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.

[MyNightWithMaud]

Welcome, Karbea! To quote High School Musical, we're all in this together, so always happy to chat plants and gardening!

Something like a buxus spiral could make a great centrepiece for a planter with verbena or other seasonal bedding around it.

[Karbea]

That sounds really nice. The planter is just under a metre tall and the diameter of the pot bit is approx 43cm. How tall do you think the buxus should be and how many verbena?
I really am a novice at this...
I will drive you all mad...
Do I need to get food to put in? Or just plonk them in I plonked the others in...

[Karbea]

I have a couple of other questions. Last year I got an olive and a fig tree. But they've been in water pots (thanks to the gardener ever since) I'd really like to plant them but don't really know where they should go. I'm really nervous to commit anything to the soil as I'm worried it'll be the wrong place and muck up anything else i do.

[Karbea]

The homeless two.

[SugarPlumTree]

You won't drive us mad ! Think you'd have to see what you can get hold of with the box. I don't really do pots so not best to answer this but you can get slow release fertiliser that gradually releases nutrients over the season. Maybe 4 verbena? Maud will know.

With the fig and olive, personally I would hold off for now until you have decided a bit more about hat you would like to do. The olive will need a sunny spot and all I know about figs is they ar often grown against a wall, like their roots continued (so plant in a container) and like sun.

Have a look on Pinterest for ideas - search for cottage garden, vegetable garden , kitchen garden and potager. Immerse yourself in Chelsea next week and see what you are drawn to. Then have a few sessions of glass of wine on terrace am stare at it. Do you have friends or neighbours who like gardening? Sure they would be happy to give you some plants to use.

That it where the olive tree is by the gate lends itself to some shade plants - ferns, hosta, dicentra, geranium phaeum, acanthus mollis spring to mind.

[ppeatfruit]

Oh a nice clean page to start from Karbea welcome btw. There's lots of programmes on telly atm to help as well.

I've just potted up new pelargoniums for our terrace, and i've got a tip if anyone's interested, you'll hear that it's correct to put in new potting compost when you change the plants but I was thinking while changing my plants that I don't EVER do it and I've had successful pots for years and years. I DO feed them well though. The earth in them smelt clean and was clean.

Oh gosh bouncy castles in the garden takes me straight back to dd2's June birthday and us entertaining all the neighbours' children as well as her friends, it was fun usually!!

[HumphreyCobbler]

Another good thing to do is visit all the local NGS gardens to get inspiration.

Don't worry too much about putting stuff in the wrong place as you can always move it. I mean, it is good to think things through so you don't have to move stuff, but it isn't always possible. Things evolve. We have moved loads of stuff after planting sometimes three or four times

[ppeatfruit]

Humph Yes I know what you mean, I'm going to have to move my holly bushes which I was going to make into my new hedge but they ain't happy, I think they need LESS sun.

[MyNightWithMaud]

Can't add much else to the excellent suggestions already made to Karbea, except to say that, after Chelsea, the next thing on the horizon is school and church fete season and they can be excellent sources of cheap plants that like local conditions. Local gardening and allotment societies often have sales, too, and topical talks.

For the planter, I generally go with the maxim of planting in odd numbers, so I'd use five verbenas if the pot was big enough. That said, I plant in even numbers if that's what I've got.

[HapShawl]

rah poor rosemary has got rosemary leaf beetle

have picked them off and killed them but it is quite a small specimen in a pot by the back door and it doesn't look happy at all

[HapShawl]

hello karbea! you have a lovely patch with lots of potential. everyone here is so helpful and you will get tons of good advice

[Blackpuddingbertha]

Hi Karbea. No advice to add as I don't really know much useful lots of advice for you to start with already. I like the shape of your garden, will be lovely.

Planted out pretty much everything that was big enough to go out yesterday (more beans, oca, nasturtiums). Need to pot on the delphiniums but I've run out compost so they'll have to make do for a while. I also pulled up the spent tulips from the pew planters and have replaced them with a thrown together mix of stuff that was reasonably priced at the garden centre & some spare nasturtiums. Hopefully they'll work ok. Finally, I constructed the edible wigwam; looks sturdier than last year's igloo and I remembered to leave a door this year!

[Halsall]

It's been lovely weather round our way. Dh got out and mowed the lawn - it's almost the only garden job he does, though I must add that he's been gradually tipping soil into the hole left by a previous occupant's garden pond, which we finally decided to remove. Unfortunately DH is very painstaking so this task has taken him hours and hours and hours, while I've done about 200 garden jobs. He doesn't really get this, or chooses not to .

