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.

Congratulations on your new house and garden @heldinadream . Victoria sponge would be lovely please! It’s great you can get outside. I don’t think there is such a thing as too much on plants personally, much better than new clothes so as a result I have very little to wear 😀 Do you have a good local nursery anywhere? Ask around and see if you can find where the landscape gardeners go in case there is a tucked away one who doesn’t advertise as we have here. Between that one and a farm shop that sells plants and has come great offers like 3 penstemon, heuchura or ferns for a tenner plus one a bit of a trek away, I have save loads though I have admittedly spent a fair bit.

My plan for next year is cuttings to bulk up what I have and have try to have a bit of repetition amongst the borders. Some to swap would be helpful, we have a great local FB page where people put up surplus plants and seeds. I still have yet to uncover some concrete slabs that are buried beneath years of composted leaves so that goes into the raised beds which I have been too tight to pay for anything to fill them with yet, I do need to find a supply of manure and I think I will collect sea weed. My comfrey got mostly eaten by slugs but saved a small amount so hopefully will get a comfrey patch.

Back of the garden is very bare as had loads of rubbish covered by overgrown shrubs that are now cut back. Less soil than I was hoping as found more slabs, I had ideas of a woodland bed. I could move the slabs but I think maybe it is sensible to leave them so less to maintain.

We also have an underground water tank under the concrete we call a patio. It used to have a pump to pump soft water into the kitchen so they could get the laundry soap to lather as the water here is hard. We braved the rain one day and it seems to still be connected to the roof as water was coming in so really I need more water butts and a pump to pump it into them.

Thank you, @Seaitoverthere , I have to agree with you that there's no such thing as too much spent on plants, but I have a husband who is giving me the occasional hard stare, although given what he seems to spend on horribly boring things like electrical trunking and switches and shelves and all that kind of shizzle I don't think he's got a leg to stand on. 😂

You've got a hidden water reserve! Blimey that's good, how big is it? I'm imagining some vast underground cavern a bit like Wookey Hole? We inherited 3 decent water butts from our vendors which was kind of them to leave (going some way to mitigating the endless diy bodging we are uncovering). 🙄

Gardening-wise, the biggest challenge is that I quickly discovered the soil is quite poor. Heavy clay a few inches down and a fair bit of rubble, too. So I can't just fling plants in with the recklessness I'd like, I've got to improve the soil bit-by-bit.

Here's a hole I'm digging to bury DH for a very nice tree that should be on its way soon from Gardening Express. I know they're not the best but they had the cheapest offer on the tree I wanted and the last lot of plants I had from them were late arriving but OK, so I decided to try them again.

Can't get photos to upload, says they're too big even though I just resized them. Bah. Will try on laptop. Very proud of my digging! 😂

Victoria sponge, did you say? Yes please!

And how exciting to have a new garden to play with. I’d also recommend looking out for any local gardening clubs who might have plant swaps.

The sun is shining here too, so I’ve made a start on the Sisyphean task of raking leaves from the muddy patch of grass I grandly and optimistically call the lawn.

Glad the sun's shining for you too @ComeIntoTheGardenMaud ! The forecast here for at least the next week is relentless rain so I'm making the most of it.
Trying those pics again... 👀
Ooo seems to be working on laptop!

@heldinadream trunking and cable and he complains at plants 😲😀
the water hole is not at all Wookey Holesque, about 6 foot wide x 6 deep at a guess. We inherited water butts but they leaked sadly.

@ComeIntoTheGardenMaud that sounds familiar on the lawn front. My was so brown this year. I said to a friend and she said hers was brown, looked at mine and said “ oh it’s brown” 🤣

Just scored a free small plastic shed for allotment, just need to work out how to get it there.

I actually have a Mumsnet Garden. 6 or 7 years ago I had to completely rip up my garden that I had for 40 years due to ill health.

i started a thread about it titled The landscapers are her and it’s more exciting than Santa. I talked about how hard it was to give up the garden and asked for ideas for low maintenance plants. The advice I received was phenomenal and so I have called by garden the MNet garden ever since.

Hi all.

