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

[echt]

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.

Thank you for the warm welcome! I think I'm going to like it here among you garden-friendly folk

That Hayloft website has some lovely things. So many hellebores - and I think I want a strawberry tree bush too. Apparently you can eat the weird fruits!

OMG they have six hellebores for £6! Bargain.

Welcome juneau.

Bramshott take photos of your borders as they are now for bulb planting purposes in the autumn. Alternatively, stick pea sticks in the gaps with little flags of insulating tape on the tops. They will disappear amongst the summer foliage but be right there for you at bulb planting time.

My cedar tree is quite small, and far too close to its neighbour, a mature ash. Too big to move though, so it will have to just jostle. It is looking perkier since we cut down its other neighbour though, a honking great Leylandii. I'm training a white rambling rose up through it and around the trunk of the ash.

Beware of the lure of Hayloft, juneau! They keep having very enticing offers of plants (which always seem to be very good quality when they arrive) that work out at £1 per plant.

Strawberry trees were always appearing in Latin translations when I was at school and I always wondered what they were! Amazing that you can eat the fruit.

Do they taste good? DD gave her grandfather an arbutus on his birthday several years ago, so it probably has a decent crop of fruit by now.

Oh dear, I fell off the thread for a little bit there. A weeks holiday and a couple of recovery manic weeks and realised I was missing you all!

I managed a few hours in the garden on Sunday on a glorious sunny 1st March . Tidied the long bed, cut back anything that still needed it, mulched a bit, admired my feeble hellebores and my patch of crocus. I have the first of the anemone blanda up & flowering now too. I love watching everything coming through in the Spring. I also went through the veg plot, prepped a few beds, noted where manure/compost is needed (DH job) and started off some peas & broad beans.

Then had a lovely cup of tea admiring my hard work

Hi Juneau, welcome

Welcome Juneau!
Lovely catching up on everyone's posts. Loving the snowdrop chatter. I MAY have snowdrops in my neglected/ moving-house pot muddle but it has snowed, hailed and been bitterly cold here for days. I haven't managed to get out,with or without dd, not even for a potter - never mind planting my bulbs...

NEWSFLASH - GW is back on Friday. Stupidly excited about this must be spring. Determined to do better this year and get some real colour going in my garden!

It's old news, Freddiesmother, but no less exciting for that!

I am going to a party on Friday and simultaneously excited about going to the party and downcast at missing one of the signals of the start of the gardening season. I love Monty gardening programmes on TV.

Tell us about your garden, Freddiesmother.

ohhh I thought I was really on to something! was googling when it was back and was delighted. My garden is a small shady garden and it just feels a bit 2D if you see what I mean - lawn with beds round the edge. Want to think about how to make it more interesting and colour needs to be a big part of that!

Those of us who follow Monty's every move subscribe to GW magazine heard the joyful news a week or so ago.

Your garden sounds quite like mine. Small trees and interesting objets in the beds to add height, using the fences as planting spaces and going for year-round interest are the way to go, I think (although maybe easier said than done).

Yes the fence idea is a good one - did some of that last year. I have made the mistake of buying just one plant of things l like so its all mismatched- this year I will try and get some sort of order .... will be looking to GW for further inspiration

Hmm. It feels very difficult in a small
garden to follow the rule of planting in 3s or 5s, especially if like me you're a bit of a magpie and prone to acquiring little treasures here and there. But, in an effort to make my garden look less bitty, I have been trying to go down the path of 'more of the same'. So I now have lots of roses, heucheras and hardy geraniums. I've got lots of varieties, and there are lots more still out there, so I still get to pick lovely new things when I see them, but it does look a lot more coherent and less like the garden centre delivery van just dumped its contents in the garden.

You are right, with a small garden it is harder because one can't plant metres of fabulous herbaceous borders with lots of different plants a la Great Dixter even though one wants to, and there isn't lots of room to repeat planting sequences to provide continuity either

One bit of good advice I gleaned from somewhere is to try and provide succession planting for the seasons and continuity of colour at the same spot, so for example plum coloured hellebores followed by plum coloured tulips followed by nectaroscordum and pattys plum poppies followed by salvias and japanese anemones all on the same patch of ground. I'm trying this for the first time this year as I have a shady white border, so that hangs together, but opposite is the coloured border which is far more difficult to get right.

Welcome Juneau and Freddie's mother!
Rhubarb does that strulch work?
Am so so tempted by Haylofts geraniums- will probably get Rozanne even though I already have Johnson's blue in the garden!

The garden is probably never going to be 'designer' though, because it has topiary and fruit trees being trained, and climbers up the fence and flowering shrubs with the canopies being raised and rhubarb and raspberries and herbs and some favourite plants just have to go in even if the colour doesnt 'match' !

I think it sounds delightful, funny.

Strulch does work. It is a pleasure to work with as it is light to carry and smells lovely, it adds nutrition to the soil rather than removing it (which bark chips do), it stays in place, weed seeds don't like germinating in it as much as in compost, and it lasts two years before it needs topping up. It's definitely worth the money. I first came across it at Kew and I've never looked back.

Ahh MyNightWithMaud !!! or should it be Mon Nuit Avec Maud !! I think nuit is masculiin. My spell checker is not happy typing french (to my shame)

That reminds me I'm having french conversation classes with a nice lady who has an organic small holding. She gave me a small hyssop plant! To start my collection!

Mais oui, ppeatfruit! I've been looking around for a new name with Maud in it, and was thrilled to see the film in the BFI shop. I may ask for it as an Easter present, as my spoken French is not so good.

Hello! ive found you all again, had a bit of a hiatus from mn but it lured me back.

not so much garden news im afraid, rather large bump makes reaching even my bootlaces far too much effort. So im busy planning, seed/plant catalogues in hand and a

Off to catch up on all your news (I may be a while!)

that's a really good tip Funnyperson - I was thinking of trying to establish a white bed so that would work. Am headed to an amazing nursery near my parents in a few weeks and have been saving some pennies!

Rhubarb What are the ingredients of Strulch?

It's mineralised straw. Completely organic.

I spent all day mulching and didn't get it finished. I thought it would take two or three hours. I had estimated that I would need 14 bags to do the garden, but I got through 19 and I reckon I still need two more. I feel very bad for my client. My estimating is terrible.

She loved the Strulch though.

Ooh - good tip about taking pictures Rhubarb - thanks!

Is that another Potting Shed baby on it's way there Nightshade?