"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)

Wow, Castle, you're up early. Thank you god lighting the stove.

::warms bottom hands in front of stove::

Your garden sounds lush in every sense, funnyperson. I'm watching GW on iPlayer now and agree there is something unsettling about the new format. Adam Frost's garden is clearly going to be fabulous, but there's almost nothing there I can translate into my small garden. What I find odd about the garden doctor slot is that we don't have the (I thought obligatory) moment where the owners see how much better it now is and are effusively grateful!

For lighting the stove. Bloomin' autocorrect.

I went to a most interesting talk on Agapanthus when at the Wisley flower show last month and much emphasis was placed on feeding with potash to encourage flowering.

Now you all probably know this already, but I realised that while I have got my head round the need for an Autumn and Spring mulch of the beds and pots with compost, I haven't quite understood ongoing plant feeding, especially in relation to encouraging flowers.

I have always rather avoided miraclegro but perhaps this is false because I would like more flowers! Anyway I bought the high potash feed on offer and will use it on a few plants this warm Autumn (as well as the Agapanthus in the spring).

The nerines are flowering! The pale pink ones from last year and some new deep pink ones from Wisley this year! Quite delicate and lovely.

Yes maud the garden is lush. Overgown Lush is what it is in places!

Place marking, back soon

Oh funnyperson absolutely everything in your garden sounds fabulous and thriving. Was it difficult to espalier the apple tree? What variety of apple is it?
I have to agree with yourself and Maud. There was something about the most recent episode of GW that left me feeling a bit disheartened. And I began to question whether I have chosen a completely wrong layout for my garden. I could have a decent medium-sized garden with meandering paths like some of those shown on the programme but I would have to give up on my seperate orchard and seperate kitchen garden idea and incorporate the areas more into the overall garden. And now I am just muddled about what to do. I had my heart set on a seperate orchard area (it's about 20m x 25m) but now I just don't know. I like watching Adam Frost start his garden but I did think it was regretful he tore the lavender bed out. Love Monty's sections of the show. Love the slow pace of them. He is never doing too much at once and I like that.

I think your separate orchard and kitchen garden layout sounds brilliant castleough stick with it because if you have the fruit trees in with the rest they will shade the veg. Although you can have fruit trees espaliered or cordoned round the border of your kitchen garden section
My espaliered apple isnt very professional but it is evolving. It was inspired by the series within gardeners world where Carol showed a young couple how to plant cordon fruit trees in a small garden. I was also inspired by a walk in Wisley one winter seeing the outlines of the beautifully espaliered trees there. I planted it as an ordinary Cox on dwarf root stock, and have been training it to an espalier shape. It took ages to work out whether it was tip or spur bearing and in hindsight I should have asked the supplier when I bought it. For friends I have bought 2 year old ready trained fruit trees from Brogdale.
www.brogdalecollections.org/
I'm with you on the lavender. Your bank will be brilliant for lavender. This place sells lots of varieties
www.downderry-nursery.co.uk/
Your bank will be brilliant for thyme and oregano and sage and savoury and fennel and angelica too! Plant them at the top of the bank then they will seed and spread downwards!

Oh funnyperson don't even mention the bank. It looks fab in May when it is bursting with oxeye daisies but then it looks like an unsightly mass of weeds for the rest of the year. I totally failed on that front... Could slowly redefine it I suppose....

Thanks for thumbs up on the layout funnyperson. I keep reminding myself how gardens should reflect the gardener and how there is no perfect garden layout. I keep being drawn to parterre style layouts with box hedging but am afraid I will regret not having more herbacious borders or swathes of flowers and softer lines....argh, it is so difficult!

Castle it could be fun gradually sorting out your bank, and I agree with Finn that herbs could be the way to go because of the drainage. Last week at Wisley I saw some wonderful sprawling rosemary from Downderry, and I have had very good experiences of buying from them - they replaced a plant that died without a quibble and sent the plants in sweet lavender coloured pots most of which I am still using.

I have only watched about half of the latest GW programme and none of the other longer ones, but am pleased about having more variety. - mostly Monty I find a leetle dull. I loved Helen Dillon's garden - gosh the colour, and that lovely canal.

Today we went to Albury Park under NGS. It was designed by John Evelyn, and has almost no colour except green but was utterly lovely, in early autumn sunshine; walking by the 'River' (stream-sized) hearing the varying sounds of the water going over the little weirs was so relaxing. Here's an article:
londonslostgarden.wordpress.com/tag/albury-park/

I got my hopes up seeing the blog was called London's lost garden, turns out to be in Surrey!
There's a last rosebud on the rose (on the balcony). I wonder if it will be able to bloom, probably won't get enough sun?

Thinking ahead to summer, I wonder how pinks would fare on the balcony?

