Gardening thread
I've never been into gardening, and maybe it's my age, but I'm starting to get into it a bit, in a lazy 'benign neglect' kinda way (not least as my garden is 800 miles away when I'm in Devon. I love being in other people's gardens, but never really quite got it.
My French patch is really just a corner of a field, but having tamed the 'lawn' (so at least it can be used for sitting in), and with the fruit trees starting to give some decent summer shade, if I can spend a bit more time there, I can see myself doing a bit more to it.
What sort of gardeners are Cakestoppers? Lazy, fastidious, botanical, or not at all? Photos welcome... here's my lawn and newly-planted (2023) bed... still scope to do things.... will probably plant a napple tree this winter, bottom right of photo.
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If it rains much more, I'm thinking of cultivating a paddy field.
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Get yer tatties in min! Or a big polytunnel type thing for growing all sorts. Never mind the view, who cares about that?
Above may not or may be serious.
Sort of 'retired' but not really pro gardener, who has enjoyed much more his past getting on for 20 years of the active outside life after stepping out of the corporate hamster wheel. Lots to do in The Project outside. Now entering year 3 of the genocidal glyphosatal war on the endemic barsteward Spanish bluebells and couch grass.
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Patates not really practical when I'm there so little.
Might do a raised 'erb bed, but already have thyme ( a bit pointless with all the wild stuff around, but it's quite nice anyway), rosemary, sage, mint, bay (being a bit awkward - first one perished, second one looking peaky at Easter). Fruit-wise have blackcurrant gooseberry, greengage, cherry, plum.
Basically, I buy stuff, chuck stuff in, water it if necessary while I'm there, and the rest of the time its only job is not to die. If it survives, great, if it doesn't, I'll try something else!
Soil heavyish, climate generally no colder than here in winter, but scan get scorchissimo in summer. It was just a tangled mass of rubbish grass when I started with it, so it's quite nice to see even moderate taming & prettifying, even if it's random.
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Am happy with our bluebells that were already here, along with several venerable rose bushes. We've added a couple of cherries, one fruiting; a blueberry; a bay tree that is now home to various small birds; several other roses; lavender and rosemary; assorted bulbs including tulips, crocosmia and an agapanthus. Generally anything that is colourful and happy with brick clay. None of it's very tidy but there's plenty of wildlife for a suburban garden including slow worms.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
As much as I like tulips and crocuses, I'll probably avoid non-native bulbs, as I've got some of the protected local wild 'tulipes sauvages'.
Tried blueberry, but it died pronto, and everyone says they are almost impossible there. Anything that requires TLC is a no-no as far as I'm concerned... I'm too absent and too lazy.
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Not really into gardening myself but Mrs. 666 fancies herself as a gardener and does the planting, design, raised beds and a spot of food growing. I just trim stuff and move heavy things.
Also we have a bit much to keep neat and tidy, especially with dogs so we let it go largely au naturel. We reckon the plot used to be a mixture of meadow and woodland beforrle the house was built and the lawn sprouts loads of bluebells etc every spring and we strim around them until later in the year.
Ironically we bought a bigger mower to do the lawn 2 weeks ago but it's been too wet to use it, so needs a trim.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
Nice, Stevo. Would be waaay to big for me, and it would end up looking even more 'au naturel', and the neighbours would probably complain. It looks like a fair old slope you are on.
In the rented house I once had overlooking Dartmoor, I expressed the idea of planting some potatoes, and a farmer friend came over and ploughed a big patch of the garden. Trouble was, the soil was awful and full of clay, so was either sticky heavy gunk, or baked like concrete when it dried. I gave up, and it would have been cheaper just to buy spuds already grown by someone else.
Must admit that the farming bit put me off fiddling around with small quantities... when we were growing maize for the cattle, I think it was something like £150 for 30,000 maize seeds (per acre), so fannying around (am I allowed to say that now?) with a tiny packet of seeds for £5 and not planting 20 acres in a day seemed too much like wasted effort.
I'll stick to my fruit trees and perennials, scythe, lawn mower and secateurs, and let clever people do the fiddly stuff.
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Gardening is for the irony thread. By the time I'd retired and have time for gardening the garden is mature and doesn't need any work done. The wife does minimal weeding, I do the occasional "lawn" cut, and prune in autumn. That's it.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Thanks Brian,
Luckily Mrs. 666 has the time to do stuff with it, otherwise it would be too much even with our hands offish approach and subbing out the work on the big trees and hedges to the pros. On the plus side the dogs have plenty room to run around.
