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!

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Mr Bearleigh.

Hope those planting with friends had a good time. I think when you've not been well FP it is important that you don't overdo it on the favours front, leaving you too tired to do your own. Having said that it is lovely to catch up with friends.

I don't bother with grit or anything when I plant bulbs as I know I wouldn't get toy d to it and the bulbs would stay in the packet. I'm trying to do bulbs little and often but the often but is lacking. Reading this has just given me a nudge and I've been throwing Crocus bulbs round the front lawn a la Monty. This has the added benefit of working off annoyance at teen who is stropping at the Idea of Friday room inspection . I'm controlling apparently but she has had many chances and I've never quite got over the summer that her school bag started composting inside so I'm totally fine with being controlling given that being reasonable has failed many times.

Arf at the composting school bag.

I do use horti grit when I plant bulbs, but I have heavy clay. The garden centre does its best to hide it, but I'm onto them. I went there for vine eyes yesterday, spent ages hunting, and eventually found them in "Gardener's Corner", which was two small racks of horticultural equipment. So in other words, in this vast warehouse of stuff to buy, the actual gardening stuff is relegated to a six foot square corner. I find this infinitely depressing.

My Nerines must have liked being weeded as they have suddenly sent up three flower buds! Very excited.

Thanks for the votes of confidence re my little gardening job this morning. It turned out to be less of a job and more of a consultation. The borders need a major overhaul. I'm putting together an estimate for doing a planting plan, ground prep and replanting of the main flower bed, and there is also the potential for an ongoing weekly maintenance job with flexibility around school hols etc so it is all IMMENSELY encouraging.

That sounds great, Rhubarb!

I agree it is depressing how little of what is sold in some garden centres has anything to do with actual gardening.

I have similar issues with dd's room. We are at a stand off. The room is an absolute tip. She ignores all requests/instructions/exhortations to tidy it, and I don't want to do it for her, as that way she'll never do it for herself. Besides, I'm scared of what I might find in its darkest corners.

Oh Rhubarb that is great news I have a vision of you at your garden centre taking no prisoners ! Think I'd like Nerines next year.

Just dug up an Astrantia that has dug bugger all this year and one of my Sarah Raven Wallflower plugs which is much the same size as it was and both are in pots .

I have Foxglove seedlings which are minute as the direct sown ones didn't come up. There are in modules planted early this month. Do I have any chance of them flowering next year ?

Good luck with that Rhubarb!

BabyBearleigh keeps his bedroom very neat and tidy; as a result I worry slightly that he may develop OCD, (his cousin has it, badly, and it runs in families) so don't despair too much at your messy offspring...

I remember our niece on the other side used to tidy her brothers bedroom on condition she kept all money she found. It was a nice little earner for her!

Sounds good Rhubarb.

I have a friend who has moved into a house with an amazing garden. Obviously previously owned by a very keen and knowledgeable gardener. There is so much flowering now and according to the inherited gardener things flower all year round. Can someone please identify the plant in the photo, it looks a bit like a Japanese anemone but different leaves. She has about five different JAs all looking fabulous. I am so jealous.

A dahlia, one of the anemone types ? DD used to he a bit obsessional about shutting doors which worried me a lot at the time. Not easy this parenting thing.

Hadn't thought of it being a dahlia, mine don't grow like that!

Sometimes parenting sucks; hardest job ever. We finally got a CAHMS assessment this morning for DD1, now we have to wait to see if they will offer us any help. I tried to explain to DD that they need to treat children who are worse than her first, I think she was quite chuffed at the idea that other children have worse problems

Oh dear, Bertha. I hadn't realised that dd1 was still struggling. I hope CAMHS will be able to offer help.

I can't despair too much about dd's messiness, because - whether it's genetic or whether it is learnt by imitation - she gets it from her parents. Sometimes I hear terrible echoes of my mother when I was a child, with her oft-voiced complaint that she was not a skivvy.

That dahlia looks rather like (but not identical to) the Fascination that I bought with my credit note for the not-as-sold David Austin rose. Amazingly, it seems to be thriving and other buds are opening. The lesson I have drawn from this is not to bother with tiny plants, which get destroyed by slugs, but to splash out on bigger, tougher plants (if I bother at all).

All the best to MrBearleigh. .

Yesterday we went to to to the Isuien and Yoshikien Gardens, conveniently next to each other, in Nara. Both were the formal style, no flowers except those on trees or bushes: camellias, wisteria, cherry, azaleas. There was a lovely moss garden and a dwarf bamboo used for low hedging. Lots of water and rock effects. Some lovely ancient pavilions. Extremely beautiful and very quiet as they're not much favoured by tourists, most of whom had come to see Japan's biggest Buddha next door.

In private gardens that we could peer into, there is much emphasis on cloud-pruned pines, often worth branches trained along thick bamboo stems to achieve an arching, elegant line.

When I get back I'll post some pics.

I look forward to that, echt. It sounds lovely and so unlike almost anything we'd see in the UK.

Yes, looking forward to pictures echt, and enjoying your descriptions! Have you come across any haiku about gardens?

My friend and I had a lovely gardening day today: First we went to the local garden centre and bought the last 2 bags of horticultural grit at £2.50 a bag and roses for £2 each and accidentally bought some more bulbs. Then we sat and had a cup of in the garden and admired the current progress of plant growth and the previously trained Mme Alfred Carriere and planned where the bulbs should go. This took ages.
Then we weeded.
Then we threw the bulbs on the ground in a naturalistic way and had another cup of . More passage of time.
Then we planted the bulbs with the new long thin trowel and with some compost and horticultural grit at the bottom of each hole. We had a very pleasant time. It was very stress-busting.

