Gardening chat

[Procrastatron]

I find some areas of Mumsnet quite stressful at the moment due to strong opinions and covid related doom and gloom. Not the gardening section though.
I spend a lot of time daydreaming about my little, slightly wild, London garden and all the lovely things that are on order with various online nurseries or stashed on the decking for planting out soon. I’m definitely novice gardener and happily so and my criteria for plants are along the lines of hard to kill, colourful and weed suppression.

Right now I’m pondering where I should plant my verbena and how well my rose will respond to the cavalier pruning I have it at the weekend.
I’d love to hear what gardening related things other people are thinking about at the mo.

Ooh I have some cosmos seeds, but no heated propagator and limited windowsill space remaining. Conservatory and porch still pretty chilly. It's always a guessing game about when to start sowing and j usually get it wrong !

My tomato seedlings are up. Nothing from the chilli yet - I need to get that growing as it's from my son's chilli which he gave me to overwinter and I killed, so I've got till May to get a new plant going that I can pass off as his.

Hi everyone, may I join?
Have sown sweet peas, dahlias, cosmos, marigolds into my mini greenhouse.
Planted into the ground lots of gladioli too.
Bought and painted this trough last weekend which is now filled with soil ready to plant strawberries, raspberries, carrot, lettuce.
I’ve sown the lettuce and carrot seed today but thinking it’s best to wait till 1st week of April for the fruits, would anyone agree?
Have got some beetroot and spinach too but think it will overfill it?

Assuming your strawberries and raspberries are plants, and haven't been sitting in a warm house for weeks, I would have thought they'd be OK. My strawberries have been overwintering in pots outside.

I think you're expecting a lot of that trough. I certainly wouldn't put the raspberries in there if you're expecting to grow something else in there. Without the raspberries you may be OK. It's tempting to cram things together, and they will grow - but they'll grow much smaller. I'm finding it's better to grow fewer - a bigger yield overall. The danger with the beetroot and the carrot is they just won't bother to form storage roots (the bit you eat) if they're too crowded. Spinach an lettuce are more tolerant but even so, it's better to have one plant a foot high than two only four inches high.

Just had a very pleasant couple of hours wreaking order in the garden. I restored order to some erigeron that had overreached itself, and pulled up some of its babies which are now in pots awaiting replanting, gifting, or donating to Dad's plant sale. Ditto some arabis. I planted out a salvia Azure Snow which has been sat in its pot since I bought it at Chartwell in September. Hope it makes it, it looks a bit pot bound!

I also yanked out some delosperma I grew from seed last year. I popped one in a pot just to see, but they all looked pretty dead. Anyone know how likely they are to revive if all their green fleshy bits have gone? I have a few in a sheltered corner which are still fleshy, but these are completely yellow.

Oh @MereDintofPandiculation I wish you all the best with your chilli plant! I’ve never grown one but sending positive vibes so your son isn’t disappointed.

To give you an idea of how clueless I am, for the last couple of weeks I’ve been wondering around local streets spotting these lovely glossy flowering shrubs. So long story short, I have discovered camellias 🤭... and I now own one! It’s very exciting. Mine’s in a pot though as I was under the impression our soil isn’t acidic enough based on my dead rhododendron, but my neighbours seem to be growing them quite successfully... hmm.

@Procrastatron camellias are beautiful and a variety of colours.
But I thought they were fussy and needed lime free compost ?
@MereDintofPandiculation yes I thought I may be trying to cram a lot in! Think the raspberries and strawberries definitely what my son would like in there so may just have to concentrate on those!

Camelias prefer an acidic soil, but my Dad is insanely chalky, and they manage there. I imagine he put a load of ericaceous compost in with them.

Think the raspberries and strawberries definitely what my son would like in there so may just have to concentrate on those! If there's any way you could find somewhere else for the raspberries, you could have the strawberries along with some vegetables.

Aha, the dicentra Valentine which I bought in the last days before lockdown last year, and which I thought had been killed by a Cosmos lying all over it in September, has started to sprout! I am so happy!

Also, my agapanthus has just sent up the merest sliver of new leaf.

