Tickle the earth with a hoe, and she will laugh with a harvest

[Rhubarbgarden]

Potting shed chat for all those interested in wittering on about gardens and sharing the love of plants. Plenty of dusty old deck chairs to sit on and sloe gin to warm the cockles; join us!

Oops, sorry Maud!

Is there room for a complete novice here?

I enjoyed a bit of veggie growing in our small London garden for a few years but we've recently moved out and have inherited a large and beautiful garden which has been left to grow wild for a couple of years. It's bounteous and so far I've had raspberries, wild strawberries, gooseberries, white currants and any number of herbs from it, and now we're coming into apples, sloes and blackberries etc. Plus tons of beautiful roses, shrubs and flowers.

It's hard to know where to start - I've ripped out a particularly pernicious Japanese honeysuckle in the front garden which I couldn't keep on top of but the back (90% of the garden space) is hugely daunting. Any tips on what I should be doing this year in preparation for taking some control back next summer?

I've read the whole thread and love your pictures, some beautiful gardens! Hope you don't mind me jumping in and asking for advice, I can ask elsewhere if it's the wrong place!

No worries, although now I've looked again at Vanilla Frais I'm not so sure it's what I've seen here. The plants in the middle of roundabouts etc are definitely a panic ulama type, but are sparser and a more muted pink. But VF is very lovely.

::still tempted::

Err, paniculata. Ruddy autocorrect.

Welcome, RealMaud. I'm Maud too! I can't really advise on your garden as so much depends on what you actually have there, but you could have a look at the Royal Horticultural Society website - www.rhs.org.uk - which I think had tips for what to do each month (they certainly have them in their magazine).

Hmm, Maud perhaps they are the ridiculously named Hydrangea paniculata 'Pinky Winky'; which starts out white and fades to pink?

Hello TheReal. Congratulations on your new garden. I recommend getting in a good local gardener to spend a couple of hours going round your garden, identifying plants for you and advising you on your best action plan. It wouldn't be expensive and would be well worth it. Most gardeners are happy to do one-off consultations like that.

Hmm, possibly, although PinkyWinky too looks a bit too pink (although I suppose the hydrangeas I'm looking at here might get pinker with time). I have found a page on the RHS website listing 10 AGM hydrangeas and now wonder whether it is Limelight - the description of the habit sounds right.

Welcom realmaud your new garden sounds wonderful. Isn't the general advice if you move into an established garden to wait a year and watch it and take notes? The previous owners may also have a garden diary/planting plan they may be able to photocopy for you.

I rather like the faded pink and blues of French hydrangeas in late summer, esp in Brittany and Normandy--they seem to fit with the colours of the French houses.

I have had bulbs from Spaldings before- the tulips flowered well- American Dream- and did well the following year too.

Using illness as an excuse I have had a wonderful slow day gardening. The patio is now almost all visible. This is a transformation.

Lots of staring and sitting happened. As a result most of the plants in pots have found a space in the beds. I just need to actually plant them tomorrow. Some plants have been supported with home made supports made of hangers, and the victory rose 'Marie Claire' has been repotted. I've decided where to put the Anabelle hydrangea when it arrives. Thought processes were definitely aided by DC going to an antifracking demo camp leaving me in peace and quiet!

echt I like your colour scheme judging by a previous photo. My garden furniture is painted a national trust colour called 'chartwell green' which I like very much.

Welcome realmaud

DH and I put the solanum back up against the fence today and we managed ten minutes of weeding the drive. He was a bit bemused by my shouting, 'no, that's not a weed' regularly. Eventually he asked what he was allowed to pull out and what he had to leave for me to eventually get round to relocating back into the long bed. So many VB growing in the drive but rather fewer seeded in the bed; and the only white cosmos I have this year is happily growing in the gravel

maud I realise the hydrangea you are describing is probably not a macrophylla but a paniculata but this website has some nice photos of hydrangeas

www.holehirdgardens.org.uk/?hydrangea-macrophylla,
www.holehirdgardens.org.uk/?other-hydrangea,44

Do you think the one you saw in France could be 'pink diamond'?
Quercifolia is a nice hydrangea -would you replace it to get more colour?

Was it Carol Klein or Rachel who did a feature on hydrangeas for a programme of Gardeners World last year?

Blackpudding How do you identify a verbena bonariensis seedling? One of the seed trays which nearly got emptied onto the compost heap today was the one with the verbena bonariensis seeds which do not appear to have germinated, though the label optimistically says they were sown in April this year.

Funny, I'll try and remember to take some photos for you tomorrow. They're very recognisable once you know what you're looking at...

Thanks for the welcome! othermaud the rhs website sounds great, I'll take a look and I love rhubarb's suggestion of getting a consultation from a gardener. I'm selfish employed and just coming to the end of maternity leave so might have to do it next spring.

funny we moved in in early March and haven't done much at all this year (beyond a bit of a tussle with the honeysuckle in the front) and it's definitely been worth it to see the amazing plants already in situ - we're really lucky to have such an established garden. However the last owners weren't here long and left under odd circumstances so I doubt they had a garden diary (although that sounds amazing!). I'm hoping to do some pruning in the Autumn for the shrubs and the hedge (lovely British hedgerow of hawthorne, blackthorn, wild rose etc) but not do anything drastic until next year. Hopefully the rhs website can guide me about what/when to prune!

Hydrangeas sound lovely, I had just planted one in the garden at our old house when we moved, I hope the new owners take care of it.

All this hydrangea talk has reminded me I must transplant one from a scorching bed to a pot under the carport.

While not quite spring, today was the first afternoon I could sit out on the bench and get to grips with some reading: TS Eliot's less than wonderful treatment of Vivien, his first wife, since you ask.

