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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

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

999 replies

Rhubarbgarden · 01/08/2014 19:01

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!

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TunipTheUnconquerable · 28/08/2014 10:04

Rhubarbgarden, what WAS Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton's reaction to the Henry Moores?

If I had some spare money I'd get these: Scrap metal giraffes There are some in a park near us and they're lovely, and also it would be an ironic comment on the fact that everything in our garden is excessively big.

Echt, your garden is lovely!

ppeatfruit · 28/08/2014 10:42

It's nice to have 'big' Tunip Welcome btw! Think Monty Don's garden. In my garden everything small just disappears, except on the terrace of course, so I have to have BIG Grin.

NotAnotherNewNappy · 28/08/2014 10:53

Welcome turnip!! I live peonies and inherited a lovely red obe when we moved In - But I'm having real trouble getting any new ones to thrive.

funnyperson · 28/08/2014 11:30

Welcome Tunip ! Do tell us what is flowering in your garden at the moment and what trees you have!

echt your metal things are just the ticket for your garden which I really really really like the more I see of it. I love the play of light and shade in your garden and the colours you choose for the shady bits and the sunny bits which are quite different. You are really talented.

I wish my garden had more character. It has got to the stage when it is pleasant to be in and I love i to bits but it hasn't really got that 'wow' factor architecturally which I now now is possible anywhere. rhubarb I am with you on the niwaki thing.

Bearleigh · 28/08/2014 13:32

We used to go on holiday to a cottage in the grounds of a bigger house (fabulous garden - 100 different types of hydrangea flowering in August when we were there). In the meadow there was a wonderful life-size sculpture of a horse, made of horse shoes; I think by this chap:

www.tomhillsculpture.co.uk/horses.php

It was simpler than what's on his website especially the rearing stallion (which I find a bit much) - possibly a couple of versions on from his horse one. It stood, gently rusting, knee deep in grasses and wildflowers - gorgeous.

Bearleigh · 28/08/2014 13:33

Oh and welcome Turnip! Am very envious about the size of your garden.

TunipTheUnconquerable · 28/08/2014 14:09

There's quite a bit flowering, though as it's rather spread around it's not looking as good as it should. The house was empty for a year so the garden got badly overgrown before we moved in in July. The pink geranium and yellow loosestrife were rampant.

It's a lovely site - on a southwest facing slope, with high walls, so though it's North Yorkshire it's not too bad a climate. Despite being of an insane size, it's actually in the middle of a town!

There's nothing at all in flower in the front garden now (there's a lovely jasmine but that's over now) but in the back: cyclamen under the trees, white Japanese anemones in the border and some sedum about to come out, plus the remains of some red valerian; in other beds, lots of echinops, some phlox (pink and white), a little bit of crocosmia, the remains of some evening primrose, a few roses.

Tree-wise, we've had the tree surgeon in because there was a lot that was dangerously close to the house, so we had to lose a beautiful birch and whitebeam and a not-so-beautiful cypress that was blocking the view from the staircase window. However, we still have a gorgeous mature silver birch, a lilac which must be incredible in bloom, a couple of elders, some hollies, a few conifers and lots and lots of fruit trees including a lot of past-it former espaliers against the walls. To be honest I haven't got my head round all of it!

The whole property has quite a history - it's a Georgian townhouse that was run as a home for adults with learning disabilities by the Camphill Village Trust, so all the gardening was organic. There's a lot of really excellent planting - the crocuses will be spectacular - but it's not necessarily the style I would like - it's very wild, and I imagine something more formal, but my gardening ability isn't yet up to it. It's a better garden than we deserve - we just need the house to not bankrupt us with its constant demands for replacement guttering, roofbeams etc!

funnyperson · 28/08/2014 16:48

Those horses are interesting bearleigh though not 'organic' enough for me, to me they are more industrial than garden, though I might see them beside a seashore perhaps.

I remember the Derek Jarman Garden had lots of driftwood in: as I'm not artistic, if I had driftwood in my garden it would look like....drift wood.

But I do like the notion of words and poetry carved in wood in the garden.

funnyperson · 28/08/2014 16:49

tunip do you know the names of the roses in your garden?

