Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May: Alternative potting shed thread

[funnyperson]

On the grounds that potting sheds should admit those of all cultures here is an alternative potting shed thread. Probably makeshift and not as posh as the other one. Definitely subversive and open to gardeners of all capabilities.

[HapShawl]

I struggle to love orange too - I can see how striking and exciting it can look in the right place and combination, but I find it rather a tiring colour after a time

[funnyperson]

Orange ballerina tulips are nice in spring. I saw a delicate orange and green planting at Chelsea last year which changed my attitude to orange. it was a work of genius. Very delicate and not 'in your face'. And just today in a neighbour's garden I have seen a bright orange azalea next to a cerise pink azalea. Wonderful like a young song. It is making me think about the early summer planting under the oak, which is visible from the upper windows, so dark and receding colours don't really work from that distance.
I don't really like the sunset garden at Sissinghurst as much as I like the white garden there which is a work of art. Orange and grasses or orange and purples seem more attractive. rhubarb did an orange planting scheme, I wonder how it is looking this May.

[funnyperson]

Joe Swifts garden design programme is on at 8pm. Should be interesting.

[MyNightWithMaud]

Ooh, I'll have to catch Joe Swift's programme later.

My love of (small amounts of) orange is about to be put to the test, as I have always removed the orange Welsh poppies that blow in from next door, as I regard my own lemon yellow ones as superior. But an orange one has just opened and is looking rather lovely, so should I let it stay?

[HumphreyCobbler]

yes, do let it stay! I have got slightly obsessed with getting some orange into the garden. The geums in the pigscot borders are really in the wrong place as they are too tall for the border space but there is nowhere else to put them where the colour scheme will work. They would be ok in the cottage borders at the moment with all the purple and blue but wouldn't look good with all the deep pink and red that comes later.

I am enjoying the design programme, even though I get very stressed during programmes like this.

[MyNightWithMaud]

I was really addressing the question to myself, but thank you for that vote. I think I'll risk moving it (as it's in the nominally black and white border, so is a jarring note there). I might put it in the front garden, which is predominantly red and purple but already has a rogue orange note from a blown-in calendula.

Why are you stressed? Is it Joe or his designs that irk you?

[HumphreyCobbler]

I get stressed for people in public competitions. I feel traumatised when they do badly

[MyNightWithMaud]

Ah, I hadn't realised this was the competition programme. DD is choosing the telly tonight and so we have had the Bake Off and now Sherlock.

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Yes, I watched it rather thinking that I'd have to turn over if Joe Swift got too patronising and irksome, but actually I quite enjoyed it, as did DH which was even more surprising. I want to know what nursery they were at to do the plant shopping. Looked nice there!

No orange in the long bed, or yellow. Never been a fan, other than the daffodil patch. Did allow it for the first time in the cutting patch last year though and there is now some yellow & orange planting around the pond. At least there will be if the plants ever grow...

[funnyperson]

I don't like the way they make the competitors work really hard in a very short space of time: I suppose it is to cut down costs of filming but it seems a bit cruel and rather sad to have people exhausted and in tears doing something they should be enjoying: also the short time frame doesn't give a good role model for potential employers who are left with unrealistic expectations. Joe Swift came across well though.

It was very interesting to see the difference between a messy cottage garden and one with 'theatre' and horticultural nous.

I went and watered my little garden. Little theatre and not much nous though it does have vertical interest. I appear to have gone overboard with geranium phaeums last year: there are 5 different varieties flowering in the beds.

[Bearleigh]

Ooh I like orange especially nasturtiums, Prinses Irene tulips, and Thithonia. I don't like pale oranges though: they have to be rich and deep. Last year Prinses Irene and deep shocking pink wallflowers looked lovely, but these year there's only one orange tulip. I used to hate yellow flowers but now realise it's acidic yellow I don't like, and yellow on its own. Yellow and lots of leaf, especially a buttery yellow, I now love.

[MyNightWithMaud]

I don't have much yellow - phlomis Russelliana (which is a bit of a thug), phygelius and clematis Wada's Primrose (which should be in flower tomorrow and is more cream than yellow). Every so often, I toy with the idea of getting rid of them, so that everything's on the white - pink - purple spectrum, but wonder whether that might be dull.

