"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.

Runner ducks look like normal ducks but slightly more upright with longish necks. One of mine is white and she looked very pretty indeed sporting amongst the daffodils. The other is dark brown.

I've had a very busy few days of gardening - lots of nettle digging. Also been sowing lots of my old out-of-date seeds on the principle that it only takes 5 minutes and I might as well give them a go before throwing them away. They are testament to many garden failures and a few successes....

I love broad beans (both to eat and to admire) but they're on my list of failures in the past. Might give them another go next year though. It's tempting to go mad growing veg but I really need to be getting on top of the more urgent bits of the new garden. The builders have been starting to chip the old cement off our stone garden walls, and then they will repoint with lime mortar (the cement was causing the very soft limestone to erode) and then when that's done I can replant the potentially very beautiful borders. There are lots of overgrown perennials in the garden I can split up and shuffle around a bit, eg massive clumps of hemerocallis and sedum, which will be a start.

So sorry to hear about your FIL, funnyperson. One of dh's oldest friends died yesterday .

I've been in and out of the garden today, it's been bright, breezy and fine. Dh and I put together one of the new wooden compost bins we ordered (they're only cheap but will do), and I filled it up with most of the contents of the old one. We'd hoped to get another one up and filled but I narrowly missed spearing a very surprised frog and decided to leave it for now! There'll be 3 when we finally finish (compost bins. Not frogs).

Dh stayed out getting a first coat of green shed paint on our new (only cheap etc etc) shed, while I puttered round doing random things - sowing a few nasturtiums, digging up creeping buttercup, re-planting some tulip bulbs that have gone over.

Trouble is, there are, almost literally, about a thousand things I could be doing. Sigh.

I've just had a very enjoyable potter in the garden. Two mail order deliveries arrived yesterday, one of which I'd completely forgotten about. I have potted up the heuchera plugs but have taken a risk and planted the potentilla plugs straight in the ground, as I think (hope) they'll be big enough to cope. The cercis that I expected to be a little stick is a substantial plant, even allowing for the fact that the courier lobbed it over the fence into the back garden, thereby breaking one of the branches ::exasperated face::

Runner ducks look delightful. Do they have to be brought in at night? ::fearful of foxes::

Ooh I like the sound of runner ducks too: wasn't there a GW feature recently about the holder of one national hosta collection who keeps ducks and was also singing their praises for slug control and not eating plants in the garden? How much land and pond do they need?

Was someone asking up thread about sowing broad beans? Now is the time to sow them- I have had my greatest success with some red-flowered ones, and they are very pretty. I sowed some on Tuesday and the first ones are sprouting.

I love runner ducks. Maybe one day. Countess, may we see a photo of yours?

Halsall I feel your pain re thousand things to do. I got a full day of gardening today and I got through a fraction of the tasks I wanted to. I started strimming the verge along the lane, but the strim line ran out. Then I dug up a load of Spanish bluebells but got distracted investigating the hollow sound under that bed, and discovered concrete only three inches down. I scraped off all the soil, but we are none the wiser about why there is concrete there (with a wall structure going down next to it). Ancient bomb shelter? Possibly, but no way in, and odd that it is right up against the house. Anyway I wasted ages faffing with it.

I wonder what it is Rhubarb?

One thing leads to another in the garden, it is so hard to feel like you have achieved something when there is so much to do. I try hard to feel mindful about what is good as well as what needs doing, as there is always such a massive list of what needs doing!

How mysterious. Even now, I am digging strange lumps of old tile and pottery out of the garden, but I haven't found a subterranean structure.

Halsall - The only way to cope with the million and one things to do in the garden is to pick your task for the day and concentrate solely on that. As a naturally anxious multi-tasker, I find this really difficult! But as Maud says, it's important to be mindful about what is going well in the garden and ignore the rest of the mess.

I am still suffering with post flu fatigue, but DH did a great job of tidying the builder's mess and mowing the lawn - even if he did trample all over my bluebells. I was excited to see my mountain cornflower has returned and seems to have spread quite nicely. Tulips are popping up all over the place. We went to lambing day at a local farm and I picked up 2 big pots of what look like hardy geraniums for £1.50 each. They look like they will divide well, although I've no idea what colour they will be.

I am annoyed that the penstemon cuttings I've been nurturing since last year seem to have fallen prey to a fungal infection (black/brown spots on leaves). I have cut them right back and am hoping they will recover.

How mysterious rhubarb!

