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.

My great triumph this morning was buying a big canna Stuttgart. My great disaster this morning was snapping off the main stem as I put it in the car!

Best flowering things in my garden right now are roses (esp the unstoppable Darcey Bussell), gaura lindheimii, lychnis coronaria, jasmine, clematis Jackmanii and purpurea plena elegans, astrantia, violas, osteospermum Tresco Purple, fuchsias, cosmos, verbena bonariensis and pelargoniums.

What's flowering now? Crocosmia Lucifer best it's ever been - which is what won me my prize for the perennial vase I reckon. Geraniums Johnson's Blue and Psilostemon. Alchemilla mollis. Sisirhynchium striatum and its little blue relative whose name I've forgotten. Lavatera. Hydrangeas are starting. Fuchsia. Erigeron karvinskianus. Oh and the Echium pininana is still going.

Ah yes, that little blue sisyrinchium. Another thing that's sunk without trace into the London clay here.

I forgot to mention crocosmia Lucifer, too. Mine seems to have migrated around the bed, but is looking lovely and zingy.

Another grapevine question ...

I've read that one shouldn't prune them at the wrong time of year, as they can bleed to death, but mine is producing lots of whippy growth that is flailing around in the breeze and generally getting in the way. Can I safely cut it off (which would also have the benefit of letting more light on the grapes)?

Poor baby rhubarb - but hopefully growing more things to eat will whet her gardening appetite. Baby bearleigh doesn't help in the garden at the moment but still takes an interest in the food I grow, so I hope that once he's through the Difficult Teenage Years, he'll come back to it.

In my garden what's going well are the day lilies and the mallows, and some of the anemones are starting to flower too. I have some beautiful day lilies - elegant, subtle colours and then one really garish one popped out - an over- bright orange. With frills. I have no idea where it came from.

There is also a huge clump of pale pink mallow. It's a cloud of delicate shell pink, and beautiful. It looks like the pictures of malva moschata rosea, but much bigger - it's about 5' tall, and 3' across, while the descriptions say that malva moschata rosea is 3' tall at most, usually smaller. It seeded itself I think, and I tried to get seed last year but the birds got there first, so I only got a little. I may have a seedling - not sure till it flowers.

That all sounds delightful, Bearleigh. My lilies have been quite disappointing. The regale album were in too shady a spot and here rather bendy and then keeled over, under the weight of the flowers (despite being staked) and the martagon and some of the speciosum were trashed by the slugs and snails. My best have been some Asiatic/Orientals that a friend gave me.

Rhubarb - DH never grows from seed on the allotment now and I have a stockpile of seeds I was going to chuck out. Some may be a bit elderly and not germinate so well, but would it cheer MissRhubarb up if a mad nice lady off the internet sent her some seeds to grow more beans and other goodies next year?

Grapevine - yes! Prune everything above the grapes themselves, back to the bud that the grapes are on. The time not to prune it is during the late winter and early spring. I spend half my summer pruning back our grapes to let the plant focus on growing fruit.

Oh no Maud - that must have been enormously frustrating!

What's flowering in my garden right now:
Lavender (lots of it!)
Valerian (but starting to go to seed)
Lavatera just coming out
Lilies - I seem to have 1
Roses - still a few flowers, and some buds to come

Feeling glad I planted up the pots a few weeks ago with some trusty favourites - begonias, petunias etc I am enjoying them enormously, and won't mind if they die whilst we're away in the first two weeks of August.

Rosa 'Evil Bastard' is still going strong, and sapping my will to get rid of it again! The trouble is its so thorny that not only does it lacerate your hands, it catches in your hair, claws at your face etc. I think I could give the pruning a go though, if I start at the top and take things out in sections...

Good news - I have a Japanese Wineberry that I uprooted to move to the community garden that is going in after a group has paved a new access ramp - so it has been in a tray of water since May, in the polytunnel and today it has fruited! A month before the outdoors ones will fruit.

I have left it as my business partner has never tasted them...in another tray next to this one are about 100 seedlings so I am hoping that she is ok with me growing them on and having a wineberry bed on a spare space next to the new shed...I have about 20 ft to play with, so plenty of space. Yay.

