Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

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

OP posts:
Thread gallery
26
SugarPlumTree · 29/08/2015 17:11

Hello to you all, I have lost my gardening mojo at the moment.

Some of my dahlias are finally out, Thomas Edison (I think ) is worth the wait.

Picked a few Mexican Fleabane (wusses out of proper name , Erigon kravatisky maybe?) and have put them in an envelope. If anyone would like some you'd be very welcome (though careful opening as rather fly away). There will be more available later.

Mine have flowered for ages and I've got some more coming from seed. Think it is just a matter of chucking on top of some compost /soil . Good for growing in walls

echt · 30/08/2015 07:20

Sorry about your mojo loss, SugarPlum, it's a bugger, isn't it ?

Mine's been a bit enforced as we're going away for three weeks, in two weeks' time so lots of prep so DD can hold the fort.

This has entailed radical pruning of buddleia; plectranthus ecksonii; salvia "Anthony Parker"; hibiscus splendens "Apricot Delight" and lion's ears. All followed by feed and water.

An immediate pleasure has been buying a pot of brown boronia which is now sitting in the afternoon sun having a battle of the smells with two pots of wallflowers. A single small boronia plant can perfume the whole front garden Smile

OP posts:
SeaRabbit · 30/08/2015 13:26

Echt I always Google after reading tour posts and I have Australian shrub envy. Boronia is pretty - what is the smell like?

Sugarplum I feel the same - I wonder if it's to do with our rather dismal summer? I was going to take some cuttings today but am sitting inside instead.

However I am still up to visiting gardens and after Friday's jaunt strongly recommend Woolbeding, a beautiful National Trust garden down in Sussex. They only let 200 people in per day, I think because the access is very poor – narrow lanes, but as a result it was beautifully quiet and intimate. The garden was created by one of the Sainsbury family and his partner, recently, with advice from two Garden designers. The planting is extremely lush, And they had some very unusual plants. For example Rose "Hot Chocolate" – an awful name, but a beautiful unusual browney-red, and Echinacea "Sombrero Salsa Red", which has red centres and red petals. The house is beautiful, and forms a lovely backdrop to the planting. They had also created a woodland/water garden along the lines of the old 18th century garden creators, with a stumpery handrail, a Chinese bridge, a ruin and a waterfall. It was so gorgeous and romantic, and also made me smile. The very kind volunteer who made a great effort to find out the name of the Echinacea recommended visiting in late May/early June.

echt · 30/08/2015 21:33

Boronia, though it now comes in pinks and yellows, is best in its brown form; the perfume is intense: violets and raspberries. Perfumers use it but the oil is mind-bogglingly expensive at $400 for 1oz.

For some reason they are difficult to keep on from year to year, I've only managed two years.

OP posts:
funnyperson · 31/08/2015 15:36

Boronia does look like a pretty plant

I have that rose 'Hot Chocolate' I got it at Hampton Court flower show the year DD and I met up with maud . It is a lovely combination plant with my yellow foliaged Carex and flowered this year, but not prolifically, and has not repeat flowered as yet. Not many roses repeat flower in my north facing shady garden, because after midsummer the length of sunshine hours starts decreasing again.

I have ordered a copy of the Discobolus of Myron in rust iron to replace my plastic Roman boy in a toga. I will probably plant the Olympic roses with him in a large pot with apple mint and lavender like the bouquets of 2012 as the roses need potting on, and arent really good enough value to put in the beds. But at least they have survived!

Although Monty's and, according to their blogs, Gravetye's borders are at their peak, mine are looking understated quiet apart from the Hibiscus, hydrangeas, fuschia, ceratostigma and Veronicastrum.

So today I celebrated a week without the airboot, by going to the garden centre (of course!) and the following fell into my basket: Salvia Amistadt (amazing deep purple flowers) crocosmia Buttercup (beautiful translucent pale yellow flowers, google pictures dont do it justice) and a really lovely late white gladiolus with delicate nodding heads and emerald green foliage, as well as, inevitably, Echinacea White Swan which I adore but haven't seemed to be able to grow from seed.

The gladioli are stunning, I do hope they come up again next year and even spread, as they light up the garden, as do the paler crocosmia. Monty is right about certain colours being perfect in the early Autumn light.

I should have done more cuttings as all the foliage is growing apace, but it has been pouring with rain here solidly the last three days. I must work out where to put a sheltered potting bench.

SugarPlumTree · 31/08/2015 17:35

Google is often my friend whilst reading this thread. I'd neve heard of Boronia, had no idea you could get white Echinacea and am now thinking Rosa Hot Chocolate would make a lovely addition.

Searabbit I think the weather really isn't helping. I've ensured it will rain between now and 2016 by taking advantage of a heavily reduced outdoor sofa set thng on Amazon that I thought might be nice to have on the deck as don't feel the love for the deck at all and it needs attention.

Hopefully our mojos will return soon. FP, glad you are airboot free. Would you mind taking a photo of the gladioli if you have time, they sound lovely?

SeaRabbit · 31/08/2015 17:45

We saw crocosmia Buttercup at a NT garden last weekend Funny and it is indeed lovely. Glad you're rid of the airboot. I bought a deep purple salvia earlier this summer but can't remember its name. It may be Amistadt, but it's only just started flowering anyway, since the rain.

I keep my everything crossed that we'll get an Indian Summer so hopefully you will get to use your sofa this year, Sugarplum.

