"in the midst of winter, I found there was within me, an invincible summer" Potting shed chat continues here

[funnyperson]

So as agreed (by 2 other people!) I have started this thread for spring gardeners follwing on from the previous thread : Welcome one and all. experts and novices alike and draw up your chairs and join in discussion on all things garden related (and even not garden related)

I feel similarly about my garden. Even when things are dying on me or being wrecked by slugs, it feels like a comfortable place to be.

I've just had a very satisfying potter after work. I've emptied the pots of struggling agapanthus, to give them to my friend whose garden seems to suit them far better, and potted up the lilies I bought at Hampton Court. I've planted the three geraniums I bought at an NGS garden on Sunday (my geranium habit is insatiable) and generally tidied up, so things are looking far more orderly. A good couple of hours' work!

Bay trees are tricky, I think. I read once that folk tend to underwater them, thinking that because they're Mediterranean plants they like to be parched, which they don't. Mine was a cutting, which has now grown quite tall as a standard, but all my attempts to encourage the top growth to become more bushy have failed and it looks very sparse.

Thank you for the virtual tea, funnyperson, I'll try and re-create it in RL.

Although it's winter, it's been exceptionally wet (good) but bitingly cold, by Melbourne standards. There are a few 15-16 degree days coming up where I can get out and do bit of garden sorting.

What currently stands out is the rainbow chard DH planted.

So nice to hear from you echt

I thought I would put up before and after pictures of the little bay tree.
I popped it next to my great big thug of a bush, as mine is happy there, so hoped the tree would be. (Mine is a culinary shrub - somewhere between 5 - 10 leaves picked per week, no shape at all and lots of suckers)
I decided to carefully take off all the dead leaves -

1. to let the sun in to the new shoots and 2} to see whether we have an all round regrowth, with the hope of it keeping its nice shaping. I I also looked carefully at the Viburnum Tinus that needed a severe cut back due to Viburnum beetle damage. Somewhat slower, but that too has new shoots just appearing . :)

That's very encouraging, bookbook.

Tonight I planted one of my mystery clematis (label long gone). I've also bought myself a lovely new pen from the art shop, so have been enjoying writing on my posh plant labels.

Memorial chard is good, echt.

It is looking hopeful bookbook. My culinary bay started in a pot when we were renting a house, and was a brown stick, poor thing. Planted in the ground though, it's taken off, and this wet weather has given it a further boost, so this year's leaves are huge.

Today has been a cloudless 15, and amazingly so warm I didn't put the CH on, though will do so soon as the tips of my ears are cold. I cut back a ficus pumila, that grows on our side of the NDN's wall; a thug of Kray brothers stature.

It's dusk now and I can hear blackbirds yelling their heads off.

That is so organised have plant labels Maud . I never had much problem remembering varieties of thing in my garden. I still know all the things I have put in from years ago. But I have a new border which I started planting up two years ago, and there are at least 3 things I have no idea what they are - just little shrubs that I have chosen at plant fairs and the like. I do keep all my plant labels normally, but can I find these ? No...I can't.
echt and here we are having a short burst of heatwave .
It was much too hot here last night, so I was up much too early. I have wandered around the garden in my dressing gown, and it is beautiful listening and seeing the bees buzzing around, and the birds at full tilt as well. The Hypericum 'Hidcote' that DH and I pruned really hard is in full flower, with branches laden with buds as well. No seeing out of his workshop window this summer. It does show that sometimes DH is right !

I can generally remember what I've planted, but I'm sure I've lost some things over the years because, when they're dormant, I've planted other things on top of them. I'm also rather prone to forgetting the names of varieties.

Anyway, I've been on the "I do like Monty" thread, inviting the rest of the fan club to join us here.

Does anyone else find that some plants they can remember really easily, but others always escape them? I find my garden diary useful for reminders, as I tend to note what I plant.

A friend has discovered that a former president of the British Fern Society or some such organisation used to live in her house years ago, and left loads of rare ferns behind. She had no idea and nearly threw a particularly rare specimen away not long ago. She's now finding out a lot about her treasures, and mollycoddling them.

I can generally remember what a plant is when I see it - my problem
Is that I forget what's there when it's underground! I'm also far less good at remembering varieties, hence the various nameless clematis and tulips!

How lovely to have a collection of rareties. At the moment, I am
nurturing the national collection of weeds, despite pulling up a handful every time I go out there.

How lovely to have a ready made collection of rare plants . I'm very impressed with the bay tree renovation back up the top.

Echt, I hope you're as OK as you can be and you have been very much in my thoughts.

I'm incredibly behind here with all my dahlias, chrysanthemums, cosmos etc still in the greenhouse plus I have got no further sorting through the bindweed infested soil spread around the garden. We do now have our new driveway and can access the road directly in theory however we're keeping off it as the Tarmac at the top slow to go off in the heat.

Some of you might remember my anger when I went out to find my neighbour has cut down 20 foot plus of my hedge. Now we are exposed to the road the greenhouse needs to go and be replaced with a smaller one somewhere else plus also the carport next to it is for the chop. If we cut down the remaining bit of hedge then we'll gain an extra 6 foot of space at least so when I saw him I said we were considering doing that and following on his from fence. It's closer to his house and he visibly paled, I struggled to suppress a smile as he talked about not being too hasty! The expression you reap what you do sprung to mind.

Anyone else haveblackspot all over your roses ? It's really bad this year in my garden.

