The first rule of potting shed is YOU ALWAYS talk about potting shed. The thread continues.

[echt]

Here goes, and feeling bit cheeky as I didn't post much on the last one.

A fine autumn day here, with much seasonal clearing done. Now I come to think of it, is there ever a non-clearing season? :o

Can anyone identify this plant please? Bought it at a plant sale a few years ago but it has only flowered today! Label has rubbed off.

Looks like Jasmine. Is the flower white?

No yellow (different angle pic below)

Yes, that looks like the mystery yellow jasmine I bought years ago at an NGS open garden. Mine has now grown into a tree, which is a very mixed blessing.

Rue have you got a Morrisons near you? They are brilliant for cheap plants, the have a range of cottage garden plants on a 2 for £3 offer. I am always skint but have managed to pick up quite a few plants for next to nothing.

Lizs, it's a summer Jasmine called something like ' Revolutium'.
I looked on the RHS web site. It seems to be quite unusual, so look after it! You might even be able to take cuttings or layer a stem into the ground so it roots and you'll get more.

Ooh thank you.

RHS information here. I'm not sure, though, that mine is Revolutum, because it has no noticeable scent (unlike the white summer jasmine next to it, which is overpowering at the moment). Is yours scented, Liz?

I accidentally wandered into Morrisons after the dentist this morning. Still doing fuchsias for a quid.

I have planted out 1 fuchsia and 1 delospermum. Now I am drenched in sweat.

Thats reminded me MrsBert I thought I would get a couple of those fuchias, get dd to decorate a small ceramic pot and that would do as quite a nice end of year gift for her teachers!!

No discernible scent but it only has a few flowers so far.

All this talk of fuchsias has made me check the one I have growing in an old bidet in he front garden. It's bit sad, which is surprising as it's a winter flowering plant in Australia. I've let things slip bit with too much to do at work. Now I'm on holiday for two weeks, I'll have to get cracking.

This should really be in the veggie section, but meh.

I limed and manured the two veggie beds having removed over grown rocket, lettuce and mooli. The mooli roots were massive and inedible, but had lovely leaves that are now being washed ready to be cooked and/or frozen. Pulling up weed grasses in the beds I came close to removing baby spring onions. Garlic my DH planted is coming up again. I planted broad beans very late, but they've got going.

The beds look all lovely and neat, waiting for the cat to have shit in them. I haven't had time to satay-stick the beds. Tomorrow's task.

I also pruned the lemon tree, which has fruited this year for the first time. Three whole fruit!! Like a slot machine.:o

Hello all
I have been so busy with other things , that my garden has pretty much been left to the tender mercies of DH and nature, while I have tried to keep on top of the allotment.
However , it seems to be surviving , and looking rather tidy if you half close your eyes and squint.
We have been renovating two old worn out borders one is looking pretty good now - rather pleased. The other ( my beautiful Viburnum Tinus succumbed in the end - so much damage from Viburnum beetle) has that 'lots of bare ground around new shrubs' look. Very reluctant to plant too much in there , as the new shrubs should ( hopefully) fill out soon. Stuck in some annuals, and foxglove seedlings for a bit of colour . I went to a car boot sale and picked up hellebore seedlings for 50p each, and a Hydrangea 'White Frills ' little bush for £1 - just have to decide where to place them now .
I have that problem with cats echt - but I don't have any cats - its the neighours!

My cat is dreadful bookbook, she does excavations that would put the diggers in the Pilbara to shame. Yet she's so small. At least I can tell where she's "been".:o

Today I got going with the secateurs and cut back some very overgrown plectranthus ecklonii, westringia and correa. All need an annual chop, and didn't get it last year because I was knee-deep in the aftermath of DH dying, and quite frankly a cold, rainy, windy, six-month winter, so two years of growth. They are all looking very sad and spindly now, and I'll take a photo to show how they buck up (or die, just to teach me). This winter has been very cold at night, but one cloudlessly sun day after another, so gardening gets very warm indeed, with hat, scarf and top layers chucked aside as the sun gets round.

I always enjoy your updates, echt, as things that you mention as being commonplace are rare or pretty much unknown here.

I went to the Hampton Court flower show yesterday. Some lovely things to be seen there but, eek, it was hot and too crowded. Meanwhile, by finally getting round to removing a couple of dead things, I've created a new planting space - which is always exciting - and there'll be a bit more once I've hauled out the viburnum opulus. I can't win against the beetle, and it's not the one that produces the berries, so it's gotta go.

How funny Maud, I was at Hampton Court the day after you and I wondered if anyone else from here would be going. What did you think of it? I agree about the heat, it was relentless!

I am a bit of a newbie to such things, only went for the first time last year so I don't have much to compare it to. Do plant fashions at flower shows change from one year to the next? I'm sure that last year there was loads of trifolium ochroleucon and cirsium rivulare, and this year there was barely any to be seen. Instead it seemed to be all achillea and verbena bonariensis - which means that my garden is unwittingly up-to-the-minute. It will probably never happen again.

Did you buy anything? I love the floral marquee and the stalls in the plant village. I came away with two salvias from my wish list, nachtvlinder and Dyson's maroon, plus a penstemon raven and an impulse buy of coreopsis moonbeam.

