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.

I love your sisyrinchium, Rhubarb!
Also I'm noticing the foliage colours in that border are really nice.

Re the colours, my mother and I attempted to plant a white garden when we moved into her house but a lot of the things (eg a jasmine) came up pink.

Black pudding I'd offer a fiver and if the seller looks affronted go up in 2s .

Welcome mrsmalarkey Always a good idea to plant more than one apple then you have a pollinator. I've just planted 3 different fruit trees (mulched this morning before it rained). So they should be ok too.

Hello blackpuddingbertha, yes we have put a bench out and also set up some staging by his greenhouse in case he fancies pottering. We are also caring for his geriatric chickens (4 at the start of the week 3 now) who have given up laying eggs but are happy to potter about.
Not sure what to suggest on the window having had a quick look at the local reclaimed/antique shop on way to butchers he had windows from £20 to £100 but I am not sure how big the window is in your picture?

rhubarb thankyou and that hot colour bed looks fantastic.

blackpudding anything selling like that on ebay you could watch ? Alternatively ask humpty

Nothing to do with gardens but I have just discovered there is a literary festival in my neck of the woods in October, guest speakers are Alan Titchmarsh, Mary Berry and Michael Morpurgo.

Welcome mrs malarkey

Hello ppeatfruit and callmegeoff, thanks for the welcome. We have planted three apple trees a Jupiter, James Grieve and an Arthur Turner. It took a while to sort out root stock and work out how much space we have to leave around the trees. We also have two espalier apple trees which we have had for two years and have taken this opportunity to resite them on a fence. The garden has felt a bit daunting up until now as we couldn't decide how to re use the old vegetable plot but it now seems easier as we have got some trees in.

Window is about 5 foot tall. I wish I could offer low & go up but as he's a work client I really can't offend him! There is one on eBay I'm watching that is similar but it's got four days to go yet so no bids on the £50 starting price.

I have just bought some teeny bulbs to make eggshell pots for with the DDs and their friends this afternoon. We'll let them grow for a bit in the shells, then crack them and plant them out. We'll be having scrambled eggs for breakfast tomorrow!

Little eggs of loveliness!

Lovely window Bertha.

Welcome mrsmalarkey.

Funny, I don't use edging strips though I think they are a great idea and would invest in some if I had the money. I just use a half moon edging iron. I love edging actually. It's immensely satisfying.

Loving the eggs, Bertha! I successfully blew, sliced in half and scrambled one of the duck eggs. Didn't have time to make the gardens though as the dcs had a play date after school/nursery that I'd forgotten about, so it will be a rush job after breakfast in the morning before the deadline.

I had an email newsletter thing from Bloms today, reminding that pots of tulips need to be kept watered. I duly watered the pots, then the little border that has the lovely spring green tulips in it, then the rhubarb as I was passing.

When I walked past the rhubarb five minutes later it had started to unfurl its leaf! It reminded me of my grandpa, describing sitting in the rhubarb sheds when he was a little boy, listening to the crackling of the leaves as they unfurled in the dark.

Wow, no wonder your posting name has rhubarb in it!
I planted various rhubarbs this winter and they've all popped up except for the Timperley Early, and given the name I guess that means it won't....

Hello everyone

I am so out of touch that I didn't even realise GW was back on until I caught up with this thread But only today I have managed to find someone who will childmind feral toddlerCobbler for a day or so here and there so I can get in the garden.

Sadly my greenhouse is still wrecked, the replacement parts got lost but they are sending them now. All the scented geraniums I was over wintering have died, I had no where else to put them. I think I have given cuttings to most people I know, so I will be asking them to return the favour.

DH has just ordered some green dogwood and orange dogwood to fill up the rest of the irregular beds. Our aim is low maintenance, as the rest of the garden is soooo the opposite! So there will be the downy birch, underplanted with loosestrife, blending into the red dogwood, with a bed of green and a bed of orange. It has been lovely this winter to walk though every day when I go to feed the pigs, and hopefully in summer it will make some nice paths for children to run around.

We have also got a Whitebeam coming for the side of the drive and are hunting down some red stemmed willow for the pond.

I used to be on the Archers threads too, but toddler events have overtaken me there too.

I wish I could pass on the goose eggs to you Rhubarb, we have about fifteen just sitting in the kitchen!

I didn't know you could get green and orange dogwoods!

It will be like a traffic light down there

Ah yes Countess, my grandfather's family were rhubarb farmers. I grew up in the Rhubarb Triangle and all the fields around us were rhubarb fields. The rhubarb I have in my garden is a descendent of the ancestral rhubarb; crowns passed down the generations.

Gah, Humph I wish I could pop over for your eggs! Sorry to hear your greenhouse is still out of action and that you lost your scented geraniums.

descended from the ancestral rhubarb - how fabulous!

Wow, loads to catch up on! Hello everyone.

Countess Woad sounds great. I like the idea of plant-based dyes and inks.

Your hot border looks fabulous Rhubarb.

Love the eggs Bertha!

Been a busy week here - my last of maternity leave - so I've tried to do as much in the garden as possible. We've had some lovely weather so managed to paint another side of the shed, get some trellis up and plant out a couple of skimmias which (along with the firethorn) will hopefully grow enough to hide our sunbathing neighbour

My camellia's out too - a really vibrant pink. Looks so pretty from the kitchen window. My quince has blossomed too but is basically a single twig... Nice to read about others on here!

Off to have a proper read through the thread now...

Yes, camellias seem to be doing really well round here too!
i enjoyed gardeners world today though thought the Hellebore lady was a bit serious but her hellebores were fab as were Monty's. Monty is seriously attractive: I think I have a crush on him and Nigel Do you think he gets paid as much as Jeremy Clarkson?
I am visiting an ngs garden this weekend and moving plants around.

Spring is like a perhaps hand
E. E. Cummings, 1894 - 1962

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

I've just seen a photo of this glorious wisteria tunnel:
nanasweetmemories.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/kawachi-fuji-garden.jpg
In the Kawachii Fuji garden in Japan. I want one!

I too admire Monty, although I like to pretend claim it's in the strictly horticultural sense. I'll be catching up on GW later.

I have some lovely buds on my renovated camellia, but have so far failed to coax them into opening.

Wonderful poem, funnyperson. Thanks for posting it.

I agree, beautiful poem Funnyperson.

Very impressed by your ancestral rhubarb, Rhubarb.

Humphrey, sympathy re the scented geraniums. I hope you can restock from the cuttings you gave people - that would be good karma!

Hello Humphrey Those scented pelargoniums? Are quite delicate, I lost some and I'd kept mine on the windowsill of the utility room,I don't know why, maybe too much water or not enough?

Bertha Oh I didn't realise the window is so tall yes £50 sounds nearer.

I was going to say no wonder Rhubarb has that name! I get bad acid indigestion when I've eaten it but it looks nice by water and I like gunnera which was growing in our woodland area happily for a time, it was bleedin' enormous ! Like something from prehistory

I like that poem.

Here are the egg gardens. You can barely see the eggshell in dd's, she crammed so much stuff in. I also entered some daffs in the daff classes. It was lovely to see the village hall filled with flowers. Back this afternoon to see the results of the judging!