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.

I'd love to keep chickens too, but I'd be rubbish at it. I'm too sentimental; they'd all have names and I'd worry about them.

Some friends of mine have a pizza oven built into their garden. We are going round tomorrow for a pizza lunch!

Yes, with the forecast of a sunny August, and us eating a lot in the garden (many breakfasts and salad lunches at the moment, sitting enjoying the sun and watching the plants grow) I'm torn between a chimnea, which you can use to bake pizzas in, and the firepit, which really is too hot for summer evenings, but brilliant for autumn Sept-Nov evenings. We can't really have both as it would clutter up the smallish patio. An outdoor pizza oven sounds ambitious!

DS, back from Scandinavia, is on a health drive, and we are eating a lot of open topped rye sandwiches and salads as a result. We had a baked apple, walnut and cheddar loaf with our salad yesterday, from the Mary Berry book which was just the thing.

The courgette soup sounds good, humph

I thought that it was a grade 2 listed viaduct but I may be wrong! That rockery took me straight back to the garden in the house we had in the 70s (We had our wedding reception in it) so there are plenty of photos to remind me)!. I don't reckon that MD would use growth hormones because he doesn't say it much but he's organic isn't he? He probably has quite a bit of help

funny DH is on a health drive too (Im always!) and we're eating pumpernickel bread it stops us feeling soo tired and dh getting grumpy!! Yes I like the sound of the courgette soup.

I'm trying to convince one of my chicken work clients to show me how to neck chickens. Ours have a high mortality rate from various random chicken ailments and we currently get the axe out but that's not the best way, for the chicken or for DH. Do you have any chicken farms near you Humph? There will be a kind soul there who would be able to give a lesson.

I'd love an outside oven but would worry that I'd not use it enough to justify the building of it.

My courgettes are are very slow this year. Only just starting to fruit properly. I am however drowning in beans.

There are soo many (true) horror stories here about dogs and foxes massacring chickens that as much as I'd like them we can't do it. Our neighbour's cockerel and menagerie is fabulous though and I take all our scraps to them so it's like having our own IFYSWIM. We also get gifts of already killed and prepared chicken type birds and the odd visit from ducks .

our courgettes are growing like mad. I am giving some away to neighbours and friends as have so much.
have made the rookie mistake of planting all 3 seedling instead of the planned two.

favourite soup: chop the courgettes up roughly and put in a rasting tray together with a roughly chopped onion and a couple of cloves of garlic and a glugg of oil.
sprinkle liberally with curry powder. roast until soft and slightly browned. into blender, add salt to taste. done.

humphrey's chickens looked so happy in their spacious country hen house that i can understand the reluctance to kill them.

I rewatched Gardeners World on the proper tv screen this morning and you are all absolutely right, its that Longmeadow compost and that nettle and comfrey feed as well as the space given to each plant and the hacking back which results in his healthy large plants. I do like Monty's jewel garden with its hollyhocks, agapanthus nasturtiums yellow buddlea and dahlias, and love the way it flowers in August.

I wouldn't want the exact same in my garden, as its so personal to him, but watching the programme again made me think I'll probably plant out my pot dahlias and canna lilies in a bed next year and order more dahlias in next year too, as they really are spectacular.
The acanthus was very very beautiful and I'm thinking I'll try and do that with my acanthus Rue Ledan, if they thrive under the oak, it won't be the same scale of course.

I pruned back the overgrown buddlea in the early morning, watching the peacock butterflies settle on the flowers as I did so, trying to keep the peacock shape. I also lightly cut back the American pillar rose and hacked back the Valerian.

The deep pink Gaura and the echinacea 'tomato soup' are flowering again and again: so pretty.

The Astilbe in a pot didnt like it under the oak tree: too dry a spot for it, even with watering: so the pot has been moved. They are pondside plants really.

yes funny it's difficult to keep any flowers till August; the rudbeckias that have to be in pots among the rockery are just flowering now and look nice with the new echinacea that's in it's pot too but apart from the lovely honeysuckle that's grown madly in under 2 years and the new clematis (that's much happier in a shadier spot facing east) there are hardly any flowers in my garden ATM.

I enjoy the lovely maroon pelargniums though on the terrace they set off the normal scarlet ones nicely .

Flowering now are:
out the back:
Sunny border: ceratostigma, hosta, fuschia mrs popple, fuschia magellinica, nicotiniana lime green, hydrangea lace cap, gaura, geranium johnson's blue, geranium phaeum (second flowering!) pinks, cerinthe, sweet peas, cornflowers.
Shady border: stachys lanata, alchemilla mollis, cosmos purity, geranium phaeum album, hibiscus, clematis viticella abundance, lychnis alba, bellis, white pinks, nicotiniana sylvestris about to flower; echinacea white swan, astrantia seed heads mostly.
Under the oak: cyclamen, ajuga, shasta daisies, echinacea tomato soup, geranium johnson's blue, rosa New Dawn.
In pots: Rosa Munstead wood, pansies, pinks, gloriosa rothschildiniana, more sweet peas.