I'm quite enjoying watching the rain this evening. And enjoying a bottle of wine that my neighbour gave me as a thankyou for watering her garden. She was on holiday for just over two weeks, it was blistering 30-degree heat, and her style of gardening involves bedding plants, hanging baskets and very many small planters. At least nothing died, and it is a nice bottle of wine.

Sorry to take so long to reply.

I didn't buy anything because I was so hot and bothered I couldn't face carrying anything! I have in the past had a huge splurge in the Sunday sell off, though.

This year, I lost a lot of my mooching time because the journey to get there was so slow, but I did see some very nice plantings. Plants do go in and out of vogue, I think, and the shows reflect that. The shows also polarise plants. I hadn't heard of verbena bonariensis a decade ago, but now it's everywhere. Colours change too - this year Chelsea and Hampton Court have had lots of purple, so I'm also on trend!

We did one year have a MN gardeners meet up at Hampton Court. Should have attempted it this year!

Morning
damp and drizzly here today .
echt - my neighbours cats are more -' try to catch birds while around the feeding station' ( occasionally successful :( ) and' lol around in that lovely big comfy bush ', be it border geranium, cat mint etc and give it a good run over by a steamroller look ....
DH did a lovely job of doing the new border ( with a little important input from me ) but he's is totally befuddled by the fact that a great big, fiery orange hemerocallis is flowering right bang in the middle of the tasteful greens/reds and pinks . I did warn him about their wonderful tendency to get everywhere - I have two big clumps around the back, that invade . I put up with them as they cope really well under the big Irish Yew, and secondly, my DF gave me them when my garden was empty :)

Let's see about another meet up at Hampton Court next year Maud. Orange hemerocallis sound fab bookbook but maybe not in the middle of a subtle colour scheme.

I had that a couple of years ago with gorgeous deep yellow and deep blue iris in the middle of my soft scheme of chiefly pinks purples mauves and whites.

I have to mark some crocosmia Lucifer for moving as they have colonised what started as my jewel bed and is now my hot bed. They fit the scheme but there is too much red. It looks pretty good even so, now the neighbours have chopped down one tree and scalped another. So many things flowering their socks off that struggled before, in the shade.

I've also got a pot of tall white agapanthus that this year is showing some shorter blue agapanthus flowers as well. Where did they come from? I'll mark them to split off.

My favourite plants this year though are the anagallis monellii that I grew from seed and have just started flowering, and a Streptocarpus Susan. The latter has been flowering in the dining room for weeks and unlike most house plants doesn't like a lot of water so is ideal for neglectful people like me. I also repotted it straight away and put it in a sunny-ish position both of which are meant to be no-nos, but it's thriving. The flowers of that variety are especially lovely.

Oh, that anagallis is lovely. I bought a few plants today - its fete season - so must look up what I've got!

I meant to share a picture of this exotic specimen that I spotted at Hampton Court.

I agree, the anagallis is very pretty!

The blue flower reminded me that as well as the bottle of wine, my neighbour brought me a pack of arctic lupin seeds as a souvenir from her holiday. So, er, has anyone ever grown arctic lupins? I haven't generally had much luck with lupins, as the slugs and snails always get them eventually. But in the recent dry weather I've managed to keep one alive to the point of flowering, so that is a start. Any tips on raising them from seed will be much appreciated.

Also, does anyone know about verbascums? I have a patch of ground in front of the house which is very hot and dry (south facing), and the soil is a bit rubbish, dry and chalky/stony. I wanted something with a bit of height, so I planted verbascum gainsborough, and also verbascum phoeniceum violetta at the front. Gainsborough flowered initially and I cut off the faded spikes, but now they have kind of stopped. And violetta have really done nothing, just grown minimally and not flowered. I had a few more of those which I put in a different part of the garden and they have grown a lot more. So could this corner of garden be too hot/dry/rubbish for them? Or do I need to be patient? If they just need time to establish then I will happily leave them alone, but I don't want to lose them because they are in the wrong place.

Oh yes, and another question, I have a few knautia macedonica which flowered beautifully, and are now covered with seedheads. Carol Klein says it's not necessary to deadhead them, as the seedheads are attractive and provide food for finches. I'm all in favour of helping the birds, and it seems wrong to question the wisdom of Carol, but do they not need to be deadheaded so that they will carry on flowering?

It would be great to see Hampton Court in the company of all you knowledgeable gardeners. Maud, I was certain you would be in possession of a handy fold-up trolley to haul your purchases around in the stifling heat!

Ha! I saw that same specimen, accompanied by Swiftus Josephianus, but couldn't get a decent line for a photo. I do have a trolley - bought at Hampton Court, naturally - but I wouldn't have taken it for a minor shopping spree. It comes into its own at the Sunday sell-off. And am I really so predictable?

On deadheading, I keep deadheading things until it's so late in the season that I don't expect to get any more flowers. I want to feed the birds, but I want to get the flowers first. Mention of knautia macedonica has made me realise, firstly, that mine has not reappeared this year but, secondly, that the mystery seedling that came with another plant is a knautia. Happy days.