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.

Popping in to say hello to newbies

I now quite fancy growing things in egg shells

Whilst researching 'gardens in eggshells' I came across some recommendations to grow seeds in them, and then plant the whole thing out - so maybe you should, Bertha! I'm not sure how drainage would work though.

How are your eggshells coming along rhubarb?

Would love to see photos of your eggshells, Rhubarb!

I love camellias. My mum has one that always tricks you into thinking it's going to flower spectacularly but the flowers always go brown and die.

I've just had some garden good news - my white dicentra that I put in the front garden last summer and that I thought hadn't taken, is sprouting up like nobody's business! This time of year is just amazing.

I like dicentra, isn't it usually red or pink Countess?

Yes, that's why my white one is so special

I'm trying to do all blues and whites in the front garden because it's a very overwhelmingly red brick house. A little bit of pinkish tinge is allowed, but not too much because it would clash with the brick!

Was it you who mentioned woad ?

We're lucky with our white stone house

My bricks are yellow I just plant what I feel like which is probably why it looks crap I've just planted 3 pinkish roses hadn't thought about the bricks oh well....

countess my Camelias used to do that until they went in a pot, I also believe that they mustn't get dry at the end of the summer when forming their buds.

Yes, I mentioned woad. We were talking about it in the Wolf Hall thread, too. Interestingly the flowers are yellow though, not blue like I always thought!

Callmegeoff, the dryness at the end of summer is almost certainly the problem with my mum's camellia, thanks. Her garden gets very dry in late summer and she doesn't really water the borders.

In my old house I didn't think about colours, and I ended up with a yellow geum next to a pink geranium and they looked horrible and annoyed me every time I went out there, but I didn't realise you could move plants
This time I'm trying to think a bit about them. I have a long border in front of a honey-colour stone wall (that is falling down so I can't plant it up properly until the wall's fixed, but I can plan it and grown plants on in pots to put out there when it's done) and I'm thinking about doing the thing where you change the mood slightly by excluding one colour, if I can decide which one!

Did you see the programme on the beeb where they were rebuilding a french medieval castle Countess? Because there was a whole bit about dyeing clothes with woad, it was fascinating.

For me especially because we're not far from the remains of a castle built in the 11th C (and we reckon our house was also built from the old stones and fireplaces ) we've only got one fireplace but it's out of proportion with the salon).

TBH I don't really go for the 'colour' coded thing; I'm just happy if the plant flowers! Though it seems to sometimes happen accidentally anyway!

That bed that I posted with the hellebores is a 'white' bed without design!!

I loved the French castle programme ( loved all the various series), but the woad bit was amongst the most interesting. I recall that the colour Deepdene the longer you left the yarn in the solution. There are courses on natural dying and spinning at the (wonderful) Weald & Downland Museum, which I'd love to do in a different life.

I had planned a border of yellows pinks and oranges, forgetting to move out the pale blue campanula - so it's now a sunset border. That is about the level of my colour planning - haphazard.

I like colour planning in the garden - Sissinghurst's white garden or Great Dixter's tropical garden are fabulous (although I guess the latter is about style as much as colour) - but my attempts always go a bit awry. My monochrome bed (meant to be 'black' and white) has a rose at the back that was supposed to be palest pink but turns out to be quite a pink pink, and my purple and red front garden has some interloper calendula adding a strident (but actually quite pleasing) bit of orange.

My trip to the wholesalers was postponed, so this morning I procured two duck eggs from the local farm shop, a bag of grit, a punnet of baby sempervivums and a cheap mini heather from the garden centre. Tomorrow I will attempt to blow the eggs, then on Friday I'll see what the dcs can assemble! I promise to post a photo (if it isn't all a disaster).

Geoff your garden does not look crap, it is really lovely.

I was always a bit ambivalent about colour coordinated borders until I designed the hot colours border a couple of years ago, with a very strict colour palette from the clients. It's easily the best bit of planting I've every done.

I think that what makes it work so well was colour coordinating the foliage as well as the flowers; lots of yellow, red and glaucous foliage really tied it all together so the scheme still held when the plants weren't flowering, and through the winter with the evergreens.

It inspired me to do more with colour in my own garden.

You can make a fab. duck egg omelette Rhubarb Good luck with it! That colour coordination does sound very good, could you post a pic?

Yes I love all those series with the "Living the past" hands on archeologists too Bearleigh

Agredd duck eggs are delicious - scrambled goose eggs OTOH are not nice.

I'd love to see that planting too.

I've never had goose eggs but if they're anything like geese they won't be very nice They're HUGE though.

Good idea to do an omelette. I didn't blow them today in the end, the weather was too glorious to be inside. Instead I extended the border I've been working on in the orchard, so that now it runs the length of the house. It clearly used to, then at some stage someone put down vile weed matting covered with gravel over the last couple of metres. So I cleared the gravel, pulled up the matting and dug in a load of compost. Then I sorted out the edging which was all wonky. It's all ready to plant now, from one side of the French doors along to one end. Tokorrow I will finish off weeding and digging over the other side. That's full of Spanish bluebells though so it's going to be a bit epic.

I'm attaching a photo of the hot colours garden, taken last June.

I would love to know and be able to think enough to do colour coordinated and flowering timed planting. I'm not disheartened though, I just see it all as a work in progress. One day I will know enough, I hope! I tried a box of bulbs that should have created a blue garden, but everything flowered at different times, which wasn't really what I planned! Ho hum...b

The hot border looks lovely.

I love sisyrinchium striatum's linear quality. I always thought it was one of those though as old boots plants - my mother donated a huge clump when I started this garden, which is usually a sign of something that runs amok and has to be kept in trim - but I noticed recently that it had all perished.

Err, tough.

Hello another newbie here, we have just regained a large section of garden that our elderly neighbour was using as a vegetable patch ( he was using it when we moved in and we have let this continue sort of 'the good life' by proxy). Sadly he has got too old to manage it and so we are now taking the space back and yesterday we planted three half standard apple trees in a bit of the space. At 10 pm last night I went out with a torch to admire our work...

We are not sure what we are doing but we are enjoying working on the garden although a bit sad about our neighbour but hopefully he will still come and sit in the new orchard and drink tea.

Welcome Mrsmalarkey. Could you put a bench down there for him and he can sit and direct you in your gardening endeavours?

I spotted this arch window whilst out working today. I've been fancying one to turn into a mirror for the garden (we have a larger sash window this shape at the back of the house). Mr Farmer said, 'make me an offer'. Does anyone know what such a thing should go for? I don't want to take the piss but don't want to over offer either.

rhubarb those edges and verticals look great.
OK really boring questions: how do you do your edges? Do you use an edging tool? Do you use an edging strip? I seem to remember humphrey's lawn and beds had amazing edges too.
Mrs Malarkey make sure the bench has arms for getting up and a little table for cider.