Oh how frustrating re the canna maud

Congrats on the wins rhubarb we're 2 weeks away from dd1s mygrowing school fete competition. The sunflowers are out now so will probably be over when needed, no sign of any runner beans. Sweet peas are glorious so hopefully I can keep them going. Might be able to produce a cape gooseberry for the 'other' fruit category.

Flowering in my garden I have in pots spectacular too miracle gro magenta petunias , Calla lillies that were creamy yellow initially and have now turned orangey yellow. In the hot bed I have Dahlias, Zinias, yellow loosestrife. On the pergola I have almost over pink rambler rose, just beginning to flower are 2 types of Passion flower. The back border has lupins, Verbena Bonariensis, vanilla sands nemesia, ballerina rose, knautia, lavender, hydrangea Annabelle and a red rose.

Cosmos are getting big and bushy but no flowers yet.

Japanese wineberry sounds interesting doreen

Thank you so much for the grapevine advice, Doreen. I have had a few tentative snips but will now go at it with gusto! How (if at all) do you train your wineberry? I had visions of looping mine along the fence, but because the thorns are like barbed wire I wimped out - a la Bearleigh and rose "Evil Bastard" - and now it's running amok at the top of the apple tree.

Geoff - Mine occasionally produces seedlings and I'd gladly send you one.

I have just bought two very nice begonias from the shelf of doom, as I think I can squeeze one more window box onto my shady kitchen windowsill.

Ooh thank-you maud I'd love one!

Okey dokey. Remind me in the autumn that I need to poke around in the undergrowth, looking for babies. In the past, I've ripped them up, wrongly thinking they were brambles. Duh.

OOps.

I grow mine by cutting back the fruited stems each year, and tying in the new ones to three horizontal wires and keep winding them around the wire whenever they get longer. Currently they are about 10 ft long and three stems to each plant. I cut off the weakest if 4 grow.

I am designing a session planner to run training courses in growing fruit - so I must must must put wineberries in! I've sort of reminded myself of that posting here!

I have just planted out a new baby, which I am going to grow the Sissinghurst Rose way. Just because I can.

I think I need to persuade DH to take the Japanese wineberry to the allotment, but I doubt he'll be keen. He seems very prejudiced against growing berries, even though we eat tons of them.

I've just had a happy couple of hours pottering in the garden. I've emptied some pots of tulips, planted up the last hanging basket with some homeless violas and hacked back the grapevine (thank you for steeling my nerve, Doreen).

My garden is in a shocking state. It needs cutting back and weeding. It is now in the kind of state where it gives no pleasure as the eye just moves from one mess to the next I will try and have a go at the cottage borders on thursday. A couple of hours will make me feel better about it. I watered the borders today as it has been so dry that things have got mildew.

Still, the raspberries are going strong. There are so many we have been inviting people round to pick their own. I can fill two ice cream tubs a day at the moment, don't know how long that will last though!

How fabulous to have so many raspberries, Humphrey. As I mentioned earlier, we eat them by the bucketload.

I'm sure your garden doesn't look half as bad as you think. It's as we were saying a little while ago here, in one's own garden, one notices the defects and areas that need tidying and so on, but visitors just notice the general effect and all round loveliness. I'd come and join you for some pottering and weeding, if we lived nearer!

That would be so nice. I wish I did live nearer you all! I get v envious when I hear of London meet ups. Still, next year may be the year we have a mass get together at Hampton Court.

But if you lived nearer, you wouldn't have such a vast garden with beautiful rural views behind it! I enjoy living in London - it has much to commend it - but rolling acres and lush vistas it is not.

Let's all aim to meet at the Hampton Court preview next year. We have 12 months to save pennies in a jam jar.

I just love coming to London, I don't get to do it much any more. I think we should seriously plan to meet up, wouldn't it be amazing?!

Yes, I'm hoping everyone who's interested will put it in their diary and then, channelling Jean Luc Picard, we can make it so.

I, conversely, probably do not leave London often enough.

That would be amazing I'm in!

I don't leave the Isle Of Wight apart for work either. I don't like leaving my plants for too long

I've got another flower to add to the list -bind weed -beautiful big white flowers in all my hedges, quite high so I only just noticed. Despite being on screen test in my yooth Dh says I am the most Unobservant person he knows!

I came last btw.