The gardening thread

[andysays]

I really enjoy reading this thread too. It's great to see how other people have tackled their gardens and allotments. It's interesting to see different approaches and styles and plants I've never even heard of!

It would be good to see some of the posters who don't frequent the thread so much come back to give us updates on their gardens.

What have a learnt about my garden since I created it? It's a living thing that does what it wants a lot of the time. The neat planting plans I formulated at the start have become a lot less rigid. Some things worked, some things didn't. Some things grew out of control (the artichoke!). The garden grows and changes in ways I hadn't envisaged but it's good that it's evolving. I just have to work out how to coax it in a direction that I want.

As the garden had been subjected to major earthworks even before I got here, the resulting beds and borders have very different growing conditions even over a relatively short distance. There's still areas that I planted up which need reconsidering - some plants aren't quite as happy as they should be. Other bits, like my low yew hedging and the big beech hedge have exceeded my expectations.

You're so right when you say it isn't a competition. We all want different things from our gardens and we have to work with what we've got - I so want to grow rhododendrons but the effort to grow them in an overwhelmingly chalky dry site is so time-consuming I wouldn't be able to do so much elsewhere.

Gardens provide us with challenges. Each new season brings something different. I've noticed the spring bulbs in my garden are so much better than last year but the lingering cold weather and recent snow may well have finished off some of my hebes. It's these changes, whether it's down to my garden maturing, the effects of the weather or the amount of hungry wildlife eating my plants that keeps me inspired to go out there and make it better! Knowing there are other posters on this thread facing similar challenges just makes it easier to do.

After 20 odd years of gardening in a wide variety of spaces and contexts, I now view gardens and gardening primarily as a process of finding what works in a particular context, within the various limitations we experience.

We try things, see what works and what doesn't, and hopefully learn from the experience.

 

[iona]

Not pretty but it'll do the job, need to try and stick more shelves in ideally but I'll be taking them all out later and just have peppers in big pots on the ground

 

[bimble]

Sowing seeds, all day long (with reading on the internet about what each plant likes, in between sowings obvs) and i'm as close to perfectly content as i've felt for a really long time.
It's like magic the way anything involving earth on your hands just seems to sort my head out. Definitely the best mood altering thing i've ever found, this gardening lark, and i did do my research.

 

[wayward bob]

fresh new leaves are the best thing hornbeam

 

[two sheds]

My (hopefully) Dutch-elm-disease resistant elms are looking like that, lovely sight. Loved seeing elms in the 70s - majestic trees fully grown

 

[Saunders]

I’ve just planted a green wall / vertical garden thing. Dunno if it’s going to work.

 

[BoatieBird]

Ooh nice Saunders ,what have you planted in it?

 

[Saunders]

Ooh nice Saunders ,what have you planted in it?

Lots of Thyme, Heuchra, Thrift, Salvia. Some Rosemary, sneezewort, scabious, blue ornamental grass, some other things. I’m pleased I’ve made some decisions and finally ordered and planted everything I bought.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Caved and bought more root veg seeds

 

[TopCat]

Put down loads of grass seed yesterday. Spending a lot of time watering. Where are our April showers?

 

[iona]

Caved and bought more root veg seeds

What did you get?

I misjudged how much seed I had left and had to buy more leeks, so got more lettuce at the same time (should be able to sell a load of those though) but definitely, definitely not buying any more seeds at least till autumn now. Except maybe beetroot because there's a variety called Crapaudine and I'm immature enough to find that funny

 

[Artaxerxes]

What did you get?

I misjudged how much seed I had left and had to buy more leeks, so got more lettuce at the same time (should be able to sell a load of those though) but definitely, definitely not buying any more seeds at least till autumn now. Except maybe beetroot because there's a variety called Crapaudine and I'm immature enough to find that funny

Impatient waiting for my onions to grow (these take fucking forever to grow and grow like a millimetre a month so I am wildly optimistic to see them after a couple of weeks of cold) so more of those, yet more carrots and some parsnips.

 

[TopCat]

It’s so warm in the sun this morning! Hoping this will provoke more germination.

 

[MBV]

I potted up these yesterday:

Free Wildflower Seeds just pay 99p postage @ Just Bee Honey - hotukdeals

Save the bees with these lovely wildflower seeds for your garden. Only 99p postage.

www.hotukdeals.com

 

[waxoyl]

Put down loads of seeds yesterday, am lucky I've got a hose pipe. come on sun.

 

[TopCat]

I have about 10 sq metres of freshly sown seeds. Fat wood pigeons are lurking. My partner won’t stand for me blatantly shooting them with my trusty air rifle. I am feeding the cats outside to encourage them to hang out.