TunipTheUnconquerable · 28/08/2014 17:07

Not yet, Funny - I'm sure at some point I'll start to want to figure it out, though! We sometimes see the people who were here before, so I might ask.

ppeatfruit · 28/08/2014 17:21

Okay all you clever gardeners I was buying paint and of course had to look at the gardening section of the shop and a lot of plants were half price SO I've bought a white paniculata and another hydrangea with multi coloured blooms (large) where's the best place for them ? I know they like a bit of shade and lots of water. Do they need rich soil or well drained soil. I also bought a potentilla.

funnyperson · 28/08/2014 22:12

Well drained, clay, good compost, deep hole, 'puddle in' with water, cool, semi shade, west facing, that's my thinking!

echt · 29/08/2014 07:33

Thank you, funnyperson. The blue building is an immense garage that was a fetching shade of beige, so we decided to soup it up, as there was no way we were knocking it down. Oddly the blue is at its best in low lights, when the purple tints emerge. The garage door is aqua and the inspiration was the Majorelle gardens in Marrakech.

gardens images

ppeatfruit · 29/08/2014 08:31

Thanks funnyperson the only part of your advice I can't do is the clay Sad but i will mulch and put new compost in the hole. I'm going to put them where I put the bastard balm which is not happy I think it's getting too much light so I'm going to put them under the pines opposite.

There's so much going on here (the beams in the narrow dark hall have been painted Magnolia and in between white). Also a new washing machine was just delivered hooray!! I haven't had much time because I'm clearing and cleaning for the painter. Blush old stone houses are great BUT they collect spiders webs and dust like mad.

TunipTheUnconquerable · 29/08/2014 11:35

NotAnotherNewNappy - pretty much the only thing I know about peonies is that they're hard to establish.
Whatever plan we come up with for the garden is going to have to keep them where they are because I don't think they like being moved either.

ppeatfruit · 29/08/2014 11:55

I've just looked more closely at your pix echt and noticed the blue (or green) fencing and wondered what that amazing ancient tree is. Yes I agree with funnyperson about your garden; it has a magical feel about it Grin

Rhubarbgarden · 29/08/2014 17:40

Hi Tunip, your garden sounds fabulous. I am very Envy of your peony borders and your old espaliered fruit trees. It all sounds heavenly. Arf at we just need the house to not bankrupt us though - all painfully familiar.

The French Grey was a disaster. I was out for the day when they were doing it, or I would have realised pretty quickly that I hated it. Unfortunately they'd done almost all of the windows on one side of the house when I saw it and could say STOP!

They'd also bought all the paint, so this is a very expensive and Blush mistake.

The bluish tones just don't go with the old brick of the walls. So it's back to square one - I've got some more samples of different greys and beigey colours, but I'm quite tempted to go back to plain old white after all. It's all been a bit traumatic!

If I was unpopular before, I am now teetering on the verge of the divorce courts I fear. Plus both cats had to go to the vets today so I need to hide from dh for a while, all in all.

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MaudantWit · 29/08/2014 18:59

Oh dear, Rhubarb. Is there no sale or return on the unused paint? Could you sell it on Gumtree or local equivalent?

There is so much that needs doing to our house, but everything associated with house renovations seems so traumatic and fraught with difficulty.

MaudantWit · 29/08/2014 19:00

On a more uplifting note ... GW tonight!

Rhubarbgarden · 29/08/2014 19:03

That is indeed uplifting!

No sale or return. It's mixed to order at a trade place. We'll have to try to eBay it.

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echt · 29/08/2014 20:46

ppeatfruit the fence is painted a I deep grey called Ironbark that looks lovely in full sun, though it's better with climbers growing over it. That run of the back faces full west so is very hot in summer so a challenge to get climbers to grow. The tree is a coastal tea tree and is probably about fifty years old as it runs along the boundary fence, which is when this land was divided into plots. Their wood grows in a barley sugar twist manner and the trunk on the right is trying to push the fence over. This weekend we're going to brace it. We can't raise it, but we can, we hope, stop it from moving further.

Sadly, the lovely NDNs whose garden it's leaning into will sell up in a few years, at which point the new purchasers will require us to cut it back. They do not re-grow from cuts to branches, so I will cut the whole trunk out and plant another tree. I'll see if I can find a pic that shows the whole tree.

Rhubarbgarden · 29/08/2014 22:24

Your tea tree sounds wonderful, echt. I'd love to see a full photo of it.

I forgot to wish Bertha a belated happy birthday! ThanksCake

Maud you mentioned Standen - I've never been but it's on my hit list because it's not all that far away. You'd recommend it?

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MaudantWit · 29/08/2014 22:42

It's quite a while since I went to Standen, but we had a talk about it recently at the Hort Soc, which reawakened my interest. It's a fabulous house designed by Philip West, with an Arts and Crafts interior with lots of stuff from Morris and Co. There has recently been a lot of work done in the garden, to fit with the house. I am a big fan of the Arts and Crafts movement, so I think it's gorgeous. Plus, being National Trust, there's the prospect of tea and cake.

MaudantWit · 29/08/2014 22:43

Philip Webb. Drat that autocorrect.