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.

For what was Mme Alfred Carriere a clue, squeaky heart?

No planting got done today. Watering deadheading cutting back and cutting flowers for the house and sitting around and also working. The garden is no longer looking well tended and is a bit reproachful when I sit out. Unlike mums garden which is looming with lilies, day lilies, masses ans masses of shasta daisies, heathers, roses, loosestrife, fuschias, geraniums, osteospermum, rudbeckia, roses, and a crowded veg patch and redcurrants and strawberries and all in great abundance which just goes to show that neglect and sun seem to be far better for gardens than tending and shade.

I like predictive txt (sometimes) 'germs' instead of geums!!

Those butterfly friendly plants are also friendly to cats, well the nepeta is our cats completely massacred ours!

Just dipping back into this thread before I go out and pick some raspberries
Our grapes (green, unknown variety) on the indoor vine are doing well this year; unfortunately they're small and very pippy, but they do look picturesque!

Interested in all this house-painting. We're having ours done at the moment and this prevents me from sitting out in the garden, annoyingly. We have a wooden chair we scavenged from a neighbour's skip, and a garden bench with curly iron ends and frame, also rescued from a skip. Dh cut new wooden slats and we painted the frame with Hammerite. Very satisfactory to get something for nothing, I must say.

oops

I may just have ordered blue penstemons, achillea Cassis and coreopsis Sweet Dreams from Hayloft plants, and asters from Sarah Raven.

It was all this talk of butterflies that did it, I found a peacock butterfly in the conservatory earlier.

Also my planting is all very early-summer, so I did intend to get later-flowering plants, but the idea was to Wait Until The Autumn, not give myself loads of watering to do.

In case anyone else is as weak-willed over eager as me, there is a free delivery code over £25 for Sarah Raven if you use AT14NC

someone mentioned a Gardeners World SR discount code as well? too late, I could not be patient.

I had to switch off predictive text, it can't cope with me switching between languages...

the box is recovering, lots of tiny green leaves appearing everywhere. it's not quite ball shaped as I cut out all dried out bits. maybe I can shape it into something peculiar spectacular :o

Ooh traviata, , I saw that blue penstemon offer at Hayloft and was sorely tempted.

Going to Nymans tomorrow.

The roses at Nymans are amazing.

I was there in June and the crambe cordifolia was extraordinary, like colossal lacy parasols.

Funnily enough the outside of our house is being done at the moment too. We're just trying to fix the tea bag effect that it took on in all the rain over winter so nothing exciting. Today they have been sanding and jet washing the back of the house to remove the paint and blown brickwork. Apparently the scaffold is going next week. I've become rather attached to it but find it very disconcerting when men pop up at random windows. Trying to find a private toilet has become tricky and requires planning.

blackpuddng, I know exactly what you mean!

Oh dear yes, the loo thing! I will be very glad indeed when the guys currently working on our window frames have finished.

Our house is not over looked at all. This means we habitually walk around in a state of undress with curtains open. This has not been a good thing in the last few weeks! We have one toilet that doesn't have windows. It has become my refuge

Snap blackpudding Although all our shutters are closed against the heat so it doesn't matter what we wear indoors but there's always the chance of a postman or neighbour turning up, because one of our gates was blown off in the gale in 5 years ago ( We're still deciding what to replace the plastic gates with!) so you wouldn't catch me in my nightie!

Nymans was a treat. The long borders were a blaze of colour; quite dazzling. And I especially enjoyed a shady bit of woodland garden full of really interesting, classy hydrangeas - Hydrangea serrata 'Kiyosumi' and Hydrangea serrata 'Koreana'. Plus a jaw dropping beauty, Deinanthe caerulea 'Blue Wonder' which I MUST have.

Yes, one has to choose one's hydrangea carefully though as its not the sort of plant you can have lots of.
Talking of which, Monty's acanthus plants were stunning.

Oh yes, that long row of acanthus was gorgeous.

While we're talking hydrangeas ... My hydrangea quercifolia has become an amorphous sprawling blob. Should I be cutting it back every year (until now I've been leaving it to do its own thing)? If so, when.

Have just googled deinanthe, which I'd never heard of. It's lovely - puts me in mind of hepatica.

Hi maud if you could pm the details that would be lovely!

The Rose was left as it is white with pink streaks to suggest blood, it was a hint regarding the white Rose group who promotedanti nazi propaganda during World War Two. Funnily enough I have never heard of them till I read the book last week and then there was a post about them on Facebook a couple of days ago.

I loved the fact it could have just been a white Rose but the author had to mention it by name.

Still scrubbing furniture, should have protected it better first time around oh well, keeps me fit.

Need to go buy a new hose as apparently I didn't turn it off before dashing off to a baby group and came back to it spraying the neighbours garden!

Sure, I'll do it tomorrow as I'm too old and creaky tired to go downstairs now to turn the PC on.

That's really interesting that white rose group. Oddly I first came across Mme Alfred Carriere at a friend's house: her dad was possibly a member of the French resistance, no one really knew.
Completely at a tangent: the size of Monty's Hosta leaves and Canna leaves and the size of his garden plants in general seems gigantic to me. Is this a special tv effect or is he adding plant hormones to his soil do you think? I'm not sure what I think about oversize plants in general: they seem a bit acromegalic and not quite right. Healthy plants are one thing, but a lot of plants over 6 foot tall can be slightly worrying.

I agree up to a point about the lushness of Monty's garden and the size to which things grow there. I assume it's the result of very careful tending and nurturing. But I like big and bold planting. The banana plant tonight was magnificent.

Oh yes it was, especially the purple veined leaves and the size and shape of it just perfect in Monty's garden. I was more thinking of the thistles and things.

Cirsium

I got some at Chelsea and its not even flowering let alone growing 6 foot tall.

I think I'll give it away.

ruthless