"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt." This month's discussion in the potting shed.

[MyNightWithMaud]

Grateful thanks to the magnificent Margaret Atwood (via A Mighty Girl) for the quote.

I have just come indoors after a delightful couple of hours' pottering in the garden. It's far warmer than yesterday and everything feels optimistic and vernal again, after yesterday's Arctic blast.

High point: Realising that most of last year's cuttings have taken. Given that I am useless with seeds this, I think, is my propagating future.

Low point: Realising that my newest fairy lights have already failed.

Ha ha, have struggled with my Saturday appointment this morning with Monty, being Friday today ! I felt quite cross with the BBC earlier.

The lovely thing about us all thinking it's Saturday today is that we gain an extra day!

I love lily of the valley too Rhubarb, but you don't often see it, it's true. It seems to have been popular in the 1950s - my mother's wedding veil in 1954 was embroidered with it, and her bouquet was mostly L of the V. I do also recall someone in a Victorian novel buying a bunch for his lady love. I've planted some by our front door. It's very shady and clay soil but L of the V seems very happy there - the scent is so gorgeous and the flowers are so pretty. One of these days I'll get some of the pink variety.

I've tried to grow lily of the valley but without much success . Perhaps I should grow it in a pot first.
It has been rather cold and rainy today. Curling up with a book in front of the fire weather. And doing the laundry of course.

Giggling at the Thursday/Friday thing. I can picture you all getting cross at the BBC Such outrage!

Not really gardening weather is it? However, I am insisting on the beginnings of the pond tomorrow. We have my 14yr old nephew here for the weekend; we're giving him some digging lessons. I think I can oversee proceedings from the kitchen window with a nice cup of tea in my hand.

We had a lovely day yesterday in East Anglia - bright and sunny - but today has been very dreary.

I was puzzled why, according to some of you, the BBC had moved GW to a Thursday but assumed it was some sort of Easter scheduling thing. Anyway, I still missed it because DD wanted to watch Agents of Shield but I look forward to my regular Saturday morning catch-up.

I planted lily of the valley under the apple tree because I heard it liked dry shade, but it seems to have withered and perished. I had it in my wedding bouquet, too.

Well Monty made the pond thing look easy! Luckily both DH & the nephew were watching so there's no excuses now.

Gardeners World isn't on tomorrow morning, it is on at 5pm just to be confusing. I checked.
I'm a bit aghast at Monty using spotless perfectly good pink and white wool blankets to line a pond
I kept thinking of Rachel Carson and the film 'silent spring'. The birds round our way aren't as noisy as usual and the cherry blossom is late. But there are lots of lambs in the fields, which is nice.

I normally watch GW on a Saturday morning on iPlayer, but I am watching it now, tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle.

::rock and roll lifestyle::

Lily of the Valley was one of the few flowers in the back garden when we moved here. I am a Saturday morning iplayer person too Maud.

Awful weather where we are too which is making me grumpy. Really want to be out digging. Aldi had lots of cheap veg plants today but resisted as have no green house and think too early to be planting out (beans, tomatoes etc.).

Oh yes. On Saturday mornings in term time, DH takes DD to her classes and I have a lie in with Monty on iPlayer. It is bliss.

Tonight, though, I've jumped the gun. The garden jungle was lovely and what I'd aim for if I was starting again here from scratch (which I never will).

I keep seeing posters for A Little Chaos, the Alan Rickman film about le Notre. If folks are still interested, I'll research venues and dates.

Yes please.

I loved the jungle garden too. Some of my favourite plants in there.

Getting up for my dose of GW now.

I managed to do some pricking out in the rain yesterday

I love Lily of the Valley. I didn't realise there was a pink variety though! May look into getting one for my mum who loves it too.

Jungle garden sounds fabulous! Looking forward to catching up on GW. Would anyone recommend the magazine?

I subscribed to GW magazine a few years ago. It has some great content - I love Carol Klein's articles about Glebe Cottage - although the "how to" articles get a bit repetitive because they (obviously) come round on an annual cycle. I stick with it, though, because I often get the readers' offers of free-for-postage plants, to grow on for the plant stall at the school fete.

The RHS magazine is also good.

Pond progress. Loads more digging to do but now off to shop for pond liners. Digging hurts; couldn't resist helping, I'm going to seriously regret it. DH actually wanted it bigger than this initially (he quite fancies ducks ) but I put my foot down and limited the size. Which now he is very pleased about!

We hit clay whilst digging. The DDs and my niece have been modelling clay pots with it. It's actually easier to dig the clay out than all the builder's rubble and flint in the rest of it.

We too have clay that's good enough to make pots. When first double-digging the garden we also found old munitions and a dead cat. Such fun.

A pond! Fab.

We were delighted to find tadpoles in ours, hurrah for ponds! Ours is in clay, packed down so we didn't have a liner.

DBIL gave DS1 a metal detector for his birthday, a great present except we won't let him dig up our garden. I bet there is some cool stuff under there, people have been living here a fair while, but it is going to stay there for the present.

Oh yes lucky you bertha I wish we had clay; you just have to stamp it down (easier said than done though)! I was seriously thinking of buying 2 kilo slabs of clay in a handicraft shop to line mine but newspapers (papier mache'??) will have to do.

I really don't like the black plastic liners they seem to use here. I've got nice large stones all round it covered in moss they're very heavy though.

That pond looks fab
I merely mowed and fed the lawn today, and cut back the Canna lilies a la Monty which made me feel stupidly pleased with myself, completely out of proportion to the task!
My small garden is beginning to look tidy enough to be an exemplar of surbubia even with the hellebores and rambling roses. It is worrying how silent it is this year though. No bees or hoverflies or butterflies or anything yet. No blue tits either. Perhaps the pond in a basin isn't enough and I should dig a proper pond like you bertha and plant some bamboo and gunnera.

I hope my sacred waterlilies flower this year.

I have just been to stock up on compost, ready (I hope) for a planting session on Monday.

We have few birds here. I blame the recent increase in the neighbourhood cat population. Even if they're not predating them, they're scaring them away from the bird feeders.

the lawn could do with a mow, but it's still too squelchy after recent heavy rain

i just sowed morning glory today. the mina lobata is going great guns (germinated about 36 hours after sowing!) so i should have some nice annual climbers this year

funnyperson i too feel disproportionately delighted with myself when i have completed the tasks instructed by monty that week!

we have lots of birds as our NDN have been here for forty years and have lots of feeders and birdboxes etc. my best sighting was a goldcrest inches from my nose as i watered seedlings in the cold frame that is next to a large conifer.

sadly my own bird feeder is not much used any more for the reason maud suggests - NDN on the other side arrived a few months ago with a cat (a lovely cat that i'm very fond of - she's very sweet) and they seem to have been deterred understandably. but i see birds everywhere else. i live in a village on the outskirts of a small city.