Trowel and Error

[absley]

Unhelpful, Bats.

I was charmed by the wood pigeons when we first moved, having only been used to the city version, but now I know that if something has gone wrong, it's usually them...

They do make me laugh though, when I see them sitting in the bird bath whenever it rains. Plonked, immersed and immovable.

[Bat Macdui]

They are funny little things. I call one of them Heathcliff, he sits on the back gate in high winds, with his feather ruffling round him, looking windswept and interesting.

[absley]

Silly things, indeed!

[Mountain Goat]

We have Claudius, who has a gammy leg, and hobbles around the lawn eating whatever everyone else has dropped. He is high up in the "cons" column of Letting Moo Go Outside. The collared doves rule the garden though, Eleanor of Acquitaine sits on top of the feeder and flaps at anyone else that tries to use it, including carrion crows twice her size. She also stares in at the kitchen as I have breakfast, tilting her head at me to indicate the feeder needs looking at.

I have sworn to get a man in when I'm ready for a pond, this bout of digging labour has been plenty enough. But I always say that straight after a project and by the time the next one comes round I'm back to gung ho and doing it myself. See also: painting. I forget the pain. Also my sister is getting a man in to do a load of garden stuff and my god, the cost! I almost offered to do it myself but did not.

I haven't searched for garden groups actually, thank you! I have chatted to a few people and am member of all the generalised community groups but didn't think about a specialist one. I was thinking to just put my excess seedlings on a table at the bottom of the drive and put a notice in the general group but a gardening group would be ideal.

I did some of mine too early abs, my indoor lettuce is so leggy because there just wasn't enough light at first, repeat sowings are looking so much better. I am hoping to get my potatoes in next weekend too, and the sweetpeas. I'm just desperate to free up some space. This morning I had to stake my baby courgette with a diffuser reed as it was flopping a bit.

Your plant moving sounds very pleasing, and I can imagine that moving into a mature garden it takes a good while to get a feel for what's there, how you use the garden and how you want it to look. Even for me in a non mature garden, dividing and moving the grasses/red hot pokers was a big psychological shift towards creating the sort of backbone structure I figured out I wanted after two years of tilting my head this way and that at it.

I had to google red dragon paperbush, it's gorgeous and so unusual.

[absley]

It was your red hot poker moves that gave me the nudge I needed, Goat.

I saw the red paperbush at East Ruston Old Vicarage garden a few weeks ago (really recommend it), and was reminded that I'd also seen one at Sissinghurst and loved it then too. Having looked properly, I may end up with a yellow one as they seem much easier/ cheaper to source. Beautiful perfume either way.

[Derek Nimmo]

Yes, George is very gung ho about moving stuff around - I'd never really thought about a garden being a moveable feast, but it really is (especially a mature one as you say).

The paperbush looks gorgeous! Another plant to add to the "covert" list.

[Mountain Goat]

Oh good! I was initially nervous about moving stuff but got over it as the developers had planted so much stuff I wanted to move/didn't care if they didn't survive the move that I soon realised most plants adjust perfectly well, and some might thrive. I will absolutely be moving things about here every spring as shrubs that are now babies start to need more space and as I dig other beds and I need the balance of the planting to shift.

The yellow is lovely!

I am background pondering my next tree, I won't plant till autumn/winter now. I was looking at an amelanchier lamarckii (good for all seasons, good for small gardens) but now it's spring I see the developers planted about 10 of them just round the corner from my house, so I'm feeling like I want something a bit different. Possibly a cornus kousa chinensis, but I am uncertain. Or a pragmatic apple tree. One section at a time, need discipline...

[absley]

That cornus looks really lovely. I'm a big fan of crab apples (I think all apple trees are malus, so they're connected?) - we have a couple and the blossom is lovely (lasts longer than the amelanchior, although the high winds really haven't helped this year!) and the birds obviously love the fruit. You seem to be able to get quite different forms too - ours are both upright, but there are weeping ones and my neighbour was talking about a slender version she's just bought for a small gap they have.

I love multi-stemmed trees, and would also really love a white stemmed tree but can't find a space atm.

[Mountain Goat]

That's a good point about crab apples. I was looking at them earlier on, and then got swayed by someone planting an eating apple tree grown on dwarf rootstock in a pot (this would be in the ground, but the dwarf rootstock point made me ). But (I need to look into it) I don't think most eating apple trees are as decorative as crab apples. I want to disguise the view of the compost bin but I don't want to create a load of shade.

Multi stemmed are the best but always ££££. In our garden growing up we had a eucalyptus tree with beautiful peeling white bark. I used to climb it and perch up there. It was massive though!

I've just made the discovery that a key spot on the outside bit is plantable. I thought it was an access point for drainage and was about to put a border around the drain so I can build up some mulch around it and I got it wrong, it's not. But what to plant there? It's a very visible spot and feels like it should be a statement plant, and it is close to the red hot pokers. It's a difficult spot though: it's right next to the house (so nothing with invasive roots). It's generally a sun baked corner that gets very dry because it's hard to reach with a hosepipe BUT this spot is at the bottom of a slope so when there is rain, it all gathers there. When I was digging around looking for the drain cover, I found patches of white mould in the earth. So I think this is a tiny, metre square microclimate of damp/poor drainage in an area that is mostly drought planting. I'll dig some grit in but I think I need to not invest £££ in this spot until I've figured out what's happy there. I am currently thinking a buddliea Black Knight (they'll grow anywhere, surely, and the dark purple feels like it would be a bold contrast with the orange around it) or angelica gigas (more unusual, dramatic and more "intentional" looking than a buddleia, and the shape would contrast well with the red hot pokers). I'm only 75% sold on either, but not getting that *ching* feeling: but also I think any plant there is a gamble so maybe better to not fully fall in love with whatever I choose. Perhaps both for now? The angelica is an annual, the buddleia will still be a baby so may fill the space eventually but not this/next year. There will be other annuals in the area too, with white breaking up the purple here. Sorry I am rambling again, trying to get my head around it.

