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.

[ppeatfruit]

Thanks UptoapointThey very pretty I bought some ,I think, for indoors have they got succulent leaves? They're annuals though aren't they?

[ppeatfruit]

sorry`I meant to put "they're" of course.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

I have fleabane on an old stone wall under some conifers so very dry soil. They are perennials
There was a garden made on rock on GO I think that Joe Swift visited, really impressive what had been achieved.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

Gardeners World that was meant to be.

[WynkenBlynkenandNod]

And I'm excited as a couple of my Wilko's dahlias have appeared.

[beccajoh]

Oh I like that fleabane. V pretty. I'll add it to my list of plants to get. Currently it's just peonies and Mexican fleabane I do love roses but worried about the toddlers versus prickles issue. Mind you, they'd only spike themselves the once, wouldn't they I do love roses

[ppeatfruit]

Wow I'll see if i can get some wynken thanks they died in the house after the summer so I thought that they were annuals.

[ppeatfruit]

Do you reckon that dahlias would be happy in pots?

[MaudantWit]

I think dahlias would be happy in a decent-sized pots.

I have just been watering the garden. The best thing about it at the moment is the powerful scent of honeysuckle.

[MaudantWit]

And I forgot to add my at not only living in France, but living in France with a garden with caves!

[funnyperson]

Yes i watered the garden (and weeded). Our honeysuckle is a bit behind yours Maud, lots of buds not so many flowers yet.
I am going to go for the Gardeners World Magazine lavender offer and may plant them between the lawn and the patio to waft their fragrance in our direction when we eat or sit outdoors. Its not a very sunny spot though as the Patio is always shaded by the shadow of the house, so not sure as if not sunny then the lavender may not flower and will not waft scent.
Compliments from next door's 2nd youngest: 'cool' on spotting the peacock.

[MaudantWit]

The peacock does sound fabulous. I hope you can find a way of posting a photo!

[funnyperson]

Oh well like all these things it is probably better in the imagination!

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Lexi, can you pop round to Funny's house and take a photo of her peacock?

My dahlias are in big pots. Can't say they're that happy though. Maybe some feed would help.

[Squeakyheart]

Buddleia peacock, wow I would love to see that!

castle I was watching beech grove garden and twinkly eyed Chris planted a clematis Montana as ground cover to run up a slope so thought of you and wondered how the bank was going.

In-laws have been round with some plants for the garden but don't know what they are so will be googling them at some point, when I am not dreaming of winning the lottery so I can build a cave with crystals and a pool...

[HumphreyCobbler]

I love the sound of the peacock funnyperson, what a fabulous idea!

I try to get rid of the weeds, mulch helps.

We have dahlias in pots, this year we have used our garden compost and they are really happy so far.
Here is the Paul's Himalayan Musk in the cherry tree

[Callmegeoff]

www.sarahraven.com/how-to/growing-flowers/how-to-plant-grow-dahlias I found this usefull when growing Dahlias, mine are in pots I can't decide whether to plant them out. I'm worried I will not get round to lifting them in the winter.

[Bearleigh]

Ooh I wish I'd read that before I planted my dahlias. No stakes...

They are all quite short though and haven't needed staking before. I grew them all from seed, and have a new lot this year, cactus flowered, which look like they might be taller. But they won't get really tall until the autumn, and probably won't flower until then either. It still amazes me that a full tuber can develop from a tiny seed.

[ppeatfruit]

thanks;the caves are very much a double edged sword though (our neighbour has some incredible stories about them) but there are 2 levels in the garden and the high one is at the top of the opened cave and it surrounds some closed ones too IFYSWIM . I'm growing a living hedge around the edges for safety because there are approx. 20 ft drops down to them 'laying' as much as I can .I saw an interesting countryfile about laying hedges.

It is working because everything grows soo fast but now it needs cutting at the top and I can't reach (we do have a bloke wot helps) but he doesn't like ladders neither do I!

[funnyperson]

I'm trying to picture the caves and their relation to your garden and plants and cant quite get the layout. A friend has a house the back wall of which is stone cave. Your caves sounds entirely in the garden. Phenomenal. Ideal for ferns. But if there is a 20 foot drop then I'm guessing its a bit like a cliff/parapet. I would be tempted to build a wall with a seat but then littlies might fall. Tricky. Is there a windy safeish path down to the bottom?

[ppeatfruit]

Sorry funnyperson I'm not equipped to post pics on here (not that a pic would help really!) If you think of a sort of a bent to the right guitar shape with the neck as our shortish drive then the right side of the body slopes gently but quite steeply down to the main caves. The other side becomes our woodland type walk that goes right round the top of the bowl shape around which are about 5 caves. That's not all of the garden at all but the major part .

[funnyperson]

phenomenal!

[UptoapointLordCopper]

Wow!

On a smaller scale of niceness, I picked another 10 or so strawberries this morning. They are getting a bit small now but still smell so nice. We've also got some blueberries, no ripe yet though.

[ppeatfruit]

Oh that's lovely Uptoa I can't grow them here (well tbh) I haven't tried because there are good local producers who do the hard graft for you (and we need to support them!) Well that's my excuse . Also we are in London a lot and we can't expect our cat feeders to water plants too! Blackberries grow with no help at all!

OOh i saw you said BLUEberries!! I love them but it's not acid enough here for them. For the first time since I planted the trees 7 years ago we're going to get a good harvest of mirabelles (someone upthread mentioned them), onlu one tree though (which oddly has changed from an apricot into a mirabelle!).

[ppeatfruit]

Back to the caves you mentioned a wall around the top of them funnyperson . The last people who lived here (who restored the house that had a been a ruin for a long time) put a bit corrugated iron in a couple of places which have just fallen down into the hole! The real problem is that they're not stable so planting is doing something to 'hold' the earth above them from just falling away IFYSWIM because you can see the depth of the soil from the caves below and the roots!