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.

sugar yay for seed planting. I keep looking at my windowsills and thinking surely I could make a start - now you have officially given me permission to get going!!

Spent a useful couple of hours round the north side of the house this afternoon, clearing the path of slimey fallen leaves, mud, pine cones and godknowswhat, and cutting ivy stems on the big ash and fir trees. The stems were as thick as my upper arm; it was quite a sweaty job. Plus I had to hack back rampaging holly and Lonicera just to get near the trees - it's a bit of garden I never go near. One day, one day, it will be a fernery/stumpery according to The Grand Plan, but that is a long way down the list of priorities.

That sounds like hard work Rhubarb, we'll done. My little bit of gardening was pruning autumn raspberries and emptying some of the greenhouse as it is garden bin day tomorrow.

Hyper what are you planning on sowing ? I went for Antirhinum as the pack did say you could sow Jan. I think they take a bit of time to germinate so my logic is they can do that inside then go into greenhouse after a bit when they are a bit bigger and hopefully it will be a but warmer but that point.

Having cosseted chilli plants last year there is a plastic cloche which is kind of like a mini greenhouse in the greenhouse. Putting things in that with a couple of layers of fleece definitely helped thongs survive cold nights. Guess it is helped by greenhouse being in sheltered area.

I second the congratulations, Rhubarb. For anything too big for secateurs/shears I get my gardener pal in to do the chopping back. My excuse reason is that I don't have the tools, but with what I have paid her over the years I suppose I could have bought top of the range stuff by now. (And please, please, please join the NGS so we can come and admire).

I've just done a bit more hacking back, because our garden bin day is tomorrow too. I have been placing unplanted things where they will be planted once the soil is a bit warmer, so I can see where the gaps are likely to be.

I am now going to buy some snowdrops and lily bulbs. (By the way, funnyperson, if you haven't yet bought your lilies and want the GW discount code, if you don't already have it, let me know).

half term.
I have marked the weekend after halfterm for seeds.
mainly for the vegbed but also for the flowerbed.

Evening! I lurk on this and other gardening threads!
Have had an extremely satisfying day getting my potato bed ready and waging war on the celandine in my main perennial bed.
Quick question - I am going to take Carol's advice in GW mag and reposition the stuff in the border. my geranium and penstemon have still got loads of foliage; do I cut them down prior to repositioning?

Hello, rambunctious.

One of my gardening mottos is that you can't go far wrong if you follow Carol's advice. I think I'd cut off any foliage that is clearly dead - I've just done that to the perennials in my window boxes - but leave any that still looks healthy, as the plant may need the energy from it to cope with the transplant. But I'm not much of a botanist.

oh seeds...I want to sow so many!
my wish list includes: antirhinum, cornflowers,cosmos,larkspur,stocks,nigella....and more!

might get started with antirhinum next weekend

oh and sweet peas of course...

Hello rambunctious!

My penstemon and geraniums have green healthy foliage so I'm not cutting them back as I'm worried the cold and frost would damage the cut-off ends. I cut back old dead stuff though. But green healthy stuff I'm keeping and I might cut back in early spring if it looks like there is new growth from the base.

I'm falling behind with gardening because I can't seem to really get going outside till 3pm in this cold weather and that's when I get asked out to tea. If only people realised that 5 pm is a far better time for tea in the winter.
maud thanks for the offer- I have the code! but you reminded me to use it.

Some of my pot plants are looking a bit dry but I'm worried if I water them that the water will just turn to ice in the night.

Thank you for your comments, maudent wit and funnyperson.
I'll do as you suggest and leave the foliage on!

Made it to the top of the garden with tidying/cutting back yesterday and feeling very pleased - amazing how much neater it all looks.

Several of my hardy geraniums are very thuggish and threatening to swamp other stuff so I yanked them about fairly brutally and pulled off/up any bits that were growing over the lawn or into other plants. I mostly left green foliage on though, as others have said.

Browsing Crocus last night and very tempted by some echinacea, rudbekia and russian sage for summer colour...