[Tabitha]

Hello. I have wandered by to spy on your gardens and see what ideas I can steal.

I have a fairly small garden which I started work on very enthusiastically 15 years ago, but I had no ££ and even less idea what I was doing. It's done pretty well considering, but this year I decided to take the plunge and get it renovated by professionals. They've more or less finished now, and so I have a second patio at the back where the evening sun falls, sturdy fences, a new shed and - most excitingly for me - a pond.

What's left of the lawn is a right old state, it wasn't good before but we had gardeners trampling about on it for weeks in the rain, so getting that in order is a priority. Other than that I need to learn about pond planting and make some informed decisions about shrubs etc rather than repeating the error of choosing things that are too big / delicate for the spaces. We did manage to keep about half of what we had before, so don't have to start completely from scratch.

I couldn't quite wait until May which was the intention to let things recover and see what would re-emerge, so went to a garden centre on Sunday. I got a cordyline, scabious and some fuchsias all of which are in pots for now. My neighbour has also given me a sunflower, and when I visit my mum in a couple of weeks I'll be raiding her beds.

[Mountain Goat]

Ooh! That sounds lovely. I am aiming for a similar second evening patio and a pond but not until at least next year, so great envy.

I would be more than happy to foist my surplus seedlings onto you if you want any, providing I don't kill them all off before they're ready to leave home. I definitely don't have enough garden for everything that's germinated.

What are you thinking in terms of new shrubs/style/colour?

[Tabitha]

I'm thinking of it as the Gin Terrace, but it's been quite hard to keep the faith that we will ever be able to be out there without coats and boots to be honest.

Seedlings would be lovely, I love to have things that have started off in other people's gardens. I'm hoping the cyclamen and snowdrops from my aunt's will come back next year, they tried to emerge this time around just as blokes were stomping there. Although my fussy peonies which seldom flower seem to be absolutely fine for having been laid on the earth for a week or so until I intervened and chucked them in a bucket with some soil.

Each bed now has a few shrubs which I'm hoping to have seasonal flowers in between. On the left I have something large which is about to produce yellow flowers, it's a cutting from a neighbour who didn't know what it was either. Maybe a pittosporum of some sort? Next to that is a hydrangea and at the end a huge pink camelia which is just about to have its remaining blooms blown off. On the right I have a tiny fatsia, medium acer and large sambucas.

Against the wall at the end I have a very narrow bed with a climbing rose. I bought a box of random blue and white bulbs from Sainsbury's on a whim and stuck them in around it, so who knows what will emerge. The cat has dug them out as fast as I've put them back in, so we'll see who wins that battle of wills. There's one to add to the cons list of letting Moo back outside.

[Disco]

The Gin Terrace sounds marvellous.

I can't help as my garden is still sparse and unplanned over ten years in from base level of three shrubs.

My tulips are so slow - compared to gardens I see in passing - as only the first two opened today. They are both eyelash tulips. A few of the ice cream tulips have formed two or even three flower heads from one bulb. They're not open yet. Quite a few haven't formed the flower bud though they're all at the wet end of the garden where I've lost many pants to the bog.

I need to channel your vision, Goat, but there is a whole wealth of knowledge I don't have in my make up. My parents only ever maintained a well landscaped - not by them - garden.

[Mountain Goat]

they're all at the wet end of the garden where I've lost many pants to the bog.

I will come back more sensibly when I've stopped crying.

[Disco]

Oh dear. I must proofread!

[Disco]

Ny first eyelash tulip.

[Tabitha]

Gosh, that is lovely!

[Mountain Goat]

Oh that's gorgeous! Well worth the wait. I have two types of tulips, nothing anywhere near as pretty as yours, the first (slightly green-y white) is just finishing (thanks to the winds ) and the second (yellow with red tips) is just getting ready to open, so I think it's normal for some types to not be in flower yet. I'm really pleased with both, I couldn't remember what I had planted and I thought the second was plain red and was regretting that until they came through and were much nicer than I thought.

I'll save you some seedlings Tbas, my second type of cosmos has just germinated madly too, loads of them. Planting seasonal things between established lovely shrubs sounds like a great plan to me. As does enjoying them from the Gin Terrace.

Oh god, bulb digging up definitely going in the cons column. Also I suspect the new gravel section that we SHOULD finish this weekend will become a marvellous giant litter tray. Luckily there is currently only one cat I know of that visits the garden and she steers clear of me after I shooed her away from my pigeons the other week. Maybe news of a public cat toilet will spread though.

I have a buddleia and angelica gigas in my basket and have also added a peony and a large pot to make the delivery charge worthwhile, but I am sitting on it before hitting the buy button.

[Derek Nimmo]

What a gorgeous tulip!

My wisteria-lookalike buddleia has been moved to a sunnier spot in the back garden so hopefully ( ) will go mental this year.

[Mountain Goat]

Ooh I remember that! I hope it does go mental.