Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Gardening

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

Original poster

When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces…...

999 replies

echt · 12/01/2015 21:04

I realise it's later in the UK, but couldn't wait to start a new thread. If another title had been agreed, just tell me and I'll have this removed.

Other than that, seek out those deckchairs from the shed, check them for spiders and get nattering about the spring's promise.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
41
Rhubarbgarden · 16/02/2015 20:40

Yes I think you should be alright with foxgloves sown last year. Snails shouldn't be a problem, but they seem to need an open position in my experience - I've never had much luck with them where they are crowded by other plants. I love foxgloves. I've got a self seeded patch that I am nurturing. I tried to move some to the verge of the lane that runs past our house (dirt track) but although they flowered they failed to produce seedlings. I shall try again this year.

Callmegeoff · 16/02/2015 21:06

I'm giving up on veg- except for runner beans and courgettes, tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse. I'm far more excited about flowers!

The monkey puzzle is one of my most favourite trees, there is a magnificent one round the corner from my mothers house. I used to love gazing at it on the way home from school.

Your dd looks so like you rhubarb

Rhubarbgarden · 16/02/2015 21:21

That's funny you all think I look like my kids. Most people reckon they look like dh!

I love monkey puzzles too. There was one next door to my preschool that fascinated me as a child. I said then that one day, when I had my own house, I would plant one of my own in my front garden. And I did!

Unfortunately I then moved house, and one wouldn't work here, but hey ho at least there is one to my name.

I'm sworn off veg growing for now. Too high maintenance. I'll take it up again when I have more time, and when I have a greenhouse.

MaudantWit · 16/02/2015 21:30

Well, Rhubarb, I think it's always hard to tell from photos, as faces look different when they're in motion, and I admit that when I've seen photos of your dc with your dh I've seen a resemblance, but now you've shown us a photo of you as a very small child I think I see a resemblance there too.

Me too with the veg growing. I may do Charlotte potatoes in a patio pot again, but generally veg seem like too much effort for too little yield.

You've made me recall that my parents' neighbours had a monkey puzzle tree, but it seemed to have gone the last time I drove down the road. Oh dear.

HumphreyCobbler · 16/02/2015 21:50

What a gorgeous photo Rhubarb.

Our near neighbours have planted a monkey puzzle, it is lovely.

ppeatfruit · 17/02/2015 09:07

Christine Walkden!!!!! ( ignore me) i just remembered the name of the gardening lady who loves amelanchiers.

So you were a keen gardener from very young Rhubarb! sweet! DDI enjoyed eating the mud at 1yr. old but wasn't much of a gardener.

ref. monkey puzzles I think you have to be careful not to let them get too high. or grow too close to the house,not like when I was little and a lot were growing in tiny front gardens in London!

MaudantWit · 17/02/2015 12:44

Oh, my long post from last night never appeared.

In it, I said that I think it's hard to spot likenesses from photos because faces look different when they are in motion, and when I've seen pictures of Rhubarb's dc with her dh I've seen a likeness there, but now that I've seen Rhubard as a tiny child I see a likeness there too.

I love Christine Walkden and her outspokenness.

ppeatfruit · 17/02/2015 12:50

Maud Your first post about Rhubarb is there Grin

MaudantWit · 17/02/2015 13:47

Oh b*gger. I blame a stressful day. We now have an indoor water feature, ie unstoppable leak in the airing cupboard. The joys of owning a period property, eh?

ppeatfruit · 17/02/2015 16:53

Oh gawd have you got a friendly plumber? And or plenty of buckets?

MaudantWit · 17/02/2015 17:49

Yes, we rang the plumber overnight and they helpfully rang back at 7.30am this morning, which is not a time I normally recognise in half term. A proper repair will be done on Thursday, apparently. Meanwhile, it's a plastic container under the drip.

hyperhops · 17/02/2015 19:45

evening all
haven't done well at keeping up with the thread! sorry

had a great day in the garden yesterday, despite it being grey and drizzly. DD4 helped me most of the day. we went to our local fab nursery and came away with 4 roses, a crab apple tree (2m tall for the bargainous price of £15),some primroses and a hellebore that dd chose.I did get slightly over excited at finding the tree and failed to realise it wouldn't fit in my little micra so had to call dh to collect it in the larger citroen c8!
then spent a fun day planting them up in the front garden.
need to make more headway into the back garden at the weekend...am excitedly anticipating the construction of my greenhouse any day now....
Hope everyone is getting on well. Grin

Rhubarbgarden · 17/02/2015 20:17

I have always loved pottering in the garden, yes. My grandpa was a great gardener and I loved to 'help' him in his greenhouse.

