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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

It will not always be summer; build barns. The potting shed goes on...

750 replies

echt · 17/07/2015 09:49

Please ignore my first, illiterate thread. I'll try again.

I hope this quotation from Hesiod captures the moment of movement from high summer to the splendours of harvest and the planing for the new year.

:o

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26
MyNightWithMaud · 12/10/2015 21:52

Crikey. Poor man. And poor you. Have you got some help on the domestic front?

Blackpuddingbertha · 12/10/2015 22:02

Just friends & family, who have been amazing and my children incredibly patient. Been a logistical nightmare! Although he's not going to be much help at home at least I don't have to do the horrendous trip up to Tooting several times a week. And I can leave him at home vaguely in charge of children & dog.

MyNightWithMaud · 12/10/2015 22:12

Well, fingers crossed for the speediest possible recovery.

Flowers Flowers Flowers

AncestralRhubarb · 12/10/2015 23:01

Hi Bertha, good to see you. Sorry to hear things are still tough. Flowers

Gunnera: cover the crown with upturned Gunnera leaves, hacked off before the frost. Or mulch with straw of fleece. But upturned leaves are the traditional protection.

AncestralRhubarb · 12/10/2015 23:02

Straw or fleece. Not of.

funnyperson · 13/10/2015 02:35

blackpuddin your poor Dh I bet he'll be very glad to be out of hospital and at home but it must be very worrying for him and you all. Still at least its all in the right direction and he's on the mend. Make sure your GP refers him for local physio as its scary how weak muscles get when lying in a hospital bed.

I want Gunnera but my garden is too small. At Wisley the Gunnera are covered with upturned leaves, they look very impressive! I will go for a Crambe cordiflora instead, maybe plant it out front to make a frothy statement as the plant I planted out back 2 years ago died: it was probably too shady there.

I left my Sarah Raven Dahlias in the bed last winter and they didn't come up again this year even though it was mild and sheltered, so I suspect lifting them is a good idea. I noticed Monty had lots of the same variety in his garden, he must have propagated them from the same plant. I wonder if he lifts all those, because that would be a big task.

Callmegeoff · 13/10/2015 14:42

Sorry to hear that your Dh has been in hospital bertha I must have missed that. Flowers

I didn't know that about Gunnera, will do mine thanks.

Is it worth buying a long handled bulb planter? And any recommendations ? I think it might be easier than kneeling.

SugarPlumTree · 13/10/2015 16:59

FlowersFlowersFlowers for you all Bertha, what a difficult time.

I guess the dahlias had definitely better come up then . I think the one in the picture is Sam Hopkins, but am not totally sure .

SeaRabbit · 13/10/2015 18:22

Hi Bertha good to hear from you again, and that you will finally be able to stop schlepping to Tooting. I hope the recovery goes well.

I'm glad to hear the dahlia's flowering - what colour is it? I have a shocking pink, a lovely clear yellow and a white from that batch that I know of. The Bishops Children haven't flowered yet so I don't know what colours I've got from that batch. In any case the flowers from previous sowings of BC aren't perfectly symmetrical so they're a bit of a disappointment!

Blackpuddingbertha · 13/10/2015 21:14

It's a yellow SeaRabbit which breaks the colour scheme rules but it makes me smile every time I drive in so I'm happy.

Thank you for the Flowers everyone. He is now home and I am really hoping that's the last trip to Tooting that I do for a while. The dog is sitting on him to prevent him moving!

I will add gunnera covering to my list of things to do and try and remember to do it soon before we get a frost. Thank you Rhubarb.

funnyperson · 16/10/2015 20:11

Swept up some Autumn leaves today and ate some apples off a tree.

funnyperson · 16/10/2015 20:12

Will be buying 'Kate' for an early ripening dessert apple tree.

funnyperson · 16/10/2015 20:49

Lol Monty is wearing a mid life crisis jacket and has now got the prstine white lapels muddy and seed heads over the navy blue collar
And for some reason he has cut the eupatropium back after moving and planting it. Mad.

Blackpuddingbertha · 16/10/2015 20:58

Yes, not sure about the jacket. However I'm just happy that I've actually managed to watch GW for the first time in 6 weeks. Going to congratulate myself with Wine

Blackpuddingbertha · 16/10/2015 20:59

Oh no! Last one next week. Is it that time of year already?!!

aircooled · 16/10/2015 22:44

So it wasn't just me who was appalled by that jacket. What about Griff Rhys Jones and his garden? Huge! (the garden).

funnyperson · 17/10/2015 02:02

The garden was stunning. The house looked fantastic too
I clearly chose the wrong profession. Must encourage the DC to go into the bbc
GW stops when the times change. Its not for another 6 months. I am going to miss Monty's reassuring voice.

