General Chat

Von I was thinking about some lavender. Before we moved here the house I was renting had a lovely garden with lots of lavender down the path. The soil here, what there is of it lol, is poor, mostly shale from mining I think, but it drains well.

Rose
Another plant I find is good for bees is Lavender and also I have lots of Lungworts which are very pretty in Spring. When the flowers are out it's like bee city in my front garden. The plants do spread a bit but you can always pull out those you don't want
I'm watching Sarah Raven as well. I always find her programmes interesting.
Von

I'm just watching a tv programme about wild flowers, and how little remains of the wild flower meadows, so am thinking about trying to incorporate as many wild and butterfly/bee/insect attracting plants as I can in my little plot.

There are already foxgloves and borage, and I know the marigolds will do well, and if the aquilegia's survive the frosts they are already there. It's too small a garden for any tree unfortunately, but I might get a buddliea in :-D

I think different animals give different reactions. Mine became worse years ago when we had a long haired kitten. Since then we have only had cats that turn up and adopt us, but as yet we have not had a time without a cat.

Kay

Strangely, we have had two cats but not had any for about 8 years as when our Holly died we chose not to have any as we go away for a month at a time spring and autumn. I was never allergic to our cats (Holly was a rescue cat), but now when we visit our son who has 2 British short hairs my eys sting and itch and I sneeze and sneeze for the first few hours.

I an sure she was as wonderful and affectionalte as ours is! He is called Bix and follows us everywhere outside. He chose to adopt and live with us and tries to help with most things, but the typing lessons I have given him have yet to bear fruit!

Sadly I am allergic and he can't come in the house, but he has the luxury of heated accommodation in our garage. He emerged briefly today but is back in there fast asleep.

K your cat in the picture is the image of one that we had 20 years ago, she was 13 when she died Josie she was called, had her from a kitten.

In Herefordshire it's still frosty but it looks like we will miss the snow tomorrow

Well we had a frost last night but the dutch iris, crocus and daffodils that are out seem to have survived. The primroses look a bit squashed but hopefully they will recover.

Lol potatoes, live plants. I suppose they would be if left wrapped up. Joking apart it is the bestw ay for them to get delivered promptly I expect.

Our hellabores are also starting to bloom. I do love the doubles and frilly ones. Our snowdrops have started but there are no sign of the early daffs yet. I did see a couple of dandelions in flower last weekend!!

I think this weekend I will sort out all the seeds. I split and replanted our purple Oxalis plants last week(inside) in a mad moment, but they seem to be taking it well. I also planted a few Clematis vitacellas up a replacement trellis/fence. I do love their flowers in late summer

Had rather a fright this week when a parcel labled live plants arrived and I was worried some plug plants I had ordered had arrived far to early. Thank goodness it was just seed pototoes!!

Von, OH says prune your roses.

Iris, wow, getting ahead there then. All we have done is put our potatoes to chit.

hubby has just planted some winter lettece in the greenhouse ,plus started some of the early cabbage seed off in pots .veg plot all dug over ,ready for spring .

I'd been tempted by the sunshine to clear up the dead leaves and tidy up a bit, but I'm now leaving them for shelter for the roots of other things and a bit of cover for the birds,

"Up to four inches of snow are expected to fall across higher ground today with temperatures set to plummet across the whole country by the weekend."

Von, it is worrying with everything being out of sinc isn't it. Some of our helebores are out and one cyclamen, some daffs and some primulas/primroses. We also have some plants that would normally sleep during winter such as Galardia that still have leaves on them and our lilac tree is budding.

The thread that I was talking about with Daff going round her garden was in March and she was mentioning helebores then. We gave her quite a few and she loved them.

Ann
I'm really pleased you have added this thread.
Certainly Daff loved her garden and it was really interesting to hear her gardening stories.

I took a walk down the garden yesterday to see what was in bloom and what I would expect to see in January and what was unusual.

I usually have daffodils in January as I plant an early variety that blooms then but this year there are far more out than usual.

My snowdrops made an appearance yesterday and my hellebores are flowering quite profusely.

Things that are out that I wouldn't expect to see are cyclamen,comfrey, clematis and marigolds
My roses also have lots of shoots on them so wonder if they should be pruned early.
Take care
Von

thank you ann me to

Hope your Daffs don't spoil Joy, we had a couple out but they were poleaxed by a hard frost we had although the primroses survived it.

my daffs are in bloom now way to early
as we are exspecting snow tomorrow
i hope they dont spoil

i miss Daff so much (bless her )
and remember to how much she enjoyed her garden

Goodness I think ours would be too wet Ann.