The Good Life (gardening chat)

[nineseven]

That's lovely, Pawpads.

My dad is coming to stay for a couple of nights on Tuesday to help me tackle the garden.

[Disco]

Lovely Peppa! And nice poppy.

[Rebel Pebble]

Opium poppy.

Good luck Nine.

[Pawpads]

How did you get on with your Dad coming and helping in the garden, Nine?

I'm about to go and do some weeding but have taken a few pictures of my garden to share.

[nineseven]

How did you get on with your Dad coming and helping in the garden, Nine?

We got loads done! He was a great help. I've now got a second patio at the end of the garden, which gets the sun in the late afternoon/early evening. It was previous covered in overgrown plants and weeds. I need to get a couple of huge wooden workbenches taken away, and also I need to buy some proper garden furniture to replace the mismatched chairs I have at the moment (just a small cafe-style set will be fine there). I also need some for the patio nearer the house.

I have also cleared about 75% of the larger raised bed, but still have to tackle the rest of that and the borders along the sides.

Your garden looks lovely, PP!

[Cerise]

Baa, thank you for mentioning sunflowers all those months ago. I’ve grown different coloured ones and a yellow one eventually reached over 3.2m before losing itself to the rain the other day. Everyone who’s been in my garden has admired them (and I heard the neighbours guests comment on them too). They’ve bought a lot of joy. And now the squirrels are enjoying the heads.

Tomatoes don’t seem to be as successful. The plants have grown huge and are loaded with tomatoes but no sign of the salad tomatoess ripening. We had a handful of cherry toms so far so hopefully they’ll continue to develop.

The boys enjoy being sent to the raspberries to eat dessert direct from the bush and they also like the carrots and lettuce. The spring onions are good too. Courgettes were a bit of a bust this year. Beans did ok ish but I’ll try to get climbing ones next year.

[smalex]

Sunflowers are great fun.
My bush variety cherry toms have been v successful but the proper ones are a disaster. I find them very patchy.
Courgettes have been great but they're just on the way out now.

[Cosmopolitan]

You are so right about sunflowers Cerise, mine have totally transformed our garden, they're huge and bright and every one is amazed by them.

[Cosmopolitan]

Oh and I finally finally have some dahlias from those sodding Farmer Gracy bulbs. I bought 9 bulbs, 6 grew plants, 3 have 1 flower each on them even though the plants are huge. Not buying from them again even though the gladiolus were amazing.

[Marth]

Your balcony and sunflowers are amazing, Cos. Can I come and live in your street?

[Cosmopolitan]

Please do, both the house next door and a flat in the next to that building are for sale.

This is not next door but is very nice https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-fo ... 63980.html

[Marth]

Please do, both the house next door and a flat in the next to that building are for sale.

This is not next door but is very nice https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-fo ... 63980.html

That's very nice!

[Rhodonite]

I'm jealous of the sunflowers. I can't grow them, at all. This year was the most successful, in that a stem grew, but I didn't get any flowers.

[Fournaan]

Oh and I finally finally have some dahlias from those sodding Farmer Gracy bulbs. I bought 9 bulbs, 6 grew plants, 3 have 1 flower each on them even though the plants are huge. Not buying from them again even though the gladiolus were amazing.

Hello, first post ever and I'm hoping you will accept me into your gardening chat! I have to admit I mainly signed up so I could have a look at people's gardening pictures. I bought three dahlias from Farmer Gracy this year too. One I put in the ground and that has got quite big but I suppose the most flowers it's had it on at one time were four. One has two on it and the other is still yet to flower. But it's going to, I just know it!! Just need a bit of sun...

On the other hand, some dahlias I left in the ground from last year and were cheap ones from a local newsagent have been back and loving life this year! I do love buying from Farmer Gracy though! Their spring bulbs are great.

[smalex]

How are the gardens going gardeners? I'm pleasedwith ours, the cosmos are really going for it. I'm going to do my bulbs at the weekend I think.

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I've also got some salad, rocket and pan choi finally, found the only place the slugs can't get them.

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[Rebel Pebble]

Yours is looking lovely Smal. Great late Summer/Autumn colour. Mine has some good colour going too but it's a bit of a mess. Between the extreme heatwave and the high winds that all happened when we were away in August, some things got bent and flattened and other things just flat out died. But I still have a couple of cosmos going strong plus a very happy begonia. Pics in a moment.

[smalex]

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And did I mention we're getting this dream boat greenhouse? I'm very excited. Its on a 12 week delivery but we need to build a little patio for it first so thats OK. Its only 4ft by 4ft

[smalex]

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I deleted the photos in my first post somehow!

[Rebel Pebble]

Greenhouse! Mine is falling apart at the seams.

Colourful chaos :

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[Rebel Pebble]

This started out as a tiny plug plant.

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