"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.

Hello everybody. Isn't this weather fabulous. Long may it continue although I don't suppose it will! My clematis armandii is flowering beautifully.

That is lovely indeed. Some if my baby, waiting to be planted clematis have died, but the huge unexpected positive is that the ancient clematis Montana that I thought had died when its supporting fence collapsed is sprouting new growth.

Yes clematis can be very fickle. I like the armandii for its flowers and lovely glossy leaves but although it's only two years old the older leaves have turned brown and died. The rest of the plant is healthy. Montana is gorgeous and very prolific - good value! Glad to hear yours has resurrected itself as it were Maud

I have been experimenting with seating in sunny spots: very pleasurable.

I mean it is nice sitting in the sun

I ordered some Thalictrum delavayi album seeds from Derry Watkins' special plants website (having been impressed when looking at humphrey's border last year) and she sent me 5 free packets of seeds of unusual plants. With strange unfamiliar names.
Now I like structure and routine and familiarity so I am really quite flummoxed. Pleased and intrigued but ...well...challenged.
Tomorrow I will pluck up courage to post the names and you can please please all advise me as to what to do. The one thing all the packets do say is 'sow thinly'. Gulp. Guided by Monty I now know how to sow sweet peas successfully. But "sow thinly" ????????

Ooh, err, funnyperson, I like a horticultural mystery. To sow thinly, I think the best option is probably to sprinkle a pinch on top of a pot (or more than a pinch over a seed tray) and then to cover with vermiculite, as that is better for small seeds than covering them with compost.

I have just been trying to rescue the free for postage tomato plants from GW magazine. I put them on a shelf and forgot about them and they are looking very miserable. I have potted them up and am hoping for the best, but two or three look beyond any such hope.

Ooh how exciting funnyperson. Looking forward to hearing what you've got. Does Derry provide instructions?

I sowed all of my Unusual Perennial Pea seeds at the weekend including lord Anson's pea - Lathyrus Nervosus, which, since I bought the seed sounds like a fragile little thing - well-named apparently. So I am not expecting much from that, though if you google images of it it does look rather lovely if it does survive and flower.

Congratulations on the junior seed sowers - DS is now nearly 16 and having said he'd help sowing the broad beans as he did last year, then announced it's 'boring', so that is that, sadly. I think he's lasted longer than most, and he's still happy to go on walks that involve gardens so I am grateful for that. Anyone read Zagazoo by Quentin Blake? - all about a couple who get a baby in the post, and for a while they are all very happy until one day the away changes into a small elephant, and then various other things including a 'strange hairy creature' who kept on getting bigger... And stranger... And hairier... Until one day it changed into 'a young man with perfect manners'. That last but is a comforting thought to hold on to at the moment.

Funnyperson, I think of you whenever I look at that Thalictrum! The other thalictrum reminds me of Maud

Pond is finished and full of water - yay! Just need a few pond plants now. My kids aren't interested in the garden at all but my son was really keen on helping with the pond so was great to get him involved and off the Xbox for a few hours

mypinkmonkey I have 2 Armandii clematis and both are flowering - love the scent of them. Both go brown and shed their bottom leaves every year. The new growth is fine but they aren't very attractive underneath!

Anyone else have a Photinia Red Robin? Mine looks awful as the old leaves are all diseased and falling but new growth is coming in ok. Is this normal for them? I get the feeling it's not very happy in my soil but it provides some necessary privacy screening so reluctant to get rid of it!!

Ha! I've been poking around in the beds, looking for emerging plants, and there's no sign of the thalictrum. But it has done this to me before, let me think it's dead and then emerged late ...

Now I'd like to see a picture of your pond itsnothingoriginal, I may find the water inspiring! I have at least another week of staring at the mud & clay in mine before I can line it and start to fill it. Let me know what pond plants you're going for too. I still need more inspiration on that front.

My clematis are sprouting but I think one of them may be dead. I am not good with clematis.

funny - the raised beds in one of the pond photos is the veg plot and the other view is of the asparagus bed against the fence. I'm intrigued by your mystery seeds too.

One of my delphiniums has shoots coming up (have broken out the defences against slugs in the form of nematodes and an organic wool pellet thing that seems to form a sort of barrier mat - will see how that works). The others don't and I'm worried they might not have overwintered but it's still early days

Intrigued to hear about the mystery seeds!

