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.

I had to google it but what an excellent plant @MrsBertBibby! Perfect for long flowering. I must add it to my list.

I had 3 ostrich ferns delivered. They're teeny tiny right now but will grow to 1.5 METRES tall! I love ferns.

OMG you need gaura! They aren't the toughest, but they are so pretty! We had two stunners last summer, one succumbed to the snow, one is creeping back to life but I would treat them like annuals if it came to it, they are gorgeous.

Thank you BeeBumble, yes I meant the bricks. Ok time to have chat with DH. Thanks!

Yes I certainly wouldn't paint the wall, just making work for ever.

Any ideas why has my French lavender become like this ? And what can I do to improve the condition. Thanks!

Anyone else get sunburnt today?

No but I have a thumping headache.

Has anyone grown sparaxis? I got 50 bulbs in the post today from Farmer Gracy. Never even heard of them before!

Bumble looks like frost damage.

Thank you BeeBumble.

I find this thread (and the gardening section in general) very calming, I had to block the coronavirus area as I found the doom and gloom really stressful.

My biggest gardening stress is trying to understand why the DA 15% off has expired when they’re desperately trying to flog the rest of their bare root roses!

@Beebumble2
As usual l went to the sad plant bit and found an Azalea about to flower for £3 and a miniature flowering cherry £3
I love the sad plant bit, but feel an overwhelming responsibility to try and save them all, which involves me buying all sorts of things I never realised I wanted. I have to buy them because I’m convinced no one else will try to save them.

Thefirsttime, I feel exactly the same. I do try and palm some off on my AC who fortunately have gardens.

Has anyone grown sparaxis? I got 50 bulbs in the post today from Farmer Gracy. Never even heard of them before! Yeah, about 40 years ago. Grew Ixia and Sparaxis. Can't remember much about them so no growing tips to offer.

I shall report back!

Rain! Hurrah!

Haha yes I was thinking the same!

B&Q have great plants!

i bought a purple vinca for my purple patch

half price summer bulbs and some geraniums to mix in the borders. v happy

they also have in snapdragons,sennetti and papua new guineas,just arrived.

Lovely day for some gardening... all the best everyone

Finally have a week off and was going to really focus on the garden (planting, tidying and sorting some of the neglected side passage out). On the one hand grateful for the rain for the plants but on the other frustrated as now not able to do everything I wanted like painting the decking.

Sarah Raven has free delivery on all orders this weekend, very useful for me as I forgot a packet of seeds in my last order.

We're off to Wisley this afternoon!

I need to plany some stuff this morning, my new rule is I must always plant out one more item from the waiting area than enters the area. I was 2 up yesterday, but then I scored a really pretty bugle off my mate so only one.

A big one though: a chaenomeles that has been waiting since October.

We finally have some rain! My garden is incredibly dry so I'm hoping 24 hours of this gentle rain will perk it right up.

But it’s so windy, some of my plants are struggling:(

Wind is so nasty for plants.

I've just had some plants from Sarah Raven via our lovely careful postman and they're gorgeous, I'm so pleased. 3 x alchemilla mollis and a salvia, all fresh, compact with lots of growth and so well packaged. I haven't bought from them for a while and have had some absolute disasters (looking at you, Suttons/Yodel!) so this is great. I know SR isn't the cheapest but blimey, you can see the quality if this is anything to go by.

@CheerfulBunny You buy Alchemilla mollis?!! I throw it out by the armful. Round here it's an invasive, tuning up in all sorts of places in the wild, including nature reserves.