[Rhubarbgarden]

I typed a long post last night but it failed to stick. I was rambling about the challenge of being a control freak and doing gardening with small children, having spent an hour or so potting on seedlings with the dc.

I finished digging out the Spanish bluebells in the flowerbed along the side of the house in the orchard today. Finally.

I love colour schemes with orange in. I haven't been over to see the hot colours garden lately - I really must do so.

Anyone else receiving a battering from May bugs at the moment? They keep clattering against the French windows and one fell down the chimney a few minutes ago. Last night when I went out to call the cats in I got bombarded by them, as they tried to fly into the house for the hall lights. I now need to go and do the same tonight; I need a tin hat. The cats of course are having a field day swatting them out of the air.

[HumphreyCobbler]

No may bugs here yet, but we normally get loads.

I dug up all of the yellow iris from the cottage borders, it looked so wrong. The buttercups in the orchard are my favourite but the geese ate all the flowers last year

[HapShawl]

I do realise having said that about orange that actually I do like the Welsh poppies that I let flower in a little spot where they peep around some pots, and I have a nasturtium hanging basket this year. So I am talkin nonsense really

[Bearleigh]

The wonderful lady who helps in the garden, and seems to do in 2 hours what I fail to do in a weekend, has cleared a large bed under an apple tree. I plan to add lots of organic matter & can move some plants from elsewhere, but I'd love some ideas for dry shade plants. Have added the following to a wheelbarrow in Crocus:

Geranium Phaeum album
Dryopteris
Brunnera Jack Frost
Epimedium
Bergenia Bressingham White

These seem like the typical dry shade plants and seem to flower if at all in spring - is there anything else that anyone can recommend, especially for interest later in the year?

[Halsall]

Apart from a few tulips, I've got very little orange in the garden; in fact it's mostly blue and yellow - and of course green - so the geum and heleniums (which are also orange, nice plant-stall lady told me) should work.

I had to pass on a tempting-looking geranium because it was pink. I realise that I barely have any pink plants/flowers at all because I just hate the colour. I wish I could get over this, but I can't. I've always loathed pink.

Bertha, I like the sound of your gardening lady

[MyNightWithMaud]

How about foxglove or lily of the valley for dry shade, Bearleigh?

[HapShawl]

does this look like a rock rose to you knowledgeable folk?

[Halsall]

Bertha? Bearleigh, sorry

[funnyperson]

Dry shade:
How about astrantia 'shaggy'
digitalis alba
acanthus rue ledan
ferns

thoughts:
-apple trees have lovely delicate pink blossom in spring and red fruit in autumn so do you want to pick up those colours? or contrast them?
-apple trees dont go into leaf till late April so you can plant any number of early spring flowering bulbs like snowdrops and spring and autumn flowering crocuses
-you probably want plants with shallow roots so they don't compete with the apple tree
-summer flowering clematis can be nice growing up apple trees like purple etoile violette or bright red 'rebecca' or white 'countess of wessex'. Montana are too vigorous for a fruit tree.
-you want to be able to pick the apples

[MyNightWithMaud]

HapShawl - it does to me!

[HapShawl]

thanks maud. there's lots of it in a massive bed in the public park across the road. i might try and see if i can do some cuttings

[Rhubarbgarden]

Having got rid of all the Spanish bluebells from the flowerbed in the orchard at last, I was finally able to move the soil back that the builders heaped up on the gravel last summer when they dug up the fig tree roots and did the re-pointing. That corner has been a complete mess for a year. I re-set all the edging bricks too, and raked everything level, so it was enormously satisfying to get things back to how they should be.

Then dug up some sisyrinchium from elsewhere in the garden, divided it and planted it in the reclaimed flowerbed, together with the Dierama collection that I accidentally ordered from Hayloft. I've also got some Stachys that can be divided and put in there. Then I must mulch it immediately because I didn't mulch the other end when I replanted that weeks ago and it is already an explosion of weeds.

[Rhubarbgarden]

Hapshawl - rock rose yes.