I have done nothing in the garden since September. Except buy plants for my new gravel garden in the Crocus sale. They arrived while I was away for a few days and DH messaged to say they looked very underwhelming. He’s not wrong. Not sure whether to plant them out once the beds are ready next week or baby them a bit in the greenhouse over winter. I have 6 each of lavender intermedia Grosso, Salvia nemorosa Caradonna, Perovskia blue spire, Alchemilla mollis, Erigeron karvinskianus and Stachys Byzantia Big Ears. Any thoughts from you much more experienced gardeners?

We are putting in some trees too. Just after we put in a garden room along one side our neighbours on that side took out a stretch of very overgrown cypress trees. We are happy to see them gone as they have been a worry whenever it’s windy but we are now very overlooked on that side. Not currently a big issue as it’s a big plot and only an elderly lady lives there but we will put some trees in on our side to break it all up a bit. The landscaper is here doing the gravel garden and finishing off other stuff so he will get them and put them in.

I need to get my enthusiasm back. We spent ages painting the garden room so the actual garden got left. No winter prep has been done. I think I need to make a list.

That looks great @Rictasmorticia. The colours!

Thank you .the Acer in the foreground is Sango kaku. The stems turn scarlet in the winter.

@Rictasmorticia what a lovely job you've done creating a low-maintainance garden. I'd be interested to know more - and see more pics, too. Definitely up for making my new garden a minimum workload/maximum enjoyment project.
We are thinking of ditching lawn altogether for gravel paths between plants/beds.
Your acers are wonderful! 😍

It’s raining here but I’m now I want to go out to the greenhouse and potter around. Thank you!

It’s pouring down here and our poor landscaper is here trying to get stuff done. We were out in the rain this morning deciding where things need to go. I had it all planned out and he put a spanner in the works and suggested we moved a circle of paving for a siting area to a different area last week which I agreed but then everything else needed rejigging.

I am keen to get the planting done now. And the winter tidy up of the back patio. Although still have some stuff in flower.

@Peridot1 that is so exciting. Can you post photos. I love a garden make over.

@Rictasmorticia - these are the before pictures. I’ll post updated ones later when it’s not pouring down.

<< tries ineffectually to blow some of the bigger cobwebs out of the potting shed>>

Well, it’s been a while. Did everyone have a jolly Christmas with nice garden-related gifts?

I ventured very briefly into the garden today, to cut the old leaves off the hellebores, but it was too cold and damp for any sustained gardening.

Hello! You made me jump; I was just snoozing cosily in this wheelbarrow in the corner, tucked under a big pile of horticultural fleece.

Happy New Year! I got a Crocus voucher for Christmas. I haven’t decided how to spend it yet.

I have a New Year’s resolution to take the bull by the horns, stop crying about the honey fungus and get back in the garden. I totally neglected it last year, because it all felt too dispiriting.

So I made a modest start over the weekend, starting with the narrow borders around the patio. Out came the dead annuals, lots of weeds, mint that was rampaging and some bloody brambles that had snuck in while I wasn’t watching. Pruned the last two remaining Jacqueline du Pré roses (which appear to be in rude health, despite the other twelve in that border succumbing to the honey fungus).

It’s a start.

Hello! I have been reasonably productive in my own garden, for once. I've done my hellebore leaves and I've been tidying. I know we are all meant to be keeping lovely untidy gardens for the wildlife, but I promise, this is necessary and long-overdue tidying, including collecting up the thousand or so stakes/canes that I have abandoned leaning up against things because I meant to come back to them and put them away. I've also (this is terrible) only just chucked the tomato pots from last summer, which were still sitting around looking very sad.

I am loving my witchazel this year, so proud of it! And daphne. OTOH I have box plants sitting guilt-tripping me in pots because I didn't finish getting them in along the side of a new border I've dug out. I need to get onto that once the ground thaws again.