 

[TopCat]

Me too but there's been no rain for a week and none forecast for next two weeks

Six water butts and half are empty by now

Manon of the springs.

 

[two sheds]

The spring that flows across the bottom of the garden has dried up too

well not exactly a spring - flows out of the mines

 

[TopCat]

I’ve just planted a green wall / vertical garden thing. Dunno if it’s going to work.
View attachment 263764

That’s really cool. Promise us you will post update pictures please.

 

[bimble]

I bought seeds of kenilworth ivy / Cymbalaria muralis, and have been tenderly fussing them for weeks, and they're now miniscule protoplants.
Then just now realised that there's fucking loads of the stuff, flourishing ebulliently outside already, getting ready to bloom, all in the gravel of the driveway. And the outside ones look about ten times bigger and healthier than my coddled babies.
I want to stick them into the crevices of a wall though.

 

[iona]

I bought seeds of kenilworth ivy / Cymbalaria muralis, and have been tenderly fussing them for weeks, and they're now miniscule protoplants.
Then just now realised that there's fucking loads of the stuff, flourishing ebulliently outside already, getting ready to bloom, all in the gravel of the driveway. And the outside ones look about ten times bigger and healthier than my coddled babies.
I want to stick them into the crevices of a wall though.

I've been pulling it out of the crevices of a wall and sticking it in pots to transplant to other places later

 

[bimble]

how can i get it into the wall though? In tiny lumps of earth somehow squished in there? So funny thats its really hard to try to artfully replicate what nature does when just left in peace.

 

[two sheds]

I want to do that with mexican fleabane, have tried lots of times but just doesn't survive. I've even given it yoghourt

 

[iona]

Did the paths for my mum's flower garden bit today. Got five roses to plant but the beds need topping up first (another exciting trip to the compost drive-through!) so will get all that done this week. Next plot along are getting a new shed this Tues so they were clearing out the old one today and gave me a mattock and a few other tools for free.

how can i get it into the wall though? In tiny lumps of earth somehow squished in there? So funny thats its really hard to try to artfully replicate what nature does when just left in peace.

I'd probably try sowing direct into the wall if the crevices are too small to plant into.

 

[Saunders]

That’s really cool. Promise us you will post update pictures please.

Thanks for the positive comment. Its been rather a bone of contention here for that last two years, and I’m just glad it’s finally planted up. I will def post updates, even if it doesn’t work.

 

[Leafster]

A battle was fought overnight across mine and my neighbours' garden.

The casualties we have found are tulips, lupins and alliums.

The warring parties appear to have been foxes as nothing has been eaten. The corpses just lay cut down in their prime where they fell.

 

[TopCat]

Did the paths for my mum's flower garden bit today. Got five roses to plant but the beds need topping up first (another exciting trip to the compost drive-through!) so will get all that done this week. Next plot along are getting a new shed this Tues so they were clearing out the old one today and gave me a mattock and a few other tools for free.

I'd probably try sowing direct into the wall if the crevices are too small to plant into.

That’s quality. Sort of stuff they had at Capel Manor.

 

[campanula]

I took my phone and my camera to the allotment, to try to get some pics of the tulips in their gaudy prime. Now I just have to learn how to get pics onto my PC. It used to be simple with my old computer and my camera, but having swapped to a chromebook and also a phone, I have literally no clue what to do. Anything which involves ancient passwords is destined to fail and annoyingly, chromebooks don't have a familiar storage system. Even worse, when my old PC finally carked, it had 8 years of photos of the wood and the allotment in (on) the hard-drive...now all lost to me. Reduced to squinting at a teeny 2inch screen so have given up on photos altogethjer (apart from today). Asking my offspring is an exercise in humiliation so I am going to collar the 9 year old (grand-daughter...who manages to explain stuff without a single tut or eye-roll. Anyway, hopefully, I will get this sorted so I can join in (and even have a little modest boasting because the plot is looking heartbreakingly lovely at the moment).

 

[two sheds]

Do you still have the old hard drive?

 

[iona]

Second gardening group went well today - cleared out the vegtrug and topped it up with new compost, sowed a load of veg, pricked out salad and tomatoes and potted up some cuttings. Guy who just watched last week did a bit of seed sowing this time, someone else came out to just to sit and chat in the sun and two members of staff joined in. New project worker is into gardening himself and was really excited about all the stuff from the garden we can use if covid rules let us have a bbq this summer; took some rosemary cuttings for him for his own garden. Our cleaner hadn't ever done any gardening before but she got stuck right in and I gave her some purple sprouting broccoli to take home since she hadn't tried it before. Now I just need to work out what to do with all the millions of bits of old strawberry plant I swore I wasn't going to waste my time rescuing.