I agree Lorelei - I haven't explored that blog to see if it usually focuses on London gardens...

Pinks are quite tough - though in my experience they need cosseting to get settled, with a fair bit of after watering needed: then they settle to not needing much, and can probably put up with a bit of wind.

Does anyone have any experience of hippeastrums? I put mine outside for its summer hols, and it flowered in July. It's survived the slugs and has put on leaves not only around the central bit but at each side, like it's developing new stems out of its sides. There don't seem to be new bulbs developing just, possibly, new stems.

Funny, I've started feeding flowering plants in pots with tomato feed on the advice of a couple of experienced gardeners, including my hippeastrum, and they do seem happier. That has a lot of potassium in it I believe.

searabbit my amaryllis is putting on new growth too and was indoors so I have put it out in the sun.
castleough I know what you mean about parterres but I cant help feeling your wonderful bank is suited to curves and swathes and making the most of the view and the sky.
That said there is no reason why you shouldn't have a parterre near the house.
www.knotgardens.co.uk/

www.womansweekly.com/gardening/plan-parterre-garden-14902/

uk.pinterest.com/cynthiapb/parterre-gardens/

lorelei Pinks (duianthus) grow well in sunny warm well drained soil and are fine in pots/window boxes because they have shallow roots. I have 'Tequila Sunrise' which is very pretty and sweetly scented.

dianthus

With dianthus, position is everything, I've found. The dianthus I planted underneath the bay tree in a big pot all died, I think because they were too cold and wet in winter, but others that I've planted in window boxes in gritty compost and placed in the sun have been far happier.

I put my hippeastrum in the greenhouse, where it has grown new leaves but been chewed by snails. Grr.

I'm with you on dianthus position maud mine are in pots and I put gravel in the bottom of both.
Having found it very difficult to buy 'hortcultural grit' I now buy fine washed gravel and this seems to be the ticket. The salvia expert at Wisley flower show told me that my salvias (amistadt) did not survive last winter because they were sitting in wet clay. So now I put washed gravel in the bottom of every planting hole and pot.
Wonderful blue skies and Autumn leafy smell in the garden today. I had a very happy time planting and mulching.
If I get all the plants and bulbs in this week and then the mulch I'm thinking they will be able to brave the wind and rain and frost and leaf fall to come.

I forgot: Welcome Nigella's guest and other newish posters! Tell us about your garden.

I have had a large cyclamen out in the greenhouse all summer ( I repotted it after it flowered most of the winter on my kitchen windowsill) and consequently has been fed and watered alongside my tomatoes/peppers etc. The cyclamen has adored this, and has been flowering non stop since. I have just brought it in and it is still full of buds.
DH has been doing a manful job of some much needed heavy pruning, and removing dead undergrowth. Digging and mulching around and getting ready to replant under a large Acer Drummondii . We have bought pachysandra - a -variegata and a terminalis , along with a few ajuba reptans . We are hoping they cope with the shade. And then I need to plant anemone blanda, winter aconites , some foxglove seedlings , dig up and move in some Japanese anemones, and evergreen creeping geraniums. I have lost a few things in the move around though, which saddens me . I had a lot of self seeded wild primroses, and I am not holding my breath about them still being there come spring. But - its an old bed, that desperately needed re doing, so you have to let it go sometime .

Thanks for those useful links Funny.
I was thinking of a parterre style wrapping the T-shaped house on three sides including the patio on one side and a rose garden parterre on the other. Then less structured planting/small lawn/cottage garden planting at the front. There would then just be the orchard and kitchen garden at the back behind the strip of parterre....no lawn at the back. I like it on paper but unsure if it would be nice in real life.
I think you are right about the bank. I have buried my head in the sand about that though. 240 sq metres of "weeds"....

bookbook your garden sounds like a hive of activity and productiveness.
Funny you sound like you have had another lovely day in your garden.
Lorelei it sounds like pinks would do well in window boxes on the balcony.
SR I am now off to google hippeastrums.
Maud What is in your greenhouse right now?

Thanks for all the hugs, gardening types.

My two weeks away in the UK meant I missed a cold and rainy fortnight in Melbourne, though this is all comparative as the garden has gone wild in my absence.

I'm only seeing it in the light for the first time right now, so will rush about taking pics in the howling rain, hail and wind, like King Lear crossed with David Bailey.

The tomato feed tip is a good one for potted plants, as is the potash for agapanthus.

Arf at King Lear crossed with David Bailey. DH wants to go to see King Lear in the cinema (one of those broadcast theatre thingies) and I'm a bit scared, having never seen it all the way through.

I feed everything with tomato maxicrop (except the camellias, which I generally forget to feed at all but resolve to feed this morning).

Here's my overgrown garden bench; sittable-on when I left.