Has anyone been watching Garden Rescue on BBC/IPlayer since it started last week?
There is a LOT of inspiration to take in, it's awesome. I don't love all of of it at all, but I've already taken in quite a few bits for my own garden (which we'll work on to be 'done' next year) and for gardening principles and ideas in general. And it's great to see what kind of budgets achieve what kind of finish, even though obviously they don't pay for design or labour on the show.
I'm looking forward to the remaining 10 episodes!

In other news DH has managed to convince himself that my needs for a greenhouse are greater than his needs for a pizza oven... I'm not sure how that's happened but I'm thrilled. If you have any greenhouse selection advice, let me know!

Echt, I am new to this forum, so don't 'know' you very much, but you have been in my thoughts. Hope you are doing ok.

SugarPlumTree, that is so rotten to have to change and move your bits! It would be great to gain more space though.

More love for Echt from me, too.

I hadn't heard of Garden Rescue, but will search for it when I've finished watching the progs from Tatton Park.

With this dry weather I have been out watering the garden at least once a day sometimes twice. Its lovely and cool sprinkling water from the outside tap, and ever since I bought one of those hozelock spray head attachments, watering has been a real pleasure.
Anyway all the foliage has been loving the combination of sun and water and even the hostas are healthy enough to resist slug action.! The geranium Johnsons blue, ceratostigma, pensetemons and phlox are all flowering their socks off as are the roses still and the Anabelle hydrangea has wonderful large mop heads of green/white flowers
However the acanthus rue ledan still havent thrown up flower spikes and the Gaura and Salvia amistad have not survived the winter
But I've got a little cutting of Salvia Amistad given to me by the gardener at one of the London garden squares weekend from the little garden at the brand museum and it has little shoots which are really nice!

I saw a pretty white viticella clematis growing through a rose today at an ngs garden: alba luxurians

The various gardening magazines tell me there are all sorts of high level conferences on heath and horticulture: at the rhs, the kings fund, the ngs. What isnt clear to me is whether these include
-anything about gardens as play spaces for children
-guidance for gardens for people with special needs like wheelchair users , blind people or people with dementia

it annoys me when people have high level conferences and decide things without asking the public

www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/Gardens_and_health.pdf

echt still in my thoughts too

I would love to have seen your neighbours face sugarplum and yes roses riddled with black spot. I suppose it's all the rain we've had in June. I might actually spray them next year.

Some of my Dahlias are out, I added a new one to the mix called Sylvia. It fits in really well with S. Raven's purple collection.

We have a hedgehog visiting, it's burrowed a hole under the back fence, I've left water and there are plenty of slugs. Pleased about that but I can no longer use slug pellets so somethings are suffering.

Dd1s annual summer show was last week she got 1st for sweet peas and courgettes, 2nd for a poem, 2nd for a crochet item 3rd for chutney (there were only 3 jars entered!) It's rediculously satisfying running into the tent after the judging to see if anything placed!

I am just loving the weather at the moment- so nice to finally sit out in the evening, like fp my Annabelle has lovely big blooms. I'm off to the garden centre today in search of pretty ceramic pots for my pink pelargoniums. I think green might look nice.

Oh I meant to say re watering I've now got one of those expandable hoses from lidle- well 2 joined together. Watering has become so much easier.

Yes, it's very noticeable how vocal the RHS in particular has become about the mental and physical (not that the two are separate) health benefits of gardening.

I had a succession of curly hoses but have now gone back to the hoselock on a spool type. In many ways, I wish I still had the curly hose, as it was far easier to get it to the bottom of the (short) garden.

And ... some hope for anyone who thinks their salvia Amistad has died over the winter. I was convinced all three of mine were dead - one has disappeared altogether - but I hadn't got round to grubbing them up and one has now surprised wme with new green shoots. So nil desperandum!

I have had a lovely day around Harlow Carr today. I went to look at the kitchen garden, and also for inspiration for a possible gap. I thought I had found just what I was looking for Eucryphia lucida 'Pink Cloud'. When I got home, went to have a look

1. Needs full sun - well, almost, at a pinch..
2. Sheltered position Snow and east wind....

3 Acidic/neutral soil... I garden on chalk .... Its not fair, this seems to be the story of my life garden Ah well, the search continues !

So glad the potting shed is still here. Just taking a seat in the corner. Absolutely nothing happening here garden-wise, still a heap of rubble and motley pot collection. I will have to garden through the rest of you for a bit longer :-(
Echt I'm sorry for your sad loss xx

A fortuitous event in the garden.

For some time I've been eying the cestris parqui with a view to chopping it and replanting with native trees. I've always held back because it flowers for 11months of the year and is used as last resort by nectar eating birds, and a first resort as a perch for scrub wrens. New planting would take some time to kick in as perches/shelter.

A fierce wind tore down one of the trunks this week, the one that held up the other trunk ( it's an odd, non-woody and feeble plant).

Nature has intervened, so I'll dig up the roots and plant a tree next week.

I'm thinking of kanooka, the water gum which is small tree by Australian standards and a haven for bees.

looking up cestris parqui and kanooka

dd would be a chestnut tree and I would be a mango tree if we were trees
what tree would you be?

Nice to hear from you again castle

etch I very much like the Kanooka. Is your garden quite big?

I'd be a weeping willow funny

No sign of any flowers on the Brugmansia. The leaves have gone a bit yellow, should I have left it InThe greenhouse?