Get your garden out

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Front is just hellaciously overgrown

Rewilding is very <"on point at the moment">.

cheers Darrel

 

[jamila169]

Rewilding is very <"on point at the moment">.

yeah but there's rewilding - I won't remove a native plant unless it's mega invasive (currently trying to work out how to encourage some vipers bugloss over from next door) - and there's OMGITSATRIFFID , the escallonia and dogwood are well past that point and need showing who's boss, The volunteer hawthorn is probably going to go, because it's my main hayfever trigger

 

[Wolf6]

Finally spring has arrived in full glory and the garden is exploding!
Pond:

Lots of algae this year, but the plants are now starting to grow as well so lets see if we can get this back to manageable. Lots of tadpoles swimming around.

It survived -12 this winter!
Iris growing well and about to come into Bloom.


And bees loving the aliums and thyme.

 

[jamila169]

super chuffed to find this in the edge of the lawn, I've had a colony of pink and purple aquilegias in the garden for over 20 years, collected as seed from my old workplace that had a gorgeous garden originally put together in the late victorian period , so full of self seeded perennials ,and mine have thrown up multiple shades of pink and purple and multiple flower forms over the years - this one is different, bigger and graduated in tone, I've never bought any plants because I hate modern hybrids ( and nobody in the vicinity has any in their gardens) so 99% sure it's a really lucky sport. I'll be collecting seeds to see if it comes true and keeping an eye on the other juvenile ones around it to see if there's anything else interesting

 

[not called Bob]

Very nice, we just seem to only have the purple self seeding all over the place.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Very nice, we just seem to only have the purple self seeding all over the place. View attachment 170518

Mainly purple for me as well. The genuine wild plant is purple. Once or twice I've had pastel bicolour ones appear, but not as nice as @jamila169 plant.

The garden is looking a bit flowerier now

Cheers Darrel

 

[jamila169]

It's weird, but the buds on the new one are the same colour as my pink ones when they're fully open, I might cheat a bit and get some albas to add to the mix now I'm getting pretty hybrids @dw1305 , your garden is what I aspire to, I'm just going to plug away and plant each bit as it's cleared with splits, natives and seedlings I've already got and fill in the gaps with more stuff that grows well around here (good job I like valerian and cranesbills)

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'm just going to plug away and plant each bit as it's cleared with splits, natives and seedlings I've already got and fill in the gaps with more stuff that grows well around here (good job I like valerian and cranesbills)

Strangely the garden started to improve when I stopped "gardening" as such, and basically just went to a policy of minimalist intervention and growing the things that want to grow, rather than growing the things I want to grow.

I now plant very little in the way of new plants, and I don't worry about colour schemes or plants being in the "wrong place", and just let the self set seedlings etc. get on with it. I don't weed as such, although I still remove Enchanter's Nightshade, Field Bindweed and Wood Avens when I see them. Everything else gets to stay.

The major gardening I do is to occasionally pull out some of the Centranthus and Valeriana "Valerians", Thalictrum and Geranium spp. when they get too dominant.

cheers Darrel

 

[zozo]

Strangely the garden started to improve when I stopped "gardening" as such, and basically just went to a policy of minimalist intervention and growing the things that want to grow, rather than growing the things I want to grow.

Dito! Also, the best approach for me throwing bags of seeds around every spring and see what comes goes again and stays by coming back. 🙂

Sitting under the grape watching the cherries getting nicked by the birds and the squirrels, can you see it? Hoping they leave me enough to bake a cake or 2...


Also, my old rusty woodstove, can't use it any longer as a stove. Thus I made a flower pot from it. throwing in a bag of mixed flower seeds... Yet no flowers but I guess next month it will explode.

 

[mort]

The aquilegia have done really well in my garden this year as well. I think I have over a dozen different types now and they came from only two I originally planted. So from a short red, I believe rocket, and a supposedly chocolate, although I never remember seeing any, I have pink, white, purple, red, nearly black and a few more, nearly every flower is different as well.

This is starting to look good and the bees are loving it. There's a story behind why it's more rewarding than ever this year but it's certainly a welcome sight at the moment.



Also had a decent show from my pretty new wisteria. It's only a couple of years old but it's already flowering ok. The only problem is it was supposed to be a Japanese wisteria and not the american but I guess the labels got mixed up. Still for a tenner I'm more than happy.

 

[mort]

Hi all,

Strangely the garden started to improve when I stopped "gardening" as such, and basically just went to a policy of minimalist intervention and growing the things that want to grow, rather than growing the things I want to grow.

This is the same policy I've adopted recently and I'm trying to build up a collection of plants I'd quite like in the garden before leaving things well alone to see what does best. I'm surprised in only a couple of years just how hands off I can be, so looking forward to not doing anything soon (although im terrible at not doing anything and never just sit in the garden).

I do get funny looks from the neighbours though. One has an immaculate garden, where they might only have one plant from each species but it has to be the best cultivar there is. I'm not sure what they thought when the grass looked like the somme this winter as I was planting bulbs, daisies, self heal, red clover and birds foot trefoil.

