cannabis, hope the neighbours can't smell them!

Is anyone growing morning glory? If so any flowers ?

Interesting about the roses, lots of mine have black spot, and hardly flower. I'm considering pulling them up. My one DA rose - Geoff Hamilton has lots of buds again, so I will definitely be ordering from there in the Autumn.

nightshade I had a look at that greenhouse, it looks ok to me. How long before you would get your dream one? I only ask because although I love mine, I wish it was bigger.

Just had a look at Alitex, wow they are beautiful. Which one were you going to get rhubarb ?

I dont worry about greenfly because the blue tits eat them, but I must admit to being finicky about removing rose leaves and branches with black spot.

My self seeded Morning Glory has just started flowering this week.

Just been Googling, those Lacewing ones are very well priced. Save room for a seat so you can sit in it on a rainy day with a cuppa. I don't need to Google Alitex, I drooled over them at Chelsea !

Hope you are not in Hampshire Geoff. Police are sending out scratch and sniff cards so people can recognise the smell of cannabis!

These lupins I bought, any chance of a flower or two later this year or will I need to be patient ?

I was going to get a bespoke lean-to, to go on the orchard wall where I could drift in and out of it through the French doors off the lounge without changing out of my slippers

Im not worried about a base - there is already a big concrete pad there (DH used to have his motorbikes parked there)

Hopefully just a couple of years till I can get a nice one built but we will have to see, such is life.

Handy there's concrete there already. I've got wifi in the garden, what a result. I'm next to which used to be where the climbing frame was on a bit of grass until fairly recently. It looks more like a garden now and there is a lovely waft of Jasmine coming from next door.

Have harvested the garlic and is a bit rubbish. Not sure I'm going to bother next year

I used to have self-seeded Morning Glory, but I must have dig out the seedlings - shame, it was so pretty ( though in the wrong place). It tickled me the dire warnings on the packet about how difficult it was to germinate and how tender, yet I got loads of seedlings. Admittedly it was sheltered - where are yours SugarPlum?

I have greenhouse envy: not enough room, so I have two demountable ones. They are actually fine, as places to grow plants in spring (which is all I need) but not very pretty, and you can't gaze at your flowers, while hugging a mug of tea, in one, à la Monty.

Very conveniently it's next to the shed and the trellis someone gave me recently. We are South Coast and on a hill with the plot surrounded by hedges and trees so we are quote sheltered here.

Hello everyone

Haven't been doing much gardening lately, have had a teething baby and an absent DH which means not much time! It has amazed me how the garden has got out of hand in the last four weeks. But I have had a bit of a catch up today and have had some time to pot on the mint cuttings, sow some wallflowers and hollyhocks, dead head the cosmos, clear some of the spent geraniums in the front garden and cut back the geums in the back door bed.

Off to catch up with all of your posts now.

Thank you all for the lovely comments the delphiniums have been in for couple of years so I think have a good root on them now (sheltered south facing garden in the south west) I think I used slug pellets once early in the year.

I have a question I really want to put a climbing rose up the side of my front porch but it's a really difficult position. The porch is north facing and the wall would be west facing but light limited due to the house ( not too bad in summer) the soil is quite dry (again sheltered by the house) does anyone have any recommendations. I have a lovely purple clematis growing (out of control) on the north facing wall in the same raised bed so things do grow!

Thanks for the tip about deadheading cosmos.

Do you prune large flowered clematis once they have finished flowering? Do you prune them to the ground or not and if so then when?

I am cutting back the geraniums hard (about 2/3) when they seem gone over, same with the pinks which get a 1/3 haircut. The buddleia has been hacked back today as has the cornus, and the valerian has been cut to the ground.

Knautia, osteospermum roses and pansies have been deadheaded. I like the salvia heads so much I dont want to cut them back but would like more flowers later if poss. The gaura is looking very pretty. The gloriosa rothschildiniana is trailing over the swing seat canopy and smells lovely. The rosa dark secret has found a place in front of the tall carex.

What sort of colour climbing rose would you like? I think its nice to look at Peter Beales and David Austin's websites as there is so much choice.

Pink or red preferably the house is cream / oatmeal colour so something to contrast with that. I will look at the websites had heard of David Austin but not Peter Beales.

Hi to all newcomers, glacier, grey, and nothing

Nothing, I was watching beech grove garden the other day and they had a Rose on a north facing wall I think it was zephirine drouhin which is pink and flowers prolifically in my mums garden albeit in full sun!

Loving all the pictures, and reeling at £45k on a garden! Especially since we are putting our garage base in on the cheap so I now have to wait till the end of August before we even start!

I have a greenhouse that will be getting relocated when the base is done which is great as I will be able to put it up straight this time! DH doesn't have my 'perfectionist tendencies' never going to let him loose on a tree house

sugarplum not Hampshire but close-Isle Of Wight! I like your picture is that Gunnera? I have one in a pot and still can't work out where to plant it. The Lupin I bought from a nursery and planted last year has yet to flower but the ones grown from seed this March are in flower, so who knows!

I gave the melon plants an ultimatum last week, they either produced or would be on the compost. They listened and have produced 5 baby melons

Fabulous news on the baby melons

Hello to glacier, grey and nothing.

Just rescued my pink spice geraniums from near death by thirst very poor watering on my part. I don't know how I missed these!

Have got a massive glut of blackcurrants I have no time to pick or process, I have phoned my friend to see if she wants to come and get them. I am sad all the raspberries are over (until the autumn ones anyway) but we have runner beans and lots of peas, much to the dc's delight. It is the only green veg that voluntarily passes ds's lips.

I need to dead head the pelargoniums in the terracotta pots.

I have just been, like the title of the Helen Yemm book, gardening in my nightie. I was having my breakfast on the patio when I spotted some jobs to do. I emphasise it's a very respectable nightie and a very enclosed garden!

I used to do that in London Maud! I was always out there first thing with my cuppa before breakfast. This was pre-dcs though; mornings are much too fraught now to contemplate anything nice non essential.

Congrats on the baby melons Geoff!

Apologies for not saying hello to new people. Welcome!

Roses need a minimum of four hours sun in order to flower. If they don't get that, it's not worth bothering . You'd be better off choosing a climber that likes shade, like a climbing hydrangea.

We had a localised thunderstorm on Sunday which hit our broadband line so I've lost my normal comp. and trying to get used to dh's new laptop until mine can be sorted out. Hence the gap in communications.

Oh Rhubarb tell me about roses| they not only need good sunshine they need acidic soil. I also have failed with them but some are ok here.