"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.

Ooh looking forward to that humph

I was rhapsodising about Malvern to a friend last night, as it's a much better experience than Chelsea, in my experience (which is admittedly limited, as I've been once to each). I am agog for news, Humph.

I have a lovely relative who is a potter who exhibits/sells at Malvern every year

Definitely looking forward to hearing that Humph, need something soothing to distract from Election, GCSE's and SATs.

I'm looking forward to a week of Chelsea coverage soon

I mowed the paths through the orchard today. They are starting to look really nice, as the grass has put on a spurt after all the heavy rain so it is getting quite long between the paths. I have a nice patch of Solomon's Seal going on in the corner too.

The Wisteria is in bloom now and looking remarkably good, considering the butchering it got last summer when the wall was re-pointed. Wisteria does love a bit of brutality.

I can't believe we are on page 39 and poetry discussions already. I have no poetry to add, being something of a cultural philistine. I do enjoy reading the verses you lot put on here though. The darling buds of May does seem particularly apt.

I'm off to Montpelier this weekend so may not post much if at all. Our other GD lives there ATM (they've moved 8 times in her 9 years so I don't reckon they'll be there long) but it'll be interesting going South and looking at the gardens and wildlife on my train journey there and back.

Geoff Do you know for the first time since we've lived here there are sparrows feeding in the garden, I'm very happy they're making a comeback; it must be the lack of spraying the verges.

Who would have thought we'd be saying that 30 years ago? (I'm past middle age btw!)

Maud - this is for you. Would you like to come and weed my lawn? I like to congratulate myself on how bee friendly it is

Hello everyone. I saw Monty filming everywhere, also Joe Swift. It was really funny seeing how many people need to be there to do a one person to camera shot.

My favourite bit, as always, was the area with the school gardens. They were amazing, I will try and put some photos on the facebook page but DH will have to email them to me first. I LOVED talking to the children about their gardens, they were so enthusiastic and had taken an active part in every stage of the process. The best one was the Plantum Physic garden, with a pebble path made up of a pebble self portrait of every child in the school and Isaac Newton's fallen apple.

The show gardens were all very pretty. There were lots of tangerine geums mixed with purple foliage. There were not so many large gardens this year I think. I like the bee garden the best, hexagonal box hedging with bee friendly flowers. It really looked as if it would continue to grow well, unlike some of the more 'stagey' gardens.

We bought strawberry mint, berries and cream mint, two large silver ferns to go in the two massive cast iron buckets I got for my birthday, three small silver ferns for the cast iron trough and another large cast iron round bath thingy that nearly crippled me when I carried it out.

We got very carried away by the olive tree stand and had some serious discussions about buying a large tree at nearly four hundred quid. Fortunately dh sanity prevailed. I am of the opinion that who needs a new car when you can have an olive tree? But DH also pointed out that we don't have anywhere to put one either.

That all sounds a delight, Humph. I love the sound of tangerine geums with purple foliage; that's just the sort of combo I aim for. You do so well at finding interesting upcycled containers. I must look around.

Could you compromise with DH by buying a smaller olive tree and being patient?

How lovely, Humph. Trees beat cars any day, obvs. I'm really looking forward to Chelsea.

A large olive tree costs more than that here, you should've bought it Humph They're odd though, I know there are large ones growing in the front garden of a house nearby, (Maud you might know them) but my 2 smaller (under medium sized) ones in pots succumbed to the heavy frost 3 or was it 4 years ago ?Here. It was my fault, I hadn't coddled the pots.

humphrey great description. The children sound great!
I bought an olive tree for £2.50 at a local fair 3 years ago. It is in a pot. it has olives. £400 is a lot of money and trees do grow if you buy them small. A neighbour has 4 olive trees in their front 'mediterranean' designer garden but no olives grow on them, oddly, as it is south facing. You don't need that much room for an olive tree but they do need sun. They might grow faster in the ground rather than in a pot though the neighbour's trees seem very slow growing and mine in a pot is very slow growing,

bertha how are you proposing to tackle that lawn? Mums grass verges outside her house look like that.