Our two dwarf apple trees were put in today, but I was horrified to see that the first thing you must do upon planting is prune the weedy feckers even more!! Ho hum.

More gratifying was the rescuing of agapanthus divisions from a nearby nature strip, to be transplanted to make a circle round the pine on our nature strip.

I saw a brilliant play about Tom and Viv by Michael Hastings years ago at the Royal Court theatre. I really really like his poetry actually, did it at school in 6th form general studies which was so brilliant for us unimaginative scientists.

I know they say to prune newly planted fruit trees, echt but I never could bring myself to do it, they always seem so hacked off already.

Blackpudding How do you identify a verbena bonariensis seedling?

I usually google it. 'Verbena bonariensis seedling' and look a the pictures. Well, not verbena bonariensis as I have loads of them and know what they look like, but anything else I don't already recognise.

Did that, thanks, feel silly not thinking of doing that before.

I know what you mean, funnyperson, but I'm trying to get with the programme, so will chop them a bit.

I'm teaching Eliot's poetry at the moment, hence the reading. Re-reading in my case. I thought Eliot was a bit of a one, but Bertrand Russell was, as they said back in the day, a four-letter word man.

Thinking of nature strips, since I mention them so often, they're a bit of soft verge between the pavement and the road. They are meant to be kept up by the person whose property they front, though the council is the owner. Most council let you do what you want, within reason. In reality, this means grass for most Aussie homes.

Our nature strip is 12 feet by 36, so quite an area to keep tidy.

Welcome to TheRealMaud! I am so envious reading about your fantastic project! I would love a bounteous garden to rescue and discover as opposed to the blank slate I have got. It sounds mature and heavenly! Please stay around and tell us more!
SugarPlum I hope you have a lovely trip to France! Bon vacances!

Bertha all those verbena seedlings sound lovely. I can't wait to have a garden at that stage, where it self-seeds!
Geoff and Maus enjoy your bulb planning! What will you plant apart from tulips?
Maud Safe travelling home and i hope you can identify the hydrangea. Perhaps you could ask before you leave. Even if you got the variety in French you could google it?

Funny well done on the progress on your patio and rehoming all the potted plants! Ppeat enjoy your visitors!
Echt I love hearing about your garden too. How fab to grow melons! What varieties of fruit trees did you order?

Apologies for not commenting on anybody's photos. I can't see them on my phone. I'll have to get out the laptop.

A rose question...so my rose cutting produced a single fabulous red rose, which is now gone. I don't think there will be any more this year. The other cuttings didn't produce any flowers. So do I dead-head the rose? Or allow it to do whatever it is supposed to do to nourish the plant for next (hopefully) next year? And do you think the other cuttings will survive since they didn't flower? I can't say any of them thrived. Even my DA roses didn't do very well, after the first blooms. I think they lacked water at a crucial stage...and my climbing iceberg put on great green growth up to 5ft or so but didn't flower. They did have a little pruning from an inquisitive horse... my wisteria struggled and never grew much or flowered. Morning Glory never flowered. Hardy geraniums that were left in their pots and put out a few miserable flowers. Those on the bank fared no better! My best performers were my lavender, apple tree and poor neglected potted blueberry plant is laden with berries.

No progress on my garden (or other crucial things such as sewerage/waste water) as diggerman never arrived!!!

So hoping that next summer will be a different story!

Waves to Squeaky, Bearleigh and anyone else I've missed!

And a wave to Rhubarb and Squeaky

castle I would deadhead it and feed it so it gets strong roots and will flower again next year.

realmaud your garden sounds fabulous. like an overgrown 'sleeping beauty' garden. I would probably cut back the kreepers to see what's underneath. like the idea of getting a gardener in to do a mapping of what's there and what's weeds

springbulbs: I will now look in every shop I go to and buy the all. the more colourful the better.
will get some daffs as well I think. first year we had a nice stripe on the lawn but I was too impatient so mowed it before the leaves wilted. this year we got exactly one daff, but lots of daff green which I let wilt this time.

Thanks castle.

If you've been growing veg. you're not a novice at all! Maudohara Welcome btw

rhubarb The real problem is getting hold of a "good" gardener We 've had a number none of whom could be classed as good (even an expensive 'planner') who was very cute but knew as much as me about where to put plants!

I meant to say that Sky Arts are doing a series on National Trust gardens; I saw the one on Hidcote the other day, now THAT is an ideal garden to my mind !

get the titchmarsh in?

Titchmarsh and his team would rip out everything and then put in their own tv friendly costly hard landscaping and in-flower plants. maudohara's garden sounds much too nice to need that kind of drastic makeover.

Castle your roses still have time to grow for the rest of the late summer/early autumn and may well have a second flowering. Dead head them and water them well and feed them with tomorite once a week. All mine have buds on with this treatment and will have a repeat flowering round about the beginnig of sept I think
Your cuttings sound fine and just need sheltering overwinter then you can plant them out in the spring.
I've been thinking about your bank and wonder what you think about 'watery' colours to blend in with the hills and the sky? Swathes of purples and blues and wavey grasses with intermittent spots of roses and dots of dark maroon/cerise pink or oranges to bring cheer.
This is the Piet Udolph school of garden planting and so you plant in waves and swathes rather than blocks. You decide on your basic planting which is supposed to be quite simple, for example: stipa tenuissima (swathe) purple salvia (wave) shasta daisies (wave) michaelmas daisies (wave) then repeat, then allium sphaerocephalum dotted and roses dotted and gladiolus byzantium or cerise pink phlox dotted for colour. See pics below. Nearer the house you could continue to create a lovely sheltered cottagey garden but without obscuring your view.

funny you might be right with this one.

More just to show what the style involves