I can sympathise with your plumbing hassles, Maud; our radiators are playing games with us at the moment, and I really need to find a plumber. The collapsing garden wall is top priority though at the moment and the quote that came in was Shock, so plumbing will have to wait. I tried to get a second quote from my rather lovely fencing man who built my compost bays, but it turns out he's moved to Australia. Bit devastated about that actually, it was like having my own private diet coke ad in the garden when he took his t shirt off on hot days. My neighbour referred to him as Baywatch. Smile

That sounds like a lovely day in the garden Hyperhops. No gardening for me this week with half term, but I am getting some garden visiting in - we went to a local NGS open garden this morning, famous for its hellebores and snowdrops. I've popped some snaps onto the FB site. Tomorrow I'm taking the offspring to see the butterflies at Wisley, or Wizowy as ds says.

MaudantWit · 17/02/2015 20:30

Hilarious about Baywatch the Fencing Man, Rhubarb! Are the butterflies still at Wizowy? My parents were keen to go, but thought they had left it too late.

There's something a bit odd with our central heating, too, as the thermostat doesn't seem to work and the radiators are temperamental, but the immediate priority is the indoor fountain!

I would love a crab apple. Having missed one bunch by forgetting to bid, I am now watching a load of pots on Ebay. I still hanker after a crab apple. I'd like one in a giant pot in the front garden.

Callmegeoff · 17/02/2015 21:06

Sympathies with the plumbing issues maud piglet John may know what's wrong with the thermostat. We have an archaic potterton boiler that works very well- except if it is windy the pilot light blows out!

rhubarb you are so good at getting out and about with the dc's I wish I'd done more of that. Anyway tomorrow we are taking them to Brighton.

hyper a greenhouse -how exciting do post some pictures when it's up!

MaudantWit · 17/02/2015 21:18

I have picked PigletJohn's brains in the past but am trying not to presume upon his/her kindness now. I shall wait to see what CentralHeatingRepairMan says later this week!

funnyperson · 17/02/2015 21:43

We have an ancient boiler and the pilot always goes out when it is windy and cold.
I am trying to train DS to light the pilot. We have got as far as him watching me do it. My problem is I feel I should live up to this poem

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

funnyperson · 17/02/2015 21:46

though it is a bit of a gloomy last century sort of poem

Callmegeoff · 17/02/2015 22:00

It made me think of my dear late father funny who died too young he always lit the fire then bought me a cup of tea in bed.

funnyperson · 17/02/2015 22:14

Oh dear I didn't mean to stir sad memories. Its a sexist poem as its all about men. I mean of course women light fires and pilots just as much these days. I sometimes think this poem is a metaphor for the things parents do to keep their loved ones warm.

I detract because I am having a terrible terrible week.

I loved the hellebore photos. Thanks. I agree with upthread about you being good about taking your DC out into the cold. I think of them as hardy plants. And of me as a wilting one with clematis slime or some such.

HumphreyCobbler · 17/02/2015 22:21

oh funnyperson, sorry your week has been so bad. Hope it gets better very soon.

I love that poem. It is new to me. I think it is very easy to underestimate the adults around us when we are children, especially if they are not able to show affection easily and fluently. We tend to re-asses our own parents when we become parents ourselves, don't we?

Callmegeoff · 17/02/2015 22:58

Sorry your having a bad week Flowers

I hardly think about him now but the poem which I liked reminded me of his kindness. I polished my own shoes though Grin. Having grown up with a woodburner I'm better at lighting ours than Dh!

My mum is about to move house, a bungalow in the country with a bigger garden than she has now, a greenhouse, a pond full of carp. I'm excited for her!

Rhubarbgarden · 18/02/2015 07:29

Geoff enjoy Brighton! If I wasn't going to be at Wizowy I'd say pop by for a cuppa.

I like that poem too funny. It is very evocative of loving parents and ungrateful children. I do think you learn to appreciate your parents when you have kids; I lost my mother early too Geoff and it is a constant sadness.

Funny I hope your week improves and I'm glad the hellebores cheered you up.

SugarPlumTree · 18/02/2015 07:50

Flowers for plumbing problems, terrible weeks and lost parents. I'lI'll add some Cake and Wine to that as well.

I think you definitely reassess how you were parented when you are a parent. It is mostly positive for most people but has worked the opposite way for me with my Mother.That is when my garden protected my mental health, so therapeutic.

Freezing here this morning. Yesterday was lovely though with glorious sunshine. I am really enjoying the daffodils. Had a lovely gardening conversation with one of my customers yesterday which was lovely. next gardening job for me is sowing sweet peas .

Bramshott · 18/02/2015 10:03

Hello all!

I got rather frustrated in the garden on Sunday - spent a couple of hours pulling up brambles & nettles and decided actually I could spend my whole spare time pulling up brambles and nettles and it would make no difference, there are so many. Could be time to deploy the weedkiller (which I normally shy away from). But then yesterday I noticed that the tulips in my pots were peeking out, which made it all better Grin.

We were planning to go to Wisley tomorrow but I messed up and didn't book the butterfly slot early enough, so I have booked it for 1st March instead (it's on until the 6th). Need to find another excursion for tomorrow with the DCs. We have been in too much this half term because of an overrunning bathroom refit - boo!