MyNightWithMaud · 17/10/2015 13:53

Just caught up with GW. I agree that GRJ's garden was a delight, and am reserving judgment on Monty's jacket!

funnyperson · 17/10/2015 15:16

I just ot lost on the way yo an apple day and ended up at a specialist plant nursery instead: 1/3 off everything as they close for the winter: iris white city for £3.00 (£15.00 at Chelsea) a creeping persicaria with leaves turning purple and orange, a very pretty aster with a pale pink and purple flower, and hesperanthus in flower: very delicate. Also a low growing purple monarda.

They had a really beautiful central bed planted up with asters and grasses and sedums which has come into its own and was very lovely: miscanthus ghana, a shorter form of calamagrostis and anamanthele. So tomorrow there is a piet oudolph inspired garden ngs open which I will go and see.

I am beginning to see where grasses fit in even in a small garden: They provide continuity and a backdrop for flowering plants and fruits, and movement and a special quality of light in the autumn, .

SeaRabbit · 17/10/2015 16:13

I'm coming round to grasses too, funny. I bought one the other week called 'Little Bunny' a pennisetum which has really cute bunny tail seed heads. I decided to cut it into four, to put into pots, and am worried I might have killed all of them...

There was an interesting article by Sarah Raven in today's Telegraph suggesting that Salvias protect against fungal diseases and talking about good Salvias varieties. It's not on the website yet but probably will be tomorrow. My S. Guarantica got mostly eaten by something -slugs? How is your S. Amistad going funny?

In other news I've picked half the quinces on my tree - see portrait. They do make the room smell gorgeous. A couple of their siblings are cooking in a slow oven.

It will not always be summer; build barns. The potting shed goes on...
SugarPlumTree · 17/10/2015 18:01

They look lovely and autumnal Searabbit. I had Little Bunny I bought at a plant sale and did the splitting thing. Don't think mine survived as chucked them straight in and they didn't fare well.

Sounds like you had a fortuitous misturning en route to the apple day FP! I thought recently that I might be missing out a bit on the grasses front and still intend to get to Knoll Gardens and have a look.

I haven't seen GW yet, looking forward to it. I did get outside fit an hour earlier and went in a dead heading spree plus moved my rainbow chard which hardly grew this summer.

We did go to a couple of garden centres earlier as DD is job hunting. I was very good and spent £1 (some wallflowers)

aircooled · 17/10/2015 20:07

Oh SeaRabbit your quinces look lovely. So healthy! Do you know what variety they are? My tree succumbed to a nasty fungal disease so I removed it. Maybe I should grow more salvias - not a problem, I love them.

SeaRabbit · 17/10/2015 22:56

Aircooled I think it's Vranja. It's only 4 years old and the crop this year has been so much better with larger and healthier fruit than I ever got from the tree I planted in our old garden. I don't know what variety that was but I suspect I got it from a local garden centre whereas this one I got bare-rooted from Chris Bowers.

funnyperson · 18/10/2015 06:05

Those quinces look superb! Do they taste nice? Are they bitter so that you have to add a lot of sugar/ What sort of habit does the tree have ?

The salvia Amistad which you planted is doing really well thank you searabbit! After the flowers died I cut it back very slightly and it is now reflowering prolifically and the flower colour and shape is perfect: velvety and droopy. I do recommend it! Interestingly the salvia Caradonna, which also has dark purple flowers but in tall spikes rather than droopy heads, hasn't done nearly as well. The deep pink one has put out new shoots.

When I saw there was a bit of a droopy flower theme what with the callicarpa and the salvia Amistad I planted a vey lovely miscanthus with droopy seed heads in the white border and that seems a happy combination! There is a different miscanthus in the coloured border with the white cyclamen and pink Gaura and that too is giving the garden bed some structure, particularly as I planted asters last year, which are coming into their own with the grasses.

On the whole I prefer the blue/purple flower combinations which asters and salvias provide this time of year, with the grasses providing a balnce of neutral. pale and earth colours, and the oranges are provided by the change in leaves and foliage of plants. I find this more pleasing to the eye than the helenium/echinacea combinations, though mother has a wonderful show of cheery bright yellow Rudbeckia, which are so much nicer than the earlier flowering golden rod or solidago.

The saffron crocuses and cyclamen are really nice, and the pinks of the cyclamen brighten up the shady border so much, and to my surprise even the newer ones which blackpudding planted have expanded and have any more flowers than when they came in from the nursery, and the older undisturbed corms are putting upto 20 or so flowers each! Perhaps it is the horse poo!

Other plants like hostas are dying back and I need to put in labels very soon to show where they are!

funnyperson · 18/10/2015 06:09

sugarplum Knoll gardens are very near you arent they? When I went all the grasses had been cut down - I think it was spring time- but it was still a very lovely place.