I'm home, although I was gone less than a week, lots of changes in the garden! Magnolia, potted Camelia and cherry are in flower and lots of the Tulips are out. Some for-get-me-not out too but not with the tulips.

The pond looks wonderful bertha keep the pictures coming.

rhubarb glad to hear you've recovered and good luck with the sunflowers

What was the deletion for breaking talk guidelines about? Did I miss something?

clianthus puniceus
senecio cannabifolius
campanula glomerulata alba
allium tuberosum
chaenorrhium origanifol

Those are the names of the 'surprise' seeds. I think I know the garlic and the campanula.

I think the deletion was for a pretty blatant sales pitch for a rat trap. I was nosy enough to search and noticed that her only three posts were all identical.

My camellia (the one I have told to shape up or ship out) has been in bud for weeks but they're stubbornly refusing to open. Is this a thing with camellias? My favourite things at the moment are the pulmonarias, but I think I'll have some tulips open in a few days and then things will really get going.

Geoff's garden sounds lovely and some of funnyperson's seeds I don't recognise at all. I'll satisfy my curiosity later by googling.

Geoff's garden sounds lovely and has come on a lot more than mine.

I googled the Clianthus aka red parrot plant which grows as a climber. (if it germinates and survives). It needs full sun.
I'm also sowing some Angelica sylvestris burgundy and Anagallis 'blue light' and Ligusticum lucidum.

I'll have to think of a way that the birds don't get the seeds.

Did anyone else notice the cow parsley and cornflower combo in Poldark?

maud I've put my camellia in the sun and watered it to encourage the buds to open.

I've done both those things with my camellia (even indulged it with special camellia food) but the buds are still not budging.

I've googled your seeds and that climber looks gorgeous.

Perhaps it is still too soon to flower. My camellia, azaleas and rhodedendrons all have buds on and have had for ages and I hope will flower at some point!

You may be right. I was getting impatient because so many front gardens around here have huge camellias which are already in flower.

I have just begun the Herculean task of weeding the lawn. There's still plenty to do, but I have at least got out the hairy bittercress, which was just beginning to flower. I also lopped an inconvenient branch off one of the viburnums, so have decided to make cuttings of it, just in case they take.

I've googled the climber too funny, it's lovely. Not sure about the senecio though, looks like that needs some space!

Pond underlay arrived today. Stones coming tomorrow. Liner arriving I don't know when. Probably not until after the weekend just in case I had ideas about filling it sometime soon. Still, the DDs are currently using the hole to play in...

Hmm yes I might be selective about what I sow. The senecio looks a bit wild.

What pond underlay did you get bertha? Your pond is an inspiration. Have you had thoughts about pondside plants? I like yellow irises : they are everywhere in the Hebrides. I wonder what Monty will recommend on Friday.

www.victoriananursery.co.uk/Pond_Side_Plants/
www.primrose.co.uk/floating-pond-plants-c-7767_4561_4632_4667_4669.html?src=plants_LP_4667

There seems to be a large range of water lilies available. Have you had any thoughts?

There are 2 types, nelumbo and nymphaea

My kitchen is all so much slower than planned. The house is upside down and covered in a layer of dust. It is really stressful. What was supposed to take 2 weeks is more likely to take 6 weeks. I wish now I had had builders in to knock the window into a floor to ceiling affair so that we could see the garden from the kitchen. At the time I thought it would be too big a job, not realising that a new kitchen is a big job anyway.

My lawn needs tlc. It looks green from a distance but up close there are weeds and there is moss.

Thank-you funny and maud you and anyone else are welcome to visit :)

I googled the seeds funny I really liked the campanula glomerulata alba. I must be one of the few women not watching Poldark remember it the first time round I chose Indian Summers instead. Is it too late to make your window bigger? We need our kitchen done but it involves knocking a wall down, I can't face it this year.

My sister and mum invited me on a picnic today but because I want to crack on in the garden I declined -they have decided to bring the picnic to mine and watch me work !

itsnothingoriginal I have a few Photinia Red Robins and the older ones are looking very sad - diseased leaves etc. but I think they don't like where they are planted but they are too big to move now. The newer plants are great - very healthy with lots of red growth.
Good to hear my armandii aren't about to die! I will have to grow something in front of them to hide the dead parts.
My cats had a lovely time lying in the catmint yesterday - fortunately it is big enough now to withstand the rolling- bizarre effect it has on them.