What is flowering in your gardens?

Blimey where are you funny? The ceratostigma flowered 2 months ago here and I have to pull it up because it appears everywhere ! Your garden sounds lovely. I did forget the hydrageanas which are in flower here! The dahlias in pots are struggling, I've had to put plastic bottles over them because of the slugs.

Flowering now:

Eryngiums, various grasses, echinops ritro, scabious, various gorgeous verbenas, buddleja, self-seeded toadflax, some sedums, thrift;
rose Brother Cadfael, cerinthe, erigeron karvinskianus, honeysuckle, jasmine, clematis Etoile Violette and Princess Kate and Betty Corning, my last remaining lavender, creeping gypsophila, ipomoea;

In containers; occasional flowers on my indogofera and the heuchera in with it, lilies, lobelia, annual geraniums.

There would have been nicotiana sylvestris but the slugs got every last one.

in flower:
hydrangena (2x)
roses (blue for you and hansestadt rostock and a neon orange one from the shef of doom)
sunflower
courgette (big bright flowers)
honeysuckle
gladiolus (pink and red)

I love gladioli too; the locals all grow them but it's not that easy to buy them in the market for the house. I'm not sure about the 'new' types with odd marks on them that to my old fashioned eye looks like they've got a problem or something!

In flower:
Calendula, courgette, morning glory, cornflower, French beans, chocolate cosmos, cosmos purity, snapdragon, Princess Anne rose, Crocus Rose and the Fairy Rose, Bowles Mauve, two pink things, Lychnis Jenny, Penstemon, shasta daisy, aster, cerinthe, geranium rozanne, acanthus rue Ladan (or what ever it's called), Pelargoniums, lavender, rosa tranquillity, day lily and unidentified pink rose.

Just caught up with you all have a house full till tomorrow but I did sneak in a bit of gardening. Cut back all the gone over loosestrife and placed pots on the stubby remains.

In flower I have roses cosmos, Sarah Raven purple collection Dahlias, Hostas, Fuschias, Wisteria - second lot of flowers, Delphiniums, Lupins, sweet peas, sunflowers in pots, I kept 3, Morning Glory, Cleomes, Bells of Ireland, Elecric daisy, Dandelions, clover, linaria, lavender, some things Dh bought that I don't know the name of and the Damson tree that got moved.

I may have to rethink where I plant more lavender, I wanted it to line the back path to the green house but don't think it will like the heavy clay there.

I've had exactly the same thoughts fp more Dahlias orange I think and put them in the ground!

My garden (well the one border that actually looks like a garden) has roses about to bloom, second flush. Lilies about to open and the Japanese anemone is just starting so am hoping it's all lovely when friends and family are over next weekend!

Still sorting out the furniture but having a deadline helps!

Thank you for the code Maud will get it ordered and look forward to trying to keep them alive.

Everyone's gardens sound so lovely I hope you are all taking time to enjoy the fruits of your labours.

The pizza oven was amazing. That's another thing going on the list for when the ship comes in along with the Alitex greenhouse and natural swimming pond.

Their garden was immaculate. It rammed home quite how let go my own is.

It's nice reading what everyone's got flowering right now. We've got Japanese anemones, hydrangeas, Lavatera, Savoy Hotel roses, Lavender, some perennial geraniums and white Phytostegia that Maud helpfully identified for me. I think that's about it.

and elderflower cordial for everyone

Rhubarb, DH did a day course and is now confident he can build a pizza oven. Don't buy one, you can have one you make yourself!

I have loved reading what is flowering in all your gardens. I will have a think about mine and report back.

cheers! Your DH is vv good at that sort of thing!

My lavender was alive with bees today; the volume of the buzz was wonderful. It has turned into a bit of a thug this year though, I spotted lots of stuff struggling to break through as it's been blanketed with lavender.

I've got quite a bit flowering, but brain not working sufficiently enough to list them out. My tall asters are starting to flower now, bees and butterflies love them too.

Just watered the veg plot with the contents of the paddling pool.

I love being able to use the paddling pool as a dipping tank, it just saves so much time.

I love lavender so much. Bought some oil today to console myself for the lack of plants in my garden. DS calls the bees the guardians of our garden, v poetic of him!

In flower: cotyledon obiculata, jade plant, crucifix orchids, clivia, slipper orchids, hardenbergia violacea, rosemary, alyssum, grevillea lanigera, grevillea Ned Kelly, nasturtiums, thunbergia, some bromeliads, day lilies and red abutilon.

Thanks for the drink funny . I love lavender too humph I forgot I planted a row in the little front garden in the autumn and it's happily flowering away atm. I use the oil all the time for a lot of things.

Blimey you garden sounds lovely echt and in winter