However, he did hoist all the tomato growbags that we bought yesterday into/out of the car, then into the greenhouse - I can't lift heavy things at the moment - so I'll be set for planting out fairly soon.

I've now got to the point where I'm putting all my various trays of veg and plant seedlings out in the morning and taking them in at night, plus they occupy the whole of our (large) garden-room table as well as the greenhouse staging. I'm fed up with all this already, so I think I'm going to invest in one of those little plastic greenhouses to act as a quasi-cold frame, and the trays can live there for the next couple of weeks prior to planting out. Very pleased with myself for thinking up this laughably obvious solution to the problem!

[Blackpuddingbertha]

That's what I use my plastic greenhouse for Halsall. Start them in the conservatory, then move them to plastic greenhouse, then plant them out when I get fed up of them. No proper 'hardening off' here, I struggle to get the DDs to bed let alone worrying about seedlings every night!

I had a flash of guilt about the delphiniums earlier so I managed to scrape together enough compost for 40(!!!) pots. What am I going to do with 40 delphiniums exactly? Plus the ones that have self-seeded as well. Oh well, most will be slug food anyway.

My DH only mows the grass too. Plus heavy work under direction from me. He's quite handy to have around though, and sometimes I can get him to water stuff.

[Karbea]

Clearly I've not grown any veggies from seeds, nor do I have a greenhouse, but I'd like to grow something edible this summer. Will you be able to tell me what and when?

[Blackpuddingbertha]

What do you like eating? You could still start off some beans from seed and salad leaves can be sown pretty much anytime, or, there are loads of veg plug plants in the garden centres at the moment. You could start with some pots of stuff and go from there. I grow beans, courgettes, squashes & some salad bits in large pots. Then, if you enjoy growing veg you could dedicate a section of the garden to it, or grow veg in amongst the borders.

[Karbea]

Do the seeds or plug plants go out into the garden now or later in the summer? I guess they need full sun?

[SugarPlumTree]

We're not too far off beans, courgettes and squashes going out. Salad leaves can be sown direct now. Marketmore is an outdoor cucumber which could go in a like the courgettes, just a bit longer to wait advisable.

There are some varieties that can look very pretty - purple and yellow beans, rainbow chard, purple mange tout.

I have been distracting myself from the coming week and cut first jug of flowers of the year. Can't bring it in the house as we all have hayfever.

[SugarPlumTree]

Lettuce will take some shade, they have poor germination rates in the heart. Others do like the sun.

[Blackpuddingbertha]

My bean plants are just planted out, or you can direct sow beans now. Courgettes, squashes, cucumbers need to wait a little bit or have protection on cold nights.

Pretty SPT, shame you can't bring them in. What are the pink flowers top right in the picture?

[SugarPlumTree]

I'm rubbish with beans, have do do several sowinks to get them to germinate.

They are from a heuchera Bertha.

[SugarPlumTree]

Sowings that is.

[funnyperson]

welcome newbies!
I have been weeding watering and mowing in the garden. There are loads of plants to go in but the plants in the beds have been growing so fast there seems little space left. Some plants will have to be moved. Others will have to be cut back. Mme Carriere is overgrown and will need serious pruning after flowering. The climbers are all out of control.
We went to Cliveden. The Buckinghamshire countryside is full of fresh green and cow parsley and the Lime and Beech trees smell lovely and the horse chestnut trees are in flower.
The bluebells at Cliveden are over already, but the formal parterre was wonderful and recognising the locations from 'A Little Chaos' was fun.
The pruning and training is very expert there: for example the Jasmine is trained up symmetrical vertical wires very close together.
There were also some interesting nice plant combinations in the herbaceous borders for example a block purple of astrantia with a block of deep purple geraneum phaeum and astilbe also planted in blocks.

[Blackpuddingbertha]

My heucheras are way off flowering. Very pretty in an arrangement, never thought of using them before. I always have to do several sowings of French beans & sow a few under cover as well to plug gaps. Runners always do well though.

I like the word sowinks

Sounds like a nice day Funny. We went for a bike ride along a canal path today. The cow parsley was amazing, it was very pretty.

[Halsall]

Karbea welcome to the thread! You could get going with radishes, which are a great quick crop - ditto salad leaves, as Sugar says. It's amazing how quickly they come up.

You can do those in pots/containers to get your hand in, and they should be fine. Once you grow a few things you'll quickly get the bug