God I love seeing things slowly coming back to life. Every one of them a tiny miracle and a promise of beauty.

This week I have to finally decide where all my baby plants are going. I had some bad news at start of Feb and in reaction I went on a plant buying spree. I did buy them with specific areas in mind but now I've forgotten. Should have bloody written it down!

My double pink hellebore survived the move to the helleborder! I put all my hellebores a bit closer together last summer, tucked them in carefully with lots of tasty compost mulched around , the big brash ones have flourished but a couple of my treasures are being a bit shy and just showing leaves. But double pink has put up a single flower, so there is hope.

I am very jealous of the poster up thread whose amaryllis are shooting. I love them but can’t get them to flower . Visits to the Chelsea
Physic garden are always very distressing for me because their amaryllis seem to grow like weeds.

Amaryllis? I meant agapanthus!!! Maybe that’s why they won’t grow for me because if I can’t even get their name right why should they bother.

Did you have them in a pot Viques? They flower better if they are congested. If they have space the reproduce by division and don't spend energy on flowering.

Good morning Mrs BB. Yes, they are in a pot, very contained and still refusing to do more than leaf. What is annoying is that they are all from reliable sources and were expensive, I think I will try picking up a few cheapies from Homebase or somewhere in the hope that they will be so grateful for a good home they will start flowering.

Miserable day here today, yesterday was gorgeous, I got quite a bit done, and was hoping to do more today. Not to be though, so back to catalogue porn.

It’s pouring with rain here in London. It means I probably won’t make it outside for my daily examination of all my plants. Yesterday I noticed that my fuchsia riccartoni (that I bought and put in a big pot last summer and pruned earlier this month) is getting new growth from the base as well as the existing framework (is that he term?).
For those who commented, new camellia is in a pot of ericaceous compost. It has lots of buds and I am willing it to flower. I’d love to get to a place where I have something on my decking in flower for most of the year, so far my running order is:
Rosemary and crocuses (now)
Camellia (soon I hope)
Dwarf azaleas
TBC combo of roses, dahlias, hibiscus, nasturtiums
Late flowering clematis and Fuchsia
Some kind of Lilly nicknamed Indian Summer currently on order.
Today I will be mostly marvelling at my nasturtiums that I planted with my six year old and put in a windowsill. Once they get going they really go for it don’t they! I’m hoping to use them to cover a bit of unused trellis but I also have a random and ugly pile of bricks at the end of garden that we might need in the future so I was thinking of stacking them into some kind of step arrangement and putting terracotta pots on the steps with nasturtiums tumbling out.

Can I join in? I'm wanting to cover a few fence panels with either clematis or a climbing rose. Just deciding on what to go for and looking forward to visiting a few garden centres next month.

Oooh @heathergem get both. David Austin roses are gorgeous

Surprise delivery from Sarah Raven today: 6 Hidcote lavenders for out front.

I do like how they arrive just when you forget about having ordered them.

@heathergem I think the answer is both! Although someone with some actual knowledge will explain why this is a bad idea 🤣

@MrsBertBibby I’m waiting for geraniums, do they not tell you they are dispatched?

Popped into Wilco’s this morning. They have packaged cranesbill geraniums at £2 each. Bought some and put them in pots, there were green shoots already.
Also bought Dahlia tubers in a packet. Apparently there are 6, but they were in several pieces, so filled two large planters.
Hope they all do well, but not much lost, if not.

I am expecting delivery of a seed starting tray today. I have a bunch of seeds for things like arugula (rocket), cilantro, basil etc. i am planning to grow on our balcony. Last year it worked quite well. The parsley is already back. The hardest part is water as we face south west and it gets hot.

I will buy a pre grown tomato plant for a sunny corner for earlier fruit.

I also had sweet peas and nasturtiums.

I get sad about my old garden, a riotous English cottage style. But we had to downsize

Bought some clematis today, 3 for £12 in Homebase, then got a camellia in a pot and am planning on making some tripods out of bamboo for some sweet peas. Happy days.

For anyone with empty spaces to fill. If you sign up to H and M (I did it for the free postage) you can buy 300 summer flowering bulbs for £12.00. Not sure if the free postage applies to them though.