SugarPlumTree · 31/08/2015 19:08

That would be nice Searabbit, would be nice if we could all enjoy our Autumn gardens. I'd love it if all the dahlias finally came out!

aircooled · 31/08/2015 20:42

Just waiting for school to start again - the weather usually improves then! Talking about crocosmia - I've been tempted by some 'Saracen' with dark foliage and 'tomato red' flowers. Also bought an Echinacea 'Tomato Soup' - exactly Heinz coloured. Only wish the real tomatoes in the veg plot would ripen...

funnyperson · 31/08/2015 21:59

Echinacea 'tomato soup' is a lovely colour with a glow you dont see on google. 'papaya' is another bright echinacea colour. I got some 'tomato soup' at Wisley's autumn flower show last year but they haven't come up again. Maybe its too early or they need more sun than they get under the oak.

Sarah Ravens Venetian dahlias haven't come up again this year either, though they were great the first year. Maybe I didn't feed them enough.

In my garden some perennials are perennials; others just seem to do one year and then disappear. Very odd. I'm missing out something in their care I think.

AncestralRhubarb · 31/08/2015 22:44

Hello. Back from hols. The heather was flowering in Stockholm and there was a definite feeling of autumn in the air, despite blue skies and sunshine.

Woolbeding Hall sounds wonderful, Searabbit, I must visit.

Two of the dc's sunflowers opened while we were away, the rest remain tight-lipped. I wonder if they will flower at all now.

echt · 01/09/2015 08:22

I've just googled echinacea "Tomato soup"; what a glorious colour.

It's the first day of spring here, after the coldest winter for 27 years, and, as reliable as ever, the sun has come out for the day, birds tweeting, etc. This happens every year and is as reliably followed by two weeks of what we had before.

I've become very nesh since living here, and crave the sun more. For the first time, though, I've been eager for a warm holiday after the winter. In the past, it's been so mild, I've never felt the need but this year…

Back to the boronia, I'm teaching TS Eliot's poetry and touched on smell and memory, particularly flowers - lilac, hyacinths. No-one in my class had seen, never mind smelt a lilac - they do not do so well here as it's not regularly cold enough, so I mentioned boronia as the quintessentially Aussie pong. Blank looks all round, so I'm bringing in a pot to my next class so they can all breathe in and feel Orstraaylian. :o

I remember reading, though I cannot remember the book, of Australian troops in the 1WW, passing round a little tin of flowers sent from home and saying: "Ah, boronia." They must have been soldiers from Perth, as WA was and still is, where it's grown.

For myself, my memory smells are wallflowers and the mock orange, philadelphus.

OP posts:
AncestralRhubarb · 01/09/2015 09:21

Ah, memory smells! For me, tomatoes in a greenhouse, scented pelargonium, sweet peas. These all take me back to visiting my grandpa. The smell of Leylandii clippings is my Dad. Smile

funnyperson · 01/09/2015 19:30

Ah..... memory smells
Lavender at Hidcote, Jasmine in the hair of ladies going out in Delhi summer evenings, damp oak leaves in the autumn.
Today, acidanthera scenting the misty autumn air in the garden under the oak.

For me, February is the cruellest month......

SugarPlumTree · 01/09/2015 20:54

Lilac reminds me of my childhood, I loved it so much my favourite teddy was named after it. The smell of raspberries reminds me of our house when we moved in during the hot summer of 76 and the garden was full of huge juicy raspberries.

I have Echinacea envy now ! My acidanthera is another plant not out yet. I'm definitely going to dig up the dahlias this year as only one survived last year.

Rhubarb I would love to go to Stockholm, did you enjoy it ?

Sarah Raven catalogue arrived today so spent a few minutes admiring the lovely pictures.

AncestralRhubarb · 01/09/2015 22:22

I love Stockholm. Everything and everybody is beautiful. It's all water and boats and great food and design shops. A great place to wander.

Callmegeoff · 01/09/2015 22:58

My smells would be cut grass and dirt. My parents were not big flower growers.

I made jam today apple and blackberry plus crab apple and hawthorn. The hawthorn one was rather a lot of effort for the meagre yield.

Has anyone bought bulbs yet? I have rather a lot in a virtual basket with J Parker. - mostly Alliums.

SugarPlumTree · 02/09/2015 11:52

That sounds lovely RhubarbSmile

Geoff there might possibly be some bulbs in the Peter Nyssen shopping cart...

Apologies if the sun just went in by you, my sofa arrived . It has made me smile that the lovely sunshine vanished on cue !

SeaRabbit · 02/09/2015 19:31

Ooh Geoff I've never heard of hawthorn jam (jelly?) what does it taste like?

I still have some elderberry gunk in the freezer from last year to make elderberry curd (first time of making, so can't comment on the taste). I like using unusual ingredients.

Must order some bulbs...

MyNightWithMaud · 02/09/2015 19:34

Hello folks. I'm rather overwhelmed by real life at the moment, but think of you often.

I'm getting some tulip bulbs for my birthday, hoorah.

AncestralRhubarb · 02/09/2015 19:50

Sorry you're having a difficult time Maud. I hope the tulip bulbs help to cheer you up!
Flowers

HumphreyCobblers · 02/09/2015 21:12

Hello Maud, hope things become less overwhelming very soon.

Which bulbs are you getting?

MyNightWithMaud · 02/09/2015 21:17

Thank you. I think we're a bit beyond being cheered up by a bunch of bulbs, but every little helps.

MyNightWithMaud · 02/09/2015 21:20

I'm getting a collection of tulip bulbs, as advertised in the Torygraph a week or so ago, although I can't now remember what they were.

Blackpuddingbertha · 02/09/2015 22:02

Just popping in to say hi. Another one drowning in real life at the moment. My garden is getting ignored somewhat but I figure it will survive a few weeks of neglect this time of year.

I will add bulb shopping to the list of things to do. If someone would like to add links to tulips of their choice so I can blatantly copy your selection that would be very helpful Smile

Swipe left for the next trending thread