Trowel and Error

[FiveO'Clock]

I agree, it looks like a Dieffenbachia - Nice prize!

[Mountain Goat]

I am sorry about your arsehole snails, Cerise! Half my instagram at the mo is slug and snail damage, it seems like a really bad year for it.

The other half of my instagram is the new David Austin rose. (example post of many: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7LvZ_sN_QQ/?img_index=2 ) OMG I love it. I am looking out the window trying to work out where I can squeeze it in.

I bought more plants yesterday at a local nursery that's really good - they don't have much in the way of unusual or thrilling, but really good quality and really cheap, and the man who runs it (rumoured to be 95) knows EVERYTHING. He is sometimes on Gardeners Question Time. Anyway I picked up a car bootful of plants (mostly hostas and heucheras for the shady front part, and nemesia for filling gaps in sunny pots) and I still have gaps all over the place. And I spent most of the weekend working on the garden but just lots of small things, weeding, planting out, continuing to harden off and pot on, staking/supports, pinching out, earthing up, feeding. Oh, I do have a tiny courgette! Lots of flowers, only one female, but still, it begins...

[Derek Nimmo]

Ooh, what a beautiful rose

I've just bought some astrantias to hopefully add a bit of colour to my own shady front border, will see how they get on.

[emma_p]

I'm very much looking forward to giving the roses a sniff on Friday!

[Mountain Goat]

Ooh are you going to Chelsea?

My astrantias still haven't germinated. I do have a lovely dark red one and a white one I bought as plants just starting to come out though.

[Cerise]

Ooh are you going to Chelsea?

My astrantias still haven't germinated. I do have a lovely dark red one and a white one I bought as plants just starting to come out though.

I assumed she was coming to visit you! Better get some biscuits in!

[emma_p]

Yes, I went with work last year and S was so miffed I booked tickets for his birthday. He's really excited but has refused to buy a panama hat

[Mountain Goat]

I've got a pack of rich tea that J bought in a spectacular show of incompetence when I asked him to pick up some cake or something for his parents coming over for mid afternoon coffee.

I am jealous!

[Mountain Goat]

Some parts of the side of my house are starting to fill out and take on shape (some parts will still be in an awkward adolescent phase for at least another month ). I was out there this afternoon and a woman walking her dog walked round the corner and just went "oh my goodness" and came over to say nice things. There is an awful lot not flowering yet and an awful lot not even planted yet and it's very patchy, but it's starting and the bees are very happy.

side garden May.jpg

My proper garden isn't doing that much at the moment, I need (for next year) to get more plants that flower between the early spring tulips and spirea and all the summer stuff that's in bud now. I have a lot of leaf and not much else back there.

[Disco]

that looks great goat! really filled out looking and colourful.

My garden still looks adolescent in parts but it has been a long process with no spare cash for lots of plants to fill it out. It is filling out now but I need more things to give colour in summer and autumn so please tell me what I need flowers, bulbs, nice bushes etc.

I love the things you told me to buy earlier this year. They jazz my garden up very well.

[Derek Nimmo]

That looks fantastic Goat!

I still have no sodding peonies. They've been buds on the brink for bloody weeks now, the teasing bastards Everything else is going mental though.

[Disco]

I've still only got balls, Del. Mine always take lomnger than those I see around me.

[Mountain Goat]

Thank you! I'm excited about how it will be when the rest of it kicks in.

I think those big fat buds are beautiful. Though I appreciate you may want the flowers. No buds on mine but I didn't expect any, it's just a baby. I do have one (1) rosebud though! Which sounds limp but they were planted bare root as nowt but sticks only a month or two ago.

I'm very happy your new plants are working out Disco. Most of my summer stuff is flowers: most of my shrubs step back into the shadows a bit in summer except my hydrangeas. Strong Annabelles are gorgeous, enormous white flower heads, happy in part shade ( or in sun if you water them well, but just very useful for brightening up a shady corner). Or Limelight, big cone shape flowers that start off lime green before becoming white. Both much more exciting than standard hydrangeas.

For the flowers, I'm a fan of a rudbeckia for really bold colour, long flowering, easy going ( they like sun but don't need any fuss), good for pollinators, reliably hardy. I have Goldstrum and last year it flowered well into November, and one plant was still giving me odd little runt flowers in January. They've pretty much doubled in size this year too. I've ordered a more orangey one too but it's not here yet so can't review it.

Dahlias? More expensive and more fussy but really pack a punch?

Are you looking for any particular colour or shape or height or growing conditions? I'm trying out loads of new things this year.

[Disco]

Oooh thanks |Goat! I love the strong annabelles! I've got my friend's car next week so will factor in a triop to Dobies and the rudbeckia sounds good too as the internet says birds like the winter seeds heads.

I have had dahlias but they haven't done more than a couple of seasons (are they supposed to?).

I don't really know what I need or want it has filled out a lot very recently with my new bought and given bushes - "Darling Number One" and "The Iron Man" next door gave me five laurels and a nice pillar like light green privet thing - so probably mainly focusing on elongating the colour/ flowering season with things that pop up each year and flower.

Really I need to shape it so the borders create a weaving shape or sections or something down the length of what is quite a long rectangle garden. But it's rented so I'm not really doing landscaping as such so I want to at least create some depth in the borders rather than lining up random pnts which is what I did 13 years ago Sorry TLDR plus gibberish.

[Disco]

See lack of finesse here. The borders aren’t just strips. I do cut in different curves but I need to mow and do that atm.

[Mountain Goat]

I only have a sec but I absolutely love that lime green acer (in particular, I love both of them) and want to put wafty dark purple with it like salvia Amistad or salvia Nachtvlinder (shorter than Amistad) - both perennials but can be buggered by a very cold or wet winter. Or one of those very rich dark purple clematis, if you're allowed to put up trellis?

[Disco]

Oh yes, I like that very dark purple of the amistad - thank you.

I don't get on with clematis. I had a very dark purple one I planted to climb up my mock ornage blossom (other side of the garden) but it didn't grow very well and I have a paler purple-y one currently climbing up my black sambucus (other side) but again I find it very delicate.

[Derek Nimmo]

Clematis need shaded roots but sun for the rest of it don't they? They're a tricky one in terms of location.

[emma_p]

My pink peonies that have been in balls for weeks have finally opened! Some of them were practically horizontal after all the rain but S found the peony prop in the basement (I was hoping to cut them to bring inside!).

[Mountain Goat]

They need shaded roots but I think planting them deeply enough usually covers that. But plants just sometimes aren't happy somewhere they technically should be and that's that. Stubborn.

It's only an annual but I'm thinking about something like malope trifida vulcan for a dramatic pop of colour - it has a lime green centre too to tie in. You can get a pack of seed for pence and sow it direct around now. It grows fast and should give you flowers for months.