It is pretty steep in parts as you say, which makes mowing a bit tricky and the driveway 'fun' when it's snowed. But the views are good - we're on the other side of the valley that runs south of the North Downs Ridge, which you can see in the distance in the first pic.
The 'Good Life' project is stuff like courgettes, squash, beetroot, onion and garlic but we've bought in a fair bit of manure and topsoil for those raised beds as the soil isn't great, seems to be quite thin with sandstone underneath. Supplied our own compost though.
I have a mate who owns a farm down near Malaga and sells his fruit & veg to the local market so I might learn a bit from him when I go see him next month.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
Looks like the kind of garden I wanted when my kids were young. The great outdoors had to do instead. Looks nice and nice views around there Stevo.
Too many bikes according to Mrs O.1 -
Haven't got many photos to hand and a bit dreich to take any just now!
Medium sized ,old garden (our house is a victorian manse) Like Stevo I do the hacking and heavy labour, OH does the twiddly bits. Only food growing at the moment are herbs, but just built a couple of raised beds.
Pretty rural, with mixed woodland round us, so have to find plants that the roe deer don't eat! Have got a huge range of birds and a red squirrel though!
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Is that the naughty bench?
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Is this thread the inner old person coming out of you lot in sympathy with me? 😄
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Boomer Bloomers!
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Sun is out so planning to make some headway on the grass that has invaded everything. Also need to get the latest purchases in the ground.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
Not sure why you would want to bury your new drive chain stuff...
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Took me a moment to work that one out. 😆
Actually some rhubarb and some ferns for the damp shady bit.
Big project is to reinstate the lost veggie patch.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
At least us boomers have reasonably sized gardens unlike millennials that only have postage stamp sized plots.
Too many bikes according to Mrs O.0 -
My Topsham 'garden' is a backyard about 2m x 4m, and the 'front garden' is the road (not even a pavement).
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Wasted on ‘em.
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Stevo seems to have got my ideal garden. Would love that amount of space, even more so when it is one that doesn’t require cutting the lawn with manicure scissors.
We’ve got a small, moss ridden from lawn but the back is all hard paved other than a planted border at the bottom. However, the wife loves a bit of gardening and it is filled with various pots, planters and lights that look fantastic in the summer. It’s just starting to really come to life with some beautiful colour from the wisteria that the wife is really pleased with this year. Always buzzing with bees plus loads of butterflies in the summer that I take as a good sign. My involvement is generally limited to jet washing the patio, lugging endless bags of compost, moving any pots around when she fancies a change and doing anything she can’t reach. I’ll also have to repoint the patio this summer which my back is hurting just thinking about.
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Yep. There's more than one 😄
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Maybe not obvious from the pics, but the moss (and bluebell/wild flower) content makes manicuring the grass a bit pointless for us as well. It definitely would be too much if we wanted to keep it up to 'ideal garden' standards so just as well we're happy with it that way.
Although TBF we have done a lot of work to it to get the garden overall to that state, as the previous owners clearly weren't bothered about gardening at all and it looked like they pursued a policy of benign neglect for about 27 years. My local tip knows me pretty well.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
We wouldn't want you to feel like you're on your own Vince 😊
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]1 -
The ideal garden has an area coloured green, for walking on barefoot,.and then just needs strumming or mowing,.thereby minimising time wasted doing anything other than sitting in it.
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Cheers Oxo. The views are what sold the house to Mrs. 666, as she can look out the kitchen window at the North Downs ridge, as opposed to the view in the last place - which was a manky Laurel bush and my car 😊
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Tried to post a pic of the scene at my front of house, keep getting a 'validation failed' notification. But could post other pics e.g. of Cath Vader or LettuceHeadTruss or whatevs. But not this one... 🤔 As photo centres on a heap of building rubble debris, skip booked for Tuesday, wonder if the pic resembles too closely one of e.g. Gaza so fails the wunnerful forum software censor?
That view, the one you cannot see, will change significantly over the next month or so.
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File size, needs to be less that 2000 wide I think
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I get the same problem - for me it's down to picture size. I found that resizing the photos to 40% of original and resaving does the trick.
On my Android phone, I go into picture gallery, click on the photo then the little pencil icon, then click on the three dots in the top right of the screen which should bring up a resize option.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
Ah gotcha, thanks for the tips (😉) Shrank the image a bit and hey presto...
Anyway, looking good eh on this sunny spring day. Immediate front of the house, new sensibly sized front door, steps and porch reconfig, masonry painting still in progress, will sort out the existing keerap paving and then sort out some proper beds.
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