The potting shed: sheltering from the rain and musing about the garden

[ComeIntoTheGardenMaud]

Years ago, there was a potting shed in which we could recline on slightly faded deckchairs while browsing bulb catalogues, so might it be time to re-open it? I’ve hung some bunting at a jaunty angle and put the kettle on, so come in and tell us about your summer gardening joys (or woes) or plans for the future.

All welcome.

That sounds amazing @VenusClapTrap. I love old gardens.

Hello, hello <<scoffs Hobnob>>

You're very welcome, FlowersInPots, and welcome back to former potting shedders returning to the mother ship.

That garden sounds beautiful, VenusClapTrap.

What are your gardening plans for the weekend? I’ve got some new Niwaki snips to play with.

What a lovely idea for a thread. Can I join please? I’ll definitely bring biscuits.

@VenusClapTrap - that sounds heartbreaking. I hope you enjoy trying to renew your garden which sounded beautiful.

We have 1.5 acres - house is a relatively new build and was basically built in a sheep paddock. It’s mostly grass. Well I use that term loosely. Some grass and lots of weeds in the back. More grass than weeds in the front. The front is bigger. DH is obsessed with the ‘lawn’ and his ride on mower although he’s been out of action on and off since May as he hurt both knees at different times.

We have a large patio with narrow raised beds along it and lots of pots. The patio is my domain really. I’m a sort of reluctant gardener in a way. Love planning and buying not so keen on doing! But I did do quite a bit this year and enjoyed it.

I planted two dahlias in pots this year - so far ok from snails. My main enemy is deer. They love my roses. I looked up last week and a deer was just outside our patio doors. Followed by three babies.

My new project is at one side of the house. We are having a garden room installed next to another shed in an area that DH constantly left a mess of weeds and overgrown grass. While the digger was here this week I got them to take up all of the grass and weeds in that area and I am planning a gravel garden. ChatGPT has given me lots of ideas and planting lists! I’ll put up a picture of the area. It’s two areas really divided by a fence.

Some photos of the areas for the gravel garden.

Welcome newbies and oldies! I love the idea of us being ‘mature stems and new shoots’! I am definitely a crusty old one in need of some rejuvenation pruning.

Plans for the weekend: I need to get the mower out and cut all the grass. I have some yellow rattle seeds that I pinched from the meadow at Great Dixter that I intend to sprinkle in my orchard. I’ve been letting the grass grow long in there for a decade now, but it’s a bugger to cut and has failed to produce anything more interesting than grass and some dandelion cousins. Until this year, when I found a lone spotted orchid! Very exciting. Unfortunately snails ate it shortly after I spotted it. 🙄 So I’m hoping to get some yellow rattle going, to give the more interesting plants a chance, but I’ve tried and failed before.

Just been out in the garden and planted some plants I have had for a while. Two Agapanthus plants into agapanthus pots and three other plants I bought reduced from Crocus when buying the agapanthus pots. Can’t even remember what they were! And I think I have put them in to pots that are too small. Oh well. Survival of the fittest around here!

Overindulgence in potting shed biscuits is likely to mean I’ll need substantial rejuvenation pruning around the waistline!

I’ve got a few new acquisitions to revamp my pots. That’ll be my job for Sunday, weather permitting.

I won’t get anything done in the garden today but hopefully will tomorrow. I have some bulbs to plant. Some to go into some bowls on the patio steps but I need to take out the nemesia that has been in them over the summer. And I need squirrel protection. I also need more pots……

Also had a chat last night with DH about plants for the gravel areas and he is going to plant lavender from seed. Should keep him a bit occupied! I’ll see if I can find other seeds for him to get started.

It's so lovely to see this thread! I am place marking until I've caught up.

ooh , can I pop in and say hello ?
I was never on the gardening shed thread , but ran the veg patch for a few years on here .
I have had a few lean gardening years though - a dodgy hip , and my daughter unexpectedly had twins 😂, so the allotment had to be given up , and it has been a 'try to keep it under control' regime at home , ( though I did manage to carve out a veg patch around my greenhouse as soon as I gave up the allotment ) .
The twins are due to start school next week , and I am looking around the ravaged garden - so so dry , and a hosepipe ban ...and starting to get itchy fingers

Hello, most recent joiners and rejoiners!

