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 usually buy seed compost but think I'll use multipurpose with a little sand mixed in this time to improve drainage . Haven't sown anything yet here (up north) but am going to look through seed packets today and plan a schedule (joy!)

Anyone growing fruit and veg this year that doesn't know the gardenfocused website, highly recommend! Gets you an instant calendar of what to do when based on the frost date of your area www.gardenfocused.co.uk

We have periwinkle which is great for ground cover for lazy gardeners like me. Anything that scrambles and spreads and is hardy is fine by me.

Breaking news: my dwarf azaleas (ordered in November!) have arrived. Hurrah 🌺 🌺🌺🌺🌺

Advice from you lovely people please. My hardy Hibiscus has been dispatched. It’s only a 9cm pot. My only experience of hibiscus is my parents one that lives indoors over winter. Should I stick it outside in a sheltered spot because it’s hardy and Thompson and Morgan say they dispatch at a time when they can be planted out. Or do I play it safe and keep it on the coolest windowsill (guessing 16-18 degrees) until the weather improves? No greenhouse or outhouse or cold utility.

@Procrastatron it depends a little on where you live - I’m Scottish Highlands so would definitely do windowsill for a little bit!
We only moved in to our house days before the first lockdown, last year we didn’t do much to the gardens apart from plant lots of hedging, build compost heap and put up bird feeders. This year I’m sorting a lot of structure so have planters being made at the minute and have on order a star jasmine, honeysuckle, Virginia creeper and a new buddleja Beeries and Cream for the front garden. I want to sort some borders to the path too, am thinking lavender Alba interspersed with seasonal bulbs.
I’m very lucky as my husband is as keen a gardener as I am...it’s just trying to find time and energy and being vaguely practical as have young children (back garden is for play).

Any gardening plans this weekend?
Ground is still frozen here but my nursery order has arrived - large rootball cherry Laurel, bare root dog rose, couple of viburnums, and Japanese anenomes.
Would love to get the new bed filled and put the brick edging on but looks like the ground won't thaw until next week...

Have my Ranunculus to pot on and put into the zippy greenhouse soon. They're getting a bit leggy inside but it's so cold out, I leave them til next week.

Might have had a spending incident at Sarah Raven. Some globe thistles and echinacea pallida.

Need to get out and weed the bastarding herb Robert and chop back the seed heads on the perennials but I am waiting til it warms up next week. It's way, way too cold out there!!!

May I join in please? I am a very keen ( but rather amateur) gardener, and my garden has been my saviour over the past year ( shielding DH).
I garden up a hill, near the coast, wet, windy and soggy clay soil which has not been cultivated for long.
I make my own compost, would love a greenhouse ( too windy!) and all my tomatoes get blight!
On the good side, I seem to have success with the onion family and last year grew the strongest flavour garlic ever! ( From cloves that started sprouting in the fridge!)

I can't wait to get started properly this year.

I feel the need for retail therapy. If you wanted year round interest in a hot dry border what would you buy?

soggy clay soil which has not been cultivated for long. If you're making your own compost, in five years people will be saying to you "you're so lucky, you've got such lovely rich soil".

Would love to join. We are completing on a new house on 26 March and I'm stupidly excited about getting into the garden. The seller is NOT a gardener and it is a bit of a mess with no interest - just lawn and hedge. I want to create big blousy borders. Would love to get people's tips for first jobs - there is a temptation to think about plants immediately but I wonder if I should start with the soil. (I used to live right next to a farm so our soil was rather full of nutrients!) would appreciate any sensible ideas for a first late spring in a new garden.

I'm planning another bee friendly border under the wildlife hedge on the driveway.
So many beautiful plants attract bees, I'm going to include
Alliums
Teasels
Cornflowers
Globe thistles
Hollyhocks
Penstemons

Bees in my garden go mad for the large version of Persicaria.

Hi tin, I’d start with plotting where the sun travels across the garden. This will help inform what type of plants for which area. Good idea to analyse the soil and dig in some soil improver.
Love the idea of blowsy borders. Peonies, hydrangeas, Roses, Japanese anemones and dahlias come to mind. Large delicate ornamental grasses, swaying in the breeze would go well.

It's waaaay too cold to garden here, but the seed germination is going great guns. I started 4 trays in the propagator last weekend. My tray of catananche looks great, the monarda is getting going, nothing yet from the verbena bonariensis or the nicotiana.

Snapdragons, balloon flowers and sweet peas all awaiting transfer to the front porch as soon as it's a bit less cold.

Tinsel, I think you need to spend time deciding how you will use the garden for the first year. Nothing worse than realising your lovely tree is exactly where you ought to be sitting out! I'd try to stick to pots, and seeing what pops up, and what neighbours are growing while you plan.

I've got a lot of gardening to do. We moved in 18 months ago and are slowly doing one area at a time. Our house comes around in a U shape and is north facing so I thought a raised bed with some shade lovers would be the thing. My camellias arrived this morning and I've just put them in. Lots of baby plants hardening off in the downstairs loo waiting to go in April-time.
I'm surprised by how much I enjoy gardening.

@BadEyeBri ooh I love your camellia bed! I'm slowly starting to realise it's important to get more than one of each plant... looks so much better in clumps, 'swathes' rather than the odd thing dotted about.
We managed to get out in the garden this afternoon. Planted my cherry Laurel that had been waiting in the garage during the icy weather , and a lovely crabapple 'professor sprenger' into a nice sunny spot at the end of the garden. Also found a few remaining conifer roots that hadn't yet been dug up. Moved in nearly 2 years ago and still finding conifers and random pieces of concrete dotted around. So much to do, so much to do!

I've also ordered a cheap 2021 diary following a suggestion from another thread . Plan to write in pruning dates etc. Something I always forget and keep needing to look up. No longer!

Got out into the garden this morning, oh joy!
Managed to clear a lot of rubbish that was left still flowering in the winter.
It was lovely to see the bulbs coming up and the little hidden primroses flowering. Still loads to do, I hope we’re on our way to spring and good weather.

Same here. Am in the north, and seeing tiny green shoots - even a few - coming through has lifted my spirits so much. The snow has mostly gone and hoping to get into the garden at the weekend.

Still mainly clearing out here, rather than planting, following house move.

I went out and pruned my lavender in the front garden today. I was pleased to find a cluster of ladybirds on one of the stems, but almost equally annoyed that I obviously had to leave that stem alone so now I have a nice round little bush, with a random stem sticking out
Hope they'll get the message and move downwards in the next few days so I can finish the job. I've seen loads of ladybirds in the last few weeks, which I hope is a good sign for natural predator presence this year!

Just popped to the greenhouse and was pleased to see sweet peas and peas coming along nicely. Also checked the pond, and first lot of frogspawn, wonder if this means we will have an early spring...I really hope so

Been out and cleared all of last year's dead growth on the perennials. I leave it for the bugs and birds but it's time it came out now. Ladybirds on my garden and first bee too.

Pruned the rose (always scary) and weeded the wretched herb robert and stickyweed out. Looks very bare now.

Next stop; mulching in a few weeks. I discovered some superb stuff last year called weedstop. As the name suggests, it surpresses weeds but rots down fast over the winter as it's made of quite a lot of wool. The wool keeps the slugs and snails down in summer.