My favourite thing to find is bits of clay pipe. I also live v near the site of a battle during the wars of the roses and have daydreams about digging something up from that time. Sadly though the veg patch was used for many years as a kind of hobbyist mechanic's tinkering and drinking area so I have to be v careful about broken glass and other sharp objects (hve got most of them up now but they still materialise from time to time)

I have also spent the day digging up Spanish bluebells. Some of the little bastards are growing up between a wooden and a chain link fence just a couple of inches apart so I have mostly been scrabbling about trying to get as much as I can out from between the wires. I only have one more patch to do, but there are alliums and camassias planted among them there so I want to wait for them to come up a bit more so I can avoid digging up the wrong ones if possible. Their leaves are quite different but I don't entirely trust myself not to get carried away!

I am keeping an eye on something I suspect is a Spanish bluebell, so I can dig it out if necessary. My biggest pest is allium triquetrum, which I made the mistake of buying at a plant sale because (I was told) "it's so pretty". It self-seeds everywhere and, just as I think I've got rid of it all, it pops up somewhere else.

After a very pleasant trip to Winkworth we managed to spend a few hours in the garden too. DH finally managed to cut the grass although the battery ran out on the strimmer before he finished the edges. Looks so much better now.

I spent two more hours stripping brambles out of the wood. Still only just touched the edges but it makes such a huge difference I will keep plugging away at it. I bought new gauntlet gloves for the job but still getting my arms and hands shredded. Also trying not to stomp all over the emerging bluebells...

I have found a nearby water garden centre for pond plant shopping tomorrow. Also planning to get my courgettes, squashes & cucumbers sown.

I understand the problem - my garden is only about 25m^2 so I have to be v careful about what I introduce.

Yes, I made some rookie mistakes when I started. I may have to resort to glyphosate for the celandines - a gift from my mother, who likes them. Thanks, mum.

I think I will take the celandines out of the spring borders then Maud, we don't quite know how they got there but there are only about four at the moment.

I have dug up an awful lot of linaria lately.

They do seem to spread quickly - I have two big tracts of them now. I think I'll nuke them with glyphosate rather than dig them up and risk dropping bulbils all over the place.

Timely warning , I moved a couple of small cumps of celandine from the lawn to under the trees last week to establish them. Think I will take them back out whilst I can. I think my bluebells are English x Spanish hybrids sadly.

It's easy to mistake celandines for winter aconites ( or at least I did as a rookie). I think my bluebells are hybrids too : they droop to one side, at least, but are not very dainty.

Is anyone up for going to the special screening this Friday of A Little Chaos - the Le Nôtre film? (at 18.15, book in advance, Curzon Mayfair, with Alan Rickman answering questions) Details here:

www.curzoncinemas.co.uk/comingsoon/2015/4/17/a-little-chaos-12a-plus-qa-with-alan-rickman

I will if you will!

Update - the tickets for the showing are £23.50 (incl booking fee £1), and about half the seats have gone already. Curzon is usually £15 for a post 17.00 showing. I am planning to go and will be delighted if anyone else wants to join me at this showing. [Nothing with do with AR's voice, oh no]

I will attempt to book now!

Oh boo I can't do Friday, I've got a school fundraiser. Be sure to report back on if it's a good 'un!

It was me (asking about broad beans) Bearleigh thank you, do they need full sun though?

*Countess8 It's soo nice to meet someone with the same wall problems . Here there are sooo many houses and walls made from tuffeau ruined with concrete pointing. Our house has been, mainly, badly rebuilt in the 70s by Fr people; the wife told me how she loved 'crepi' . It has been put over beautiful'dressed stone' in part of the kitchen and it would cost thousands to have removed ( that's without the dust and disruption).

Though our NDN was careful to explain to me how to use lime mortar, so they are aware of the problem now. I bought the ready made 'pate' and whitewashed the utility room with it, it's brilliant because you can plug up holes mixing it with little stones and then thin it a bit for a paint effect and use the dust from the stones too.

Oh I forgot that I heard our cuckoo for the first time this morning, it's usually here at the end of March, while i was planting my new rosemary and lavender plants , the old ones have overgrown and are not healthy.

Ref the hundreds of jobs that need doing :I have to tell myself sternly to finish each job and not start new ones UNTIL I'VE FINISHED THE ONE I STARTED I also time myself to approx one and half hours before breakfast, that's the only time our front garden is out of the sun (I hate the full sun) I' m too pale . It got hot this morning in the shade FGS .

I was weeding by the south wall of the house this morning, in full sun. It was astonishingly hot. I have now decided to plant an Albizia julibrissin there - they love hot dry places. The wall will protect it in winter.

Lovely plant rhubarb obviously I had to google!

I've finally finished cutting the lawn and Perenial weeds for the first time. I've loads of celandine , mainly under the trampoline so I'm ignoring them! Lots of Linaria here too, I've left most of it as I quite like it but to those I've sent seeds be warned

Pleasant afternoon, planting out hardy geraniums, lost the labels so I expect I'll have to move some of them! I've also planted 5 pacific height Delphiniums and some of the sweet peas - hedging my bets it's warm enough. I've kept some back just in case!