The 2026 Gardening Programme Thread

[NebulousSadTimes]

Welcome 🤗. Pull up a chair, or an upturned bucket, grab a handle-less mug of whatever takes your fancy, ignore the cobwebs in the corner, there are some seed catalogues on the potting bench for you to entertain yourself until someone else pops in to chat about whatever has taken their interest on the telly or radio in all matters gardening 🌻🐞🌿🐝🍄🐌

Thanks for this. Now I shan't have to. Phew!

@Celiathebanshee yes thanks for taking one for the team!

You are very welcome. Somebody else can try freezing and smashing a rose (did anybody else think but what about the greenfly/earwigs/bugs?)

Nice just watched the second half of GW. Look at his dahlias! Three of mine haven’t done a thing and the rest are about 2”
tall 😭😭 I won’t be cutting them back

Made a bold move for me and cut my dahlias back and they have produced new shoots
I was very nervous about this as I wasn’t convinced, however I am now a convert

Way to ruin some perfectly good strawberries, IMO.

I quite like hostas if still young and tightly furled. Stir fry in sesame oil, with a bit of furikake seasoning (toasted sesame seeds and sushi nori).

Watching Beechgrove.

I cba with hanging baskets as we so often get summer storms and it would do my head in having to watch them being blown to bits or having to take them up or down.

I'm v loathe to scatter wildflower seed in my beds as cba cutting it all back when they die off.

When it comes to gardening I am impatient, lazy and like things neat.

Interested in next weeks section on bonsai. I'm doing outdoor bonsai on tiny saplings of maple and oak that I bought.

I can't remember anything that particularly appealed from last night's episode.

I'm seeing bits of Chelsea here and there but there's not been anything that's had me rushing outside to try it either. I do fancy a multi white stemmed birch but I've got honey fungus and apparently birch are susceptible to that, although all my other birches are fine but they're just common and garden self seeders, not expensive fancy ones.

Tonight's GW is Chelsea Flower Show. I enjoyed this more than I usually do.

I don't like dark coloured flowers/plants (Acers, dark tulips) - they make me feel it's autumn already! Give me bright colours so I know spring/summer is here!

Interesting bit on mushrooms! (is a sentence I never thought I'd write!) I like "weird" plants like moss, airplants, cactii, sempervivum.

I don't normally like grasses/ferns but I do like the idea of a plant that evolved to not be eaten by dinosaurs!

I do think I fancy a gnome actually!

The lady with the pink hair and massive rings on her fingers - I want to be like her when I grow up! Maybe she and I are kindred spirits because I too am trying wildflowers in a pot. Monty clearly loves her!

Interesting that the Plant of the Year guy with his hosta recommended keeping it in a pot so you can move it about to get the right amount of sun. Haha Monty is so harsh "I don't love it".

Like the hydrangea that starts white and turns red.

Raining at Beechgrove!

I like bonsai but cba with the wire! I'm way too clumsy! I just trim mine.

I sat down to watch Beechy last night and woke up five minutes before the end 😆

I could do with some rain here but not until I've brought the washing in.

it is indeed true about birches and honey fungus, we just had to get rid of one

there was an interesting bit with Carol in last nights GW where she spoke to a botantist about seeds, I'd like more of that sort of thing!

@StillWeRise I think it was last season of GW that Sue Kent planted some seeds from the 1970s and they germinated fine!

@StillWeRise I'm sorry about your birch, that's sad. Although it's always an opportunity for more planning and replacing, albeit with something suitable that might not be your first choice.

I rewatched Beechgrove last night and still can't remember what I saw , although there were a couple of points of interest. The velcro for attaching growth to a frame being one.

Oh, that was the other one - the mushrooms! I've grown pink oyster mushrooms before from a kit which were a revelation, I loved them, but eventually my room was filled with little black flies so I had to put it outside and it all went a bit spores up.

sad yes but a blessing in disguise as it was casting shade where we didn't want shade! we would never have chopped it down for that reason but the fates willed it!

Every cloud @StillWeRise ☀

Beechgrove tonight

I HATE geraniums, esp in pots. Puts me in mind of old ladies. It's the leaves I think. Indeed, I don't generally like variegated leaves. Sorry Callum.

I really like rhododendrhons tho.

I do find the "handy hints" handy.

The episodes are awfully short once one has fast forwarded past the veg growing bits!

I hated geraniums for years @AntiqueVases , I didn’t like the smell or the silly variegated leaves. However they have been creeping up on me for a few years and now I have I think about 9 or 10 in pots. I’m 52. I think you are right about the old lady thing 🤦‍♀️🤣🤣

I have a geranium with gorgeous dark red flowers and I will not see past it, the others - meh. I'm old.

Yes, it didn't take me long to get through Beechy last night and I've started watching last week's GW. The seed thing was interesting, I didn't know they need a fluctuation in temperature.

GW - great episode!

I always get the impression Monty cba with Forget Me Nots! I'm patiently waiting to collect the seed pods from the ones I have in a pot so I can start a new batch. I don't want them in my borders, only in pots.

Can tell they are ahead of me here in Edinburgh. My roses are only getting started.

Love those giant irises! I had no luck with planting my own iris bulbs. Think they got too wet/I planted them too deep/in the wrong sort of soil. The ready-potted ones from B&Q were ok tho. Shall see if they come back next year.

Interesting that Monty left that honeysuckle "doing nothing" for 15 years and it's finally flowered!

That garden in Brighton is really pretty - god though all those pots must take some amount of watering and repotting etc. Aha they are also growing seaholly like me!

I like aeoniums but I don't have a greenhouse so I'm sticking to sempervivums for a similar look.

Quite pleased we haven't had any virtue signalling "community garden" features for a few weeks! <evil>

That was a good episode of GQT today, three of my favourite panellists and interesting questions. My usually hard as nails heart may have melted a bit at the last one, and the answers ❤

One thing though, why do they have to "Hello audience!" half way through every bloody episode to get them bloody clapping. Argh 😫

@AntiqueVases I thought of you when they said Beechgrove is visiting a - your favourite 😁- community garden in Easterhouse this week 😬🌻

I'm a couple of episodes behind on GW. Started watching one last night and promptly fell asleep, as per

the last one was at the GW show I fast forwarded through most of it

I do that quite a lot @StillWeRise - tropical plants, houseplants, chillies, tropical gardens, inside the flower tent at Chelsea, unbearable presenters, how to sow seeds again, how to plant a plant again. With all that and my falling asleep it's a surprise I see any of it 😄