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.

Love this thread.
I'm aiming to plant some veggie and flower seeds indoors soon. Waiting eagerly for bulbs planted a few weeks ago to come through.
I don't have a greenhouse. Are those plastic ones truly any good? I don't mind spending £30/40 if it lasts a few seasons? Do the seedlings get enough light/heat to thrive?

My experience is that they don't last and can't stand up to any wind. I had one, which was attached to the wall behind and in the most sheltered part of my admittedly exposed plot, and the plastic fell apart, the zips broke and the whole thing blew apart. But it may well have been a crappy one

I have been getting excited about seeds this week. I am a novice too but over lockdown grew what we could and loved it. My only issue is we need building work done in a year or so so no point spending much on the garden as it will get trashed so we are going full on for annuals from seed. Also some new veg. Debating on peas or beans plus peppers, courgettes, tomatoes, lettuce, chillis all in containers.

I am also getting in to containers. I was lucky to be gifted about 20 pots so I have loads of spring bulbs starting to poke through but then I need to figure out how to make them look nice in summer. Can I put bedding plants above tulips after they flower or will that ruin them for next year?

Lovely idea for a thread, thank you OP.

I plan to give my precious rose bush a serious cutting back at the weekend, I don't want to re-pot it, the rose was a gift and for some reason that makes me very nervous around it.

I need to move my potted acers and give the patio a good clean ready for spring.

I've really enjoyed the garden this year, being forced to stay home and potter really has shown me I can do more that buy, pot, bin, repeat every year!

I have perennials above tulips, which come up year after year, so I'm sure bedding plants would be fine. Just be careful when digging to plant them, not to damage the bulbs.

Been busy here...
Ordered several evergreens to go in pots on the horrid concrete outside the back door... will make a screen from neighbours and hopefully brighten up the view from the house a bit.
Ordered quite a bit of landscaping DIY stuff for fixing the dodgy paving stones and repainting fences etc.
Just waiting for it to warm up a bit so we can have a nice full day sorting garden stuff.

We cut down some very overgrown leylandi earlier this year (tree surgeon was great) and are going to do some building work on that area next year. Thinking I could stick a couple of quick growing wildlife supporting bare root plants in the space in the meantime , eg dog rose (Rosa canina)? They're only £4 for three...

Really pleased with my Mail order orchids. I have flowers again :)

Oh, those are absolute stunners!

You want the scar/line thing to be facing outwards as that is where the bud will grow from. Roses have alternate buds not opposite ones, which means only one side of the scar will grow a bud, You can see the tiny bud, so choose a scar where the bud is on the outside, even if it means cutting off a few more inches than you were planning.

@TiddleTaddleTat had you thought of a sweet briar? Same jizz as a dog rose, also a UK native, but leaves smell of fresh apples, especially after rain.... ah, but not £4 for 3.

I'm growing a packet of mixed rose seeds from Chiltern. Some will take two years to germinate, but I already have about 8 plants. Even at a few inches high, differences are showing - pointed leaflets vs more rounded ones, blue green foliage vs green - and several are sweet briar types - I can already smell the foliage.

I had never known that that is what eglantine is!

Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine
With sweet musk roses, and with eglantine.

Thank you!

I've just sneaked up the garden during my lunch break. Everything is sprouting! The hellebores are gorgeous, the crocus are getting going, and both beehives are going bonkers.

So hacked off the weekend weather is lousy.

@MereDintofPandiculation sweet briar sounds great! Shame I have already ordered the dog rose, a small add on item as part of a large order. Will give it a go, it's only likely to be for a year until we rip down the building behind it.
Rubbish weather here too this weekend , probably more snow so won't be getting round to my bricklaying around the new bed as hoped.

I did the Spring clean up a few days ago. And mulched. This is the year that I try to only have plants which are slug proof. I don’t do pellets anymore. What’s the difference between the dog rose and sweet briar? They look the same to me

I am itching to get out and do a tidy up. I did a very half arsed job at the end of summer as some things were still flowering then I got horrendously busy at work then Christmas etc. I think we have snow forecast this weekend so will wait until after.

Does anyone have tips on what to do with a fence in almost complete shade at the end of my garden? The shade is from the neighbours trees which are not evergreen so some light in winter but very dark in summer. I wondered if rhododendron might grow? Maybe in containers to stop spread? Or maybe a wood screen a meteor so in so we can store bins and toys in the dark then plant the other side....its quite a small garden.

We also have a fence in almost total shade. I’ve tried growing a jasmine up it but the jasmine looks a bit sad now. And I don’t know if I can move jasmine or if that’d kill it off

@Weepingwillows12 I tried to grow a dwarf rhodo last year and killed it 🤭. I have the wrong type of soil! I now have dwarf azaleas on order for planters where I can try tomanage the acidity of the soil.
I think I recall that some climbing roses like shade too.

Thanks. I might look at climbing roses then. I would love one but just thought they liked sun so didnt even look. Love the smell of jasmine too.

How about a climbing hydrangea?

I’ll
Have a look at clubbing roses too

I'd go for a climbing hydrangea. Beautiful stems in winter too. I have one in a large pot that I'm going to put against our shady wall in the new border we've cleared. Itching to get out and garden today but it's heavy rain and snow on the way. Going to satisfy the itch by planning veg sowing and cleaning and sharpening tools instead like the garden nerd that I am.

Just googled the climbing hydrangea. Looks amazing!

Love a climbing hydrangea! Such a great option.

I have been busy in the garden today. I put in a bare root hedge last week and got the rabbit mesh up today. Crucial as I have two house rabbits who nibble everything despite best attempts to put in 'rabbit resistant' plants.

Also managed to pot on most of the 100 wild flower plugs I ordered last week which arrived much sooner than expected! My windows are full and we're only a week into Feb! Hopefully they'll be big enough to go in the unheated greenhouse shortly. Again, the house rabbits make growing in the house much more complicated!

Anyone noticing shortages in garden supplies? DH went back to the garden centre we bought seed trays from last week and they were nearly stripped bare! They had loads last weekend.

Climbing hydrangea look lovely. Going to investigate further definitely.

I started a few tomato and chilli seeds indoors yesterday. Have a lot of seeds to start but limited seed trays so doing it in batches. I have run out of seed compost though. Is it really worth using or is multipurpose compost fine?

My windowsills are filling up too as have a lot of cuttings from last autumn too.