"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.

You're all right about the Thousand Things, of course, but I do find it very worrisome!

Chopper, we dig up masses of clay pipe stems too. I've yet to find a complete one but I live in hopes.

Oooh clay pipes Halsall You could see if they'd fit together, they only threw away the broken ones of course! I'm a bit frightened of what I might find actually, hopefully the skeletons of the 'missimg' soldiers in WW2 are way down the caves somewhere never to be found .

I've never been able to get delphiniums to grow. They always get eaten.

Finally got some sowing done today. Mini bell peppers, Alcea ficifolia 'yellow', Aquilegia canadensis and Nicotiana 'Fragrant Cloud'. I set up the propagater by the attic window. Also finally got the cold frame fixed.

ppeat we've got bowlsful of the broken bits

Rhubarb, that sounds great. I'm stuck at work all week, curses, but might try and get some sweet corn, leeks and runner beans started in pots one of these light evenings. Not Thursday though as we're going to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. V excited about that.

Ppeatfruit I think broad beans do like sun, but you won't know how much they need unless you give it a go!

Albizia julibrissin... So that's what it is - gorgeous.

We have found one teeny pipe bowl, no stem. So delicate, with tiny pressed decorations.

Do let us know what the Sam Wanamaker playhouse is like it sounds so good.

Rhubarb I have one delphinium growing in the front garden. I suspect it's a pinky lilac - one of my 72 perennials for £19 offer, I'm quite excited to see a delphinium growing but it's not my favourite colour. Maybe I'm wrong, and its a glorious deep purply blue...

I collected seeds from my delphiniums last year and threw them into a seed tray a few weeks ago. I wasn't hopeful as seed I collect rarely seems to germinate. However, every single blooming seed came up! I've got a huge pricking out / thinning job to do that I keep putting off. I've been pulling some out occasionally but it still looks like a seedling carpet. The same happened with the poppy seeds I collected from someone's garden the roadside.

Didn't get round to sowing stuff today. I did however spend lots of money on pond plants. Which are now languishing in various trays and tubs of water as we are still waiting for the pond liner...

I may have succumbed to the 'I want some of everything' mentality in the pond plant shop. My well thought out list was not referred to. I did get everything on it I think but may have also added lots of plants not on it .

That's a good germination rate Bertha mine were old out of date seeds sown last year, the ones I planted out at the end of the summer I suspect have been slugged as there is no sign of them, but the ones I put out today are quite sizeable plants so I am optimistic.

I LOVE the look of delphiniums but there's so much work involved with them; staking and putting down slug pubs etc. that's if they actually germinate!!

Thanks Bearleigh I'll give them a go they'll need to be tough !

Who was said their lilies , like mine, were lost last year? Mine have popped up full of the joys...etc. !

I had one delphinium in the old house that did very well. None of the others I attempted ever made it - the ones I tried to grow from seed got slugged, the ones I bought and planted got scratched up by the chickens.

This time I'm growing some from seed because I want some for my main border. I won't plant them out till they're fairly chunky and I'm hopeful that the slug problem won't be as bad here. In the old garden I used to see massive slugs all the time - here I've only ever seen little ones, which I think means the ducks get them before they have a chance to get big. Time will tell.

I will take some pics of the ducks later, Rhubarb, and then post them sideways as I haven't worked out how to get them the right way up

I took loads of the garden the other day mainly to get you all to identify my perennials for me but I've figured most of them out. The leopardsbane is flowering

Did you get the Morville Hours Countess? I also have problems posting pix !
Never heard of leopardsbane, I have heard of wolfsbane though

Me neither is it spotty?

I've just ordered the following www.hayloft-plants.co.uk/collection/creative-images-6-young-plants-%28two-of-each-variety%29/prod5381.html and also scabiousa collection. I hopefully won't mind all the watering!

The vibernum Tinnus is finally in flower and smells lovely, we need to chop it right back this year in order to paint the house behind it, a shame because I really like the berries. I've been trying to work out the variety and think its Eve Price, has pink buds which turn white and are ball shaped.

I have got the Morville Hours but haven't started reading it yet! It looks lovely though.

Leopardsbane

I'm surprised it says it prefers acidic soil because I tested mine at the weekend and it is definitely alkaline, but it seems to be happy enough, anyway. Does anyone find soil acidity makes much difference beyond the obvious few which need acidic? (rhodos, azaleas, magnolias etc)

Has anyone here ever grown mignonette? I've tried and failed in the past but really want some for the bed outside the dining room window so I can smell it during summer dinners

leopardsbane sounds very medieval!

i've found that the soil acidity/alkalinity doesn't make so much difference if the other conditions are favourable iyswim - so it's otherwise in the right spot with the right amount of light/drainage/aspect/nutrition etc. but i'm not very experienced so it may be that perennials are less long-lived perhaps as a result?

Re ducks, I'm gutted that we seem to have lost the pair of wild ducks that have returned to our garden every year for the past 5 or 6 years, sometimes raising a brood, sometimes not, but always coming to us for food at some point during the day.

They came flying in one late afternoon about a month ago, immediately waddled towards us quacking hopefully, ate some food and took off. We expected that to be the start of this year's duck-based enjoyment but they haven't been back since

Oh no Halsall, I hope they're okay.
Here are mine (sideways).

Or not sideways after all!

Ducky!

Awwww, lovely, Countess.

Mine are just mallards but we really look forward to them appearing each year, so their absence is a worry

Lovely ducks!

I've just received a voucher from Hayloft which I think is a result of Geoff buying something on my recommendation, so I take back my complaint last year that the promised voucher never materialised.

Since the last one came out the right way up...
This is one of the stone walls we're having fixed, with the border I need to redo. It's visible from the big window so it needs to look good. It all has great potential I feel... I just need to put on my magic clogs and raise my horticultural game from Killing Most Stuff.

Ooh, that's lovely. Full of gorgeous potential and the brick path is a delight. How old is the house?

Early to mid-Georgian.

Lovely lovely wall, path and house!

Agree with humphrey! Which way does the wall face?