Hope I can join for some motivation. I do work on my garden each year and grow my own plants from seed but I don’t actually enjoy it! I just want the results.

i was in the garden last week tidying the borders but have left all the fallen leaves in them for the insects/wildlife. I already have a few new plants from seed growing in my small greenhouse. Lupin and something whose name I’ve forgotten.

wanting to plant tomatoes this year for the greenhouse - can’t remember when they should be planted though

Hello! I have been very busy on the gardening front. In garden I have been doing a bit of weeding and moving things that were in the wrong place. Got 18 cream primulas for a tenner that went in this weekend.

Been really lucky with the allotment up to now. Got rid of most of the rubbish. Cleared a patch of brambles by the stream at the bottom and have put up a shed I got second hand, can sit in it and see the stream, will clear a few more brambles.

Put in a couple of pallet collars filled with manure, dug out 20,000 feet of bindweed. Previous people put membrane and a tarp under beds and it just let the bindweed spread to a tangled mat. Membrane is now disintegrating so been digging it out. Left the tarp and have strawberries in that bed.

Have planted shallots, garlic, broad beans, peas, rainbow chard, rhubarb (found one in the brambles), gooseberries , summer and autumn raspberries and a plum tree. I have 2 patio apples and a pear to go down soon. Manured a fair few beds and started edging ones that don’t have a surround.Have bought all my seed. Made a rubbish compost bin with pallets there. Tied up all the old wood. Have taken incinerator and wheelbarrow down I inherited with house. Had a fire and spread ash on one of the beds.

There is a pond there but a bit rubbish with steep sides and right behind a couple of beds, I’m convinced I’ll step back and fall in so have started a new where there is a sandy area, I think it was slabbed. All started well until I found buried glass, loads of it and started to regret that decision but will keep at it.

There’s a lovely visitor who comes when I am having my cuppa in the shed.

@Uncertain111 some people are starting tomatoes inside now but you need lights really and they will get big and take over window sills. I hold off until about March usually .

I get what you are saying about just wanting the results so instead of growing from seed each year can you invest in perennials over time? It is more expensive but once you have them then that’s it and they do their own thing. Also things that self seed such as poppies, calendula and foxgloves.

Plant sales in the spring are a cheap source and it is worth seeing if you have a local FB plant group who swap seeds and plants. I have loads of poppy seedlings in the garden now thanks to it and have made a lovely friend through it. I have her a cheese plant which is how we met and she had given me stacks of plants from her garden.

Any keen gardening friends? If so ask if they have anything you could have. It is supposed to be enjoyable so find a way to make it work for you.

Hi wow sounds like some of you have been incredibly productive especially with allotment. I have a quarter plot allotment but we don’t do too much - this year planning onions, potatoes, leeks, runners, some brassica and already have lots of fruit in there. Might do sweetcorn for the first time. I love turnip and carrots but they don’t tend to grow for me. Also usually do some courgette as it’s ridiculously easy.

@Seaitoverthere thank you for your suggestions. I do have lots of perennials which I love - some previously grown from seed. I am also lucky to have a good established garden due to the previous owner having done a lot and done it well. I always just do calendula, cosmos, sweet pea etc every year. The Californian poppies self seed luckily. But even still I don’t particularly enjoy the actual gardening I do 🤷‍♀️. Maybe the friend idea is a good one - I do have lots of friends luckily but none of whom enjoy (or maybe just don’t have time for) gardening.

I look forward to staying on this thread to maybe get ideas from you all. I also have a little robin friend!

Honestly I think the way I make it work for me is not being too ambitious / not having too high standards 😳but I do love the results

I got a garden voucher and I am going to buy pansies.

Your garden sounds lovely @Uncertain111 . Maybe resolve this year will be the year of lower standards and more sitting and enjoying the garden.

Happy shopping @Rictasmorticia 🙂

I have ordered tomato seeds today. Sungold. I usually grow three or four varieties, but everyone always eats the Sungold and leaves the rest, so this year I’m just going to grow a greenhouse full of Sungold. I’ll start them off towards the end of February.

I stopped myself ordering flower seeds after looking in my seed tin and realising I have enough to keep me going for the next decade.

I started my sweet peas in November and they’re going well. Just reaching the pinching out stage. I’ve always grown them up obelisks in the middle of my veg beds, but they’ve been a bit dismal for the last couple of years, so I’m going to grow them in a border this year.