Oooh I have just bought a couple of purple leaved heucheras thanks to the recs above, I may have to get some tangerine geums to set them off

I had an unexpected morning off work yesterday (in between dentist's appointments eurgghhh) so had a wander round the local indy garden centre, came home with some half price summer bulbs and some perennials to do my shady border once it's ready. So 50 for the dentist and 30 at the garden centre led to a far more expensive day than I was expecting.

Not bothered that I can't spare 400 for an olive tree as I think olives are the the food of satan, I'd love a magnolia though

olive tree standards £14.99 at Aldi this week...

Funny - there is no proposal to tackle the lawn at all. It is due a mow though which tidies it up for a while. I occasionally remove thistles as they are not kind to small (or big) bare feet, but everything else stays. Dandelions, daisies, forget me nots, clover, other stuff and moss all exist quite happily in our lawn. There is way too much to do anything else with it and, it is alive with bees & butterflies is the summer so I just enjoy the buzz and the splashes of colour and try not to stare wistfully at next door's stripey carpet of green

Olive trees grow very slowly though, maybe that's how Geordieland reckons it can get away with charging nearly a 1000 euros. The supermarkets' ones cost less though 'tis true. I don't like olives (the trees are very attractive ) but I live on olive oil.

Good for you Blackpudding I've learnt to love my weeds too, if you mow approx. once a week they disappear anyway. I leave 'stands' of nettles etc. in odd corners. I actually planted a horseradish today in a corner of the chicken garden because they spread a lot apparently. dh and I love horseradish .

I don't weed my lawn either I just mow it and I mow around the forgtmenots and daisies.

Some of those specimen trees at shows are old and beautiful I suppose that's why they cost so much and I can exactly see the temptation. One wouldn't have to wait many years for the tree to grow, one would know that it was of a lovely shape and it would be instant structure for the garden.

There is a nursery near me that sells architectural trees such as ready pleached beeches and so forth. It supplies shows.

The whole notion of raising beautiful plants to show at a show garden and then be sold off at a price to a show goer one of the stranger but key aspects of garden shows, though I cannot see how else to dispose of the plants and I admit to finding the sell-off lovely plants very attractive

What I find very strange are the firms that exist only for the shows: Jaques Amand is one such. They used to have a brilliant selection of bulbs in their nursery nearby but now have very little indeed though you wuldnt think it from their website and show stands. But in fact they just raise plants for the shows.

trees were like this really big!

It was a moment of madness. They are fabulous though.

sorry that link just takes you to a lot of photos
suffice to say it was ancient

The link took me to a really big tree in a pot- beautiful. I'd be worried after forking out £400 I'd kill it.

I do have an olive tree in a pot, it's tiny though and has never produced olives I should probably repot it into soil rather than compost.

Dh is going to buy a scarifier I think he's wanting to take the grass seriously. I currently like bertha just regularly mow and decapitate the dandelions.

The lawn gets mowed about every 3-4 weeks. It should be mowed every two weeks but it takes ages even with the ride-on. It is on this weekend's job list though.

I too would worry about killing a £400 tree. We've killed two £200 magnolias. We're quite cautious now.

I killed a succession of birches. Then I accepted that they didn't want to live in that particular garden and gave up.

Today I made a flying visit to Waterperry Gardens in Oxfordshire, as I have been asked to renovate a rockery, and Waterperry holds a couple of national collections of alpines.

It was worth the slightly crazy long journey; I spent about an hour chatting to a very knowledgeable chap who looks after the collections. He was initially rather rude, but I was very glad I bit my tongue as he was very useful to talk to - once he'd berated me for walking in the exit instead of the entrance and snapping that I 'needed to go to specsavers'

They have some very interesting stuff there. I have a long list of plants to read up on. No photos sadly as my phone is full.

It is easy to kill off plants, like the 3 bare root roses I had from David Austin showing no signs of life, or the magnolia from Burncoose which shows no leaves or buds either. The former possibly were not planted soon enough and the latter probably didnt get enough water over the winter.

That ancient olive tree would make me think of Greek Goddesses and nymphs and dryads and so forth every time I looked at it. It is a nice picture perhaps I'll keep my olive tree in a pot for a decade or two!.