It always makes me laugh when Gardeners World magazine has projects such as 'plant a border in a day'. Whoever planted a border in a day? Anyway we planted 30 bulbs. This was tiring. There are 30 more to go. .

The robins and squirrels watched us closely. Tomorrow it will be clear whether the squirrels have dug up the bulbs they watched us plant.

DS had dinner ready for me on my return and gave me a little lecture on not reading too many books or going online too much and how I needed to do some gardening in my garden tomorrow. Gardener's World was wonderful to watch. Monty's dahlias are magnificent. Oudolph is a genius. Carol Klein has admirable courage to go up a tree at her age.

The lady astrophysicists who put a space station into orbit around Mars this week said it was easier than bringing up their children. This I am not sure about.

rhubarb I'm very pleased at how your visit tuned out.

turned out.

That picture is a dahlia possibly 'juliet'

Sorry to hear about DD Bertha. My DD was under them at one point. She is like a different child now she is older and I'm proud of the young adult she is becoming. It has been hard work but we are in a much better room than I could have imagined a few years ago. PM me I'd you ever want to talk about it.

When I say messy room it does have to be seen to be believed. My friend who is very polite and rarely swears walked in and swore like a builder when she saw it . It's impacting on school and life so time to make her sort it again.

Sounds like some lovely gardening days went on yesterday. I need to move the other two compost bins but don't have the energy right now. I will try to do more bulb planting though.

That (possibly Juliet) dahlia is lovely: I've just watched Gardeners World, and was wondering how people in the 1980s & 1990s could not use dahlias: they are so gorgeous, and give so much colour and character at this time of year. My FIL kept on planting dahlias, and they seemed then to be terribly old-fashioned and (whisper) rather vulgar.

I love many of the plants and that Oudolf uses, and the use of block planting, and the grasses, and I have tried, but I don't actually like the overall way he combines them, with no height and so many very sharp colour contrasts, but no real contrasts of form. Every Oudolf border I have seen looks the same, and (whisper) to me rather boring and municipal.

I've just watched GW too and was thinking much the same . There are so many that I'm sure there is something for everyone. This is my first year with them and I've only got a couple. One is a white one that has small flowers , a little similar to cosmos purity then a purple pom pom one which also isn't very big. They both for on very well with the asters, sedum, roses, Japanese anemones and a very different effect to Monty's brightly coloured ones. But that is the whole thing I personally feel, their flexibility.

Glad you said that about the Ouldolf border as I wasn't really feeling it but thought it would be just me.

One thing I have really enjoyed this year is cutting flowers for the house. Beechgrove have been testing various flower feeds and found their home made one the winner - 1 litre water, 1 tsp vinegar, 1 tsp sugar and s few drops of bleach.

::whispers:: I'm not wholly convinced by the whole Oudolf thing either, but will withhold judgement until I have watched GW.

Ref. dcs' rooms;DD2 is staying AtM, she's 31 and STILL uses the floor as a wardrobe. DD1 has improved greatly .Oddly ds was always tidy -not clean - but tidy, and he's still that way! Our genes are not propitious ; my DM is awful and dh is someone who (while working at home) thinks if something is in a drawer it's lost.

Ref. GW yesterday . Dahlias are fab in everyone else's garden (they never went out of fashion here).Not sure about the dutchman's garden either but at least it's not plastic looking tulips in regimented lines! I got vertigo just looking at Carol Klein up that tree, she's got guts!!

I'm the opposite - Dahlias don't do a massive amount for me. Some of them are ok, but I wouldn't plant them in my own garden. Oudolf on the other hand - I love his planting! His borders at Wisley are gorgeous.

I liked his planting too Rhubarb Not sure about his advice to do the same with ONE of each plant though .

There's a garden in a village near us with those amazing fancy ironwork gates and fences and it looks like they have dark purple climbing roses through them but on closer inspection and knowledge, I've never seen roses that colour, they are dahlias - quite amazing - I can't get over the variety of them, witness the pic that blackpudding posted.

Apologies for the overuse of 'amazing'

Has anyone been to Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire? The dahlia border there is spectacular.

My only dahlia is a mini red and yellow one that I was given as a housewarming present. It's doing very well in its pot so I'm not sure if I should plan to plant it outside next year? They're not normally houseplants, are they?

No I've not seen them indoors Tunip always a first time though

I love Anglesey Abbey. I've only been in winter though, to see the snowdrops and winter garden.

bertha sorry to hear that dd is still struggling poor thing.

rhubarb that sounds lovely to have a regular maintenance job. I did think of you the other day when we hacked back the the wisteria not really knowing what we were doing. A friend of mine in Cornwall has a man that looks after her Wisteria and every one else's in the village, a bit like a window cleaning job. If there is a lot of that in your area, it might be a good little earner?

I haven't watched GW yet, I do like Piet Oudolf, but am massively off grasses due to the ones I'm trying to get rid of here that seed every where. I used to hate Dahlias but have come round and will be adding to them next year.

Your post about bulb planting with a friend funny did make me smile, a bit like when I used to go to the gym with a friend and spent most of the time gossiping in the cafe. On one occasion we never even ventured into the gym

I'm slowly working through the bulbs too, I managed 10 purple sensation yesterday and some smaller alliums.