 

[jamila169]

Strangely the garden started to improve when I stopped "gardening" as such, and basically just went to a policy of minimalist intervention and growing the things that want to grow, rather than growing the things I want to grow.

I've always followed that approach and was getting there (kids, dogs and border mowing spouse excepted) when I was diagnosed with CFS 12 years ago. I'd spent most of my spare time in my late teens and early twenties setting my mum's up to do just that and hers still only needs minimal intervention and occasional replacement of things that reach end of life 30 years on.
When I was physically unable to continue getting the basics done there were beds dug and some evergreen shrubs and hardy perennials in the back, and I'd seeded the naked parts with meadow flower seed (no grasses) what's happened since is the couch grass in the lawn has steadily encroached on the biggest bed at the end aided and abetted by OH just mowing 'the grass' so the more grass there was, the more he mowed, chopping down anything that was still fighting and on more than one occasion strimming the entire top bed apart from the plants that were big and obvious and I wasn't able to do more than nibble away at it for pretty much the last decade so we're left with a bed at the side that's not terrible, just overwhelmed with mature Alchemilla, Echinops and a tall Cotoneaster along with a couple of roses, the aquilegias then Bergenia, some Hosta and ferns near the house in the gutter soakaway field that's perpetually damp. I removed a huge green hellebore from the margin between the wet and normal part last year because it was about 4 feet across , boring, and killing the grass that already has enough to contend with being in the shade of the house most of the time -that's the bit I'm slotting more plants into , there's a Hydrangea my youngest got me for mother's day 2019 and I've put some Astilbe on the wet side along with Geranium Rozanne, Scabious and Sage on the dry side so far. In the top bed I've got Geranium Oxonianum , Crocosmia Lucifer, Euonymus Emerald and Gold, Cornus Alba which has layered itself all over, Mahonia, a large Lavender Hidcote that's not in good nick from competing with couch grass for years and a Rosemary in a tub that is very sad looking from being repeatedly blown over and not picked up when I wasn't around to stand it back up.
So, I've got some bones, some of which need remedial pruning and might not like it much (Mahonia and Euonymus), all of which need taking out and replanting just so we can get all the couch grass out (while looking out for anything that's managed to hunker down and defy the grass) and then the big bed needs filling with whatever I can get my hands on that is either grows like a weed round here, is a Derbyshire native or native adjacent so it doesn't ever get like that again

 

[mort]

@dw1305 can I ask what the red flowered plant just about to come out in what I'm guessing is your front garden is? It's at the front. Is it an armeria ballarina red? Looks like something that might fit in to my border.

 

[foxfish]

Nice growing and flowering conditions over the last few weeks have really set the garden on the move, my
mountain maple has come into leaf and the bay is nice and green.
Can you spot the red admiral resting on the wall top left ...

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

red flowered plant just about to come out in what I'm guessing is your front garden is?

On the edge of the gravel? It is Pilosella (Hieracium) aurantiaca ("Fox and cubs"), it is <"incredibly invasive"> but easy to pull out of the gravel and popular with Bees.

cheers Darrel

 

[jamila169]

@dw1305 @not called Bob here's the original Aquilegias , as you can see the pink one already decided to throw out some doubles



and the monster plants (the fence is 4 feet high for scale) the sadly deceased lavender was to the right of the Alchemilla, where the grass is



and the hellacious bit - well, the middle of it ,it's about 12 feet wide and goes from 5 to 8 feet deep (couch grass in heavy clay, it might as well be set in concrete

 

[mort]

Hi all,

On the edge of the gravel? It is Pilosella aurantiaca ("Fox and cubs"), it is <"incredibly invasive"> but easy to pull out of the gravel and popular with Bees.

cheers Darrel

Now you have named it I can see thats what it is. I know the plant well as i have a yellow version growing in the gravel at my brothers. It certainly is a spreader but it hasn't been hard to keep an eye on although I did strip most of it out last autumn. I've got some seed from the normal version so I might throw a few in the mix.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I know the plant well as i have a yellow version growing in the gravel at my brothers.

The yellow ones are really tricky to identify. There is Hieracium (maculatum) spilophaeum growing in the verge outside of a house just down the road, and at some point I'll liberate one, but after that you are really struggling for a <"definitive name">.

I've got an unidentified yellow one that grows out of the block paving and walls etc. I know I got it from a local quarry originally (during a <"Quarry Life project">), but I've never managed to identify it.

My star self set at the moment is <"Salsify (Tragapogon porrifolius)">, I'll need to get a picture on a sunny morning, because otherwise the flowers are shut.

cheers Darrel

 

[mort]

I'm fairly sure I have Pilosella caespitosa.

My star of the show at the moment in Linum perenne and it acts in exactly the same way as your lovely salsify.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I'm fairly sure I have Pilosella caespitosa.

My star of the show at the moment in Linum perenne and it acts in exactly the same way as your lovely salsify.

Pilosella caespitosa sounds likely, the only real difference would be flower colour. I love Flax (L. perenne), but it has never persisted in the garden.

This is Salsify* and my Hieracium.

* Apologies for the slippers.

cheers Darrel