For me, the endless watering has been the most trying aspect of the dry summer, and has reinforced what I already knew - that I have too many pots. The waterbutts have earned their keep - especially once I worked out how to attach the hosepipe to the waterbutt that collects grey water - but I’d have struggled with a hosepipe ban.

Hello and Hello! I’ll stick the kettle on. Earl Grey or English Breakfast?

I got the main lawns mowed but they were still a little damp, so I didn’t do the rest. Hacked at the brambles that are trying to reclaim the compost heap at the bottom of the garden (they have been allowed to remain on what was once a log pile and is now home to hedgehogs and other wildlife), and tied in the new shoots of the wisteria on the pergola. The one on the house is dying, but so far the pergola ones are thriving.

The gardening here is mainly watering - we have had just one day of insipid rain in the last 2-3 weeks , so the ground is like concrete- I garden on chalk/flint , and normally only have a couple of pots and a hanging basket , However , I am atm babysitting my daughters collection of pots until she moves into her house in the new year , so I have lots to deal with ! So in the last couple of days it has mostly been deadheading dahlias , and trying to sort out my seed box .

This was the pergola in May

ooh , and thank you for the offer of tea VenusClapTrap - English breakfast please 😀

Gorgeous wisteria! I’ll have an English Breakfast tea please, VenusClapTrap. Do you have decaf (have had to become fussy, on doctor’s orders)?

Great thread. I've just moved house and left behind a large country garden which was becoming unmanageable due to time and effort needed to maintain it. My new garden is a mix of containers on areas of gravel and stones and a border currently populated with roses gifted to celebrate anniversaries and other life events. I'm excited in my new gardening venture and am researching which plants suit pots and containers especially for winter colour. I also hope to have a small potting shed by springtime next year.

Pulling up chair and showing off my lupins from June this year. They make me very happy.

They are stunning, TheGirlattheBack! Lupins are my nemesis - as soon as they break through the soil here, they’re demolished by the snails. I am envious.

Thank you. I plant them in copper rings but I’m also lucky enough to have slow worms and hedgehogs in the garden who eat most of the slugs and snails.

Venus, can you talk me through recongising honey fungus? I have just hit the possibility of it. No mushrooms, and it doesn't seem to me to smell strongly, but I am paranoid! What I am seeing is die-back (which, of course, could be this hot summer), and some white fungal growth upwards from the ground - but not the classic white growth underneath the bark; this is white spotting up the outside of existing trunks/stems.

I know I could get it tested, but in your view - does this sound as if I might have dodged it? Or not?

Hello! I was never a commentator on the veg patch really, but I always read it, so I feel I 'know' you! How lovely to hear how you're doing. Twin granddaughters sounds wonderful.

I see your snails and slugs and raise you this. In our back garden. On our crappy ‘lawn’.

Teas coming up! Maud I’m sure we’ve got decaf in here somewhere <rummages around in the drawer, scattering plant labels, teaspoons and bits of twine left right and centre>

@SarahAndQuack that could well be honey fungus, sorry to say. You can find out for definite by sending off some samples to the RHS - that’s what I did in the end. I had my suspicions but was a bit in denial and kept trying to convince myself it was something else, because like you, no mushrooms and other key indicators missing. Are you a member? If not it’s worth joining, just for this if nothing else.

Oh deer, Peridot! We have them round here too, but luckily they don’t come in my garden. Combination of high walls and hedges plus we’re very much in the heart of the village which probably puts them off. Likewise badgers, which cause problems for neighbours who back onto fields/woods.

I was afraid you'd say that. I mean, it does sound like it. I'm local to FERA so could get them to test it - I won't yet, as there's nothing much to be done except mulching, good plant hygiene, and encouraging competitor mushrooms, all of which I can do anyway. Ah well.