Well done, Bramshott. Yet more hardy geraniums fell into my basket when I was buying lily bulbs. They seem to like my soil and are such good 'doers'.

Hello everyone sorry i couldn't get 'linked' up with my i pad because I was moving about.

Yes big congrats on the birth of little Lily Castle .

Humph rather you than me; I hate geese. I've never forgotten being attacked by a male one who was protecting his nest (although we were a long way for the pond just walking up the drive to a posh BNB in a chateau in Brittany!).

ref. peonies mine flowered for ONE year and have disappeared. I was also inspired by the Disappearing Gardens show to replant lily bulbs this year. they are certainly not eternal!

Also I'm going to plant grasses in our newly cleared 'chicken garden'.

Luckily my recently planted hedge has withstood the frost but I must get out to water my hydrangeas and new hellebores it's thawed a bit today!

I don't know about opening under the NGS Maud - there's nothing to show at the moment! Just a load of overblown shrubs and nettle infested borders. But I'll get there; so maybe one day, when I've got the new paths, steps and pergola put in, ripped out all the plants and replanted all the borders!

I was hoping to do some gardening today but I'm stuck with a sick child.

We'll wait, Rhubarb!

My gardening job today is planting the allium bulbs I had forgotten about until I found them yesterday, going rather squelchy in their jiffy bag. Some are still sound, but the rest have gone straight into the compost. Yuk.

What a shame. I have a bag of allium bulbs waiting for the showstopper border planting. I daren't open it...

Oh dear that is a shame. maud

Hope poorly child soon recovers rhubarb

I had some red onions sprouting in the fridge which Dh has insisted on 'bringing on' in glasses of water on the window sill in some sort of onion based experiment!

My Peony flowered 2012 but not last year, I wonder if they don't like it too wet?

I need to cut back the Autumn Raspberries but can't remember which ones they are. Is there any way of telling? My other question - I was given a beautiful cyclamen for my birthday which has been frosted, will the bulb survive?

I think Geoff that the Autumn ones tend to totally die off over Winter whereas the summer ones are s mixture of dead and live canes. Please please check though as I don't want to get it wrong, Dad killed off some lovely raspberry plants gettjng his pruning wrong .

Geoff Cyclamen are perennial and last forever IMHE and E! Yours will probably recover as long as they haven't hybridised a specially large delicate one or something.

Oh dear I overdid the "E's" there!

I think, Geoff, that unless it's what they usually sell as an indoor cyclamen that's taken a holiday in the garden for the summer and then been forgotten (I have been guilty of this) it should be fine. I have just found, though, that three of my fancy pelargoniums in the plastic greenhouse have been turned to mush. Ah well.

I have now planted the alliums. Once all the squidgy ones were thrown away, I had enough for five little pots. The bulbs are tiny compared to the alliums I've planted in the past - about the size of crocus - so I'll be interested to see what I get. They were a free for postage thing from a magazine, so it's not a tragedy (but still annoying) if nothing comes of them.

Hope your sickly infant is improving, Rhubarb.

I hope your child is better soon, rhubarb
maud did you see the alliums in one of the gardens on the Titchmarsh best British garden show? They were magnificent. White ones and purple ones.

More cold weather is coming. I'm not sowing any seeds apart from microgreens till February. Then I'll sow the sweet peas, calendula, cornflowers, cosmos and hollyhocks.

No I didn't, funnyperson. I only saw one episode of that - the one with a huge garden in Scotland that was divided into his half and her half, and he mowed his lawn every day. I like alliums but those I've planted in the past haven't done well (more victims of the clay soil, I guess) but these look very pretty and unusual, so I'm having another go.

I like alliums too but they don't like my garden!

Ref. cyclamen I've had a great success with the ones that were already here under our false acacia tree ,when we moved in 10 years ago, after putting rotted leaf mould on them 2 years ago. They are spreading happily, their leaves are looking lovely and the flowers lasted a very long time.