My Garden

What's my garden for

Last post 19-07-2009 5:37 PM by patiopal. 46 replies.

• 21/12/2006 11:49 AM

  CharlyD Location: Joined on: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2

  Reply | Contact Hi, I'm new to this site and have been reading everyone's messages - great!! My garden is pleasure, i never buy more that one of the same plant as there are far too many great ones to fill your garden with the same thing! how boring! It's real therapy to get out there and hoe off a few little weeds - the bleeders! and when my flowers start to but up and come through i love it. I love to see the wildlife in my garden and try to plant things that attract birds etc - much to the amusement of my 2 cats!! I started to grow veg last year so i'm looking forward to next year to do more. We've had a real frost this morning in sunny Devon where i live - but it's still great to get my wooly hat on and go and see whats happening! ...C

• 21/12/2006 04:41 PM	In reply to
  Digger Location: Northern UK Joined on: 18 Jul 2005 Posts: 4,743	Reply | Contact Hello CharlyD, Welcome to the message board my friend, I am sure that you will enjoy posting with us I have read your post about what you use your garden for with great interest. I sometimes struggle for space especially in the front borders I am up in the Peninnes and so far we have been able to avoid any sharp frosts. digger

• 22/12/2006 10:32 AM

  In reply to

  Paul Narramore Location: Joined on: 20 Nov 2006 Posts: 91

  Reply | Contact Hello CharlyD "What is a garden for?" you ask. Well when our children were young and we lived in the village, it was a childrens playground where our kids and their friends could play safely and we could keep an eye on them from the house. As they grew up, my pastime of gardening could at last be realised. Patios were layed and raised fish ponds were built. We could then have friends and their children around for BBQs - far cheaper than eating out and more friendly. Then we moved house to a rural home with a third of an acre. What an opportunity! Bit by bit since then, we've slowly changed and improved the garden which is admired by our visiting friends and worshipped by me. Most of the plants were grown from cuttings - I like swopping plants - and many have sentimental attachments. My favourite strongly scented roses, plants bought from Barnsdale, and Wisley. Plants with names of family members. The birdtable is positioned only a few yards from our living room so I can see the birds happily feeding. Gardening is such an enjoyable pastime.

• 06/01/2007 08:39 AM

  In reply to

  Veggie made Location: Joined on: 06 Jan 2007 Posts: 2

  Reply | Contact [b]Hi, Having watched last nights program about veggie growing, I have just joined this site as I want to be able share ideas about growing veggies. I have spent the last day filling some raised boarders with loam and so I hope to have a great year sowing and eating the produce. This will be the first year that I have really tried to grow anything so ideas and advice is welcome.[/b]

• 06/01/2007 10:37 AM	In reply to
  stevew Location: Joined on: 16 Feb 2006 Posts: 408	Reply | Contact Hi Veggie Made Welcome to the forums, I am sure there are people here who will help with any queries you have

• 07/01/2007 12:51 AM

  In reply to

  Snooze Location: Joined on: 07 Jan 2007 Posts: 1

  Reply | Contact Hi, I too am new to this site, and am enjoying reading everyones 'chat'. I lost my garden of 25 years due to a break up in my marriage, but now have a new 'virgin' garden to play in and build up again. Started last year and have put some basic borders in, and am now planning a veggie plot. It was dug over last year, fed (and is now being watered liberally!!) so cant wait to start planting come the spring. I never thought I would garden again, and for a while only had a 'yard', but last year brought back fresh enthusiasm and the ability to get 'lost' in the gardening and back to burning the dinner because I lost track of time!! Snooze

• 07/01/2007 09:31 AM

  In reply to

  stevew Location: Joined on: 16 Feb 2006 Posts: 408

  Reply | Contact Hi Snooze I moved to a new house 3 yrs ago and it was a house which had the gardens made to be low maintenance for an elderly lady who lived there, which meant 1 lawn and loads of pebbles everywhere else front and back It was like giving an artist a clean canvas and a new palette (not that I was a gardening artist but you will know what I mean) and it is great being able to fill in areas and plant shrubs etc when you had little room before It looks alot better now but I am still having fun planting out and I am sure you will too Steve

• 11/01/2007 12:08 AM

  In reply to

  buttercup Location: Joined on: 07 Nov 2004 Posts: 27

  Reply | Contact I read this with interest as I worked out that I have been gardening since the age of about 5. My father who was a very keen gardener (and knew all the plants by their latin names) gave me alittle plot to tend. In it I would grow nasturiums, raddishes (us gardeners do get hungry), marigolds, candy tuft. There was an espalier trained pear tree along one side and my father helped and showed me how to prune it. So I guess I have been gardening for fifty years or so, blimey!! Our garden is full of delight, I love visiting every day and checking how plants are doing. Sowing minisule seed and watching plants grow tall is just so exciting. True in the summers we lie under the apple tree and read, but up early before the sun has risen is a wonderful time to do jobs around the garden. Its a place for play, for relaxing, for entertaining, composting, creating. When we leave our garden will probaly get swallowed up with flats, and that is a great shame. Its lovely after the winter to rootle over the beds and take the weeds out and feel the sun on one's back. Long live gardening!! Jay

• 05/02/2008 05:42 PM

  In reply to

  Plantman Location: North Yorkshire Joined on: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 276

  Reply | Contact I am fairly new to the forum too. I have about three quarters of an acre, that when I first moved in just 10 years ago was a blank canvas. It had been a paddock for horses for the previous 5 years. There were no plants, the ground hadn't been dug for as long as anyone can remember and it was fully exposed to the elements from the east, west and north. Quite a challenge. It took 3 years of hard labour, mainly at weekends, to finally 'finish' the garden and then a further 7 years developing it. A garden is never 'finished'. What I ended up with is a real treat. Not just for us humans, but also for the wildlife. We use it partly for producing food with a veg garden and fruit cage, producing a varied range of veg and most fruits both soft and tree. The majority of the garden is 'ornamental' but there are plenty of secluded areas for that quite moment, and larger gathering and seating areas for those inevitable get-togethers. There is a large patio, stone walls, flowing steps, large rockery, pond, waterfall, pergola, breezehouse, sunken garden, large borders, Azalea & rhododendron area, veg garden, polytunnel storage and greenhouse. Many specimen trees and shrubs dotted about, any many of my favourites. The next job is to catalogue all the plants. We don't have any pets, other than the goldfish and Koi in the pond, so we have a decent garden. We do have the neighbours animals visiting occasionally. We live north of York and should be subject to rough winter weather. However, we haven't done too bad since we have been here. Not been snowed in yet. I have put some pictures on photobucket - [url=http://s267.photobucket.com/albums/ii305/plantman-album/?start-all]http://s267.photobucket.com/albums/ii305/plantman-album/?start-all[/url] Have a look at them. Enjoy Plantman.

• 23/02/2008 07:59 PM

  In reply to

  Penny35 Location: Joined on: 23 Feb 2008 Posts: 5

  Reply | Contact After living in the Western Isles for nearly ten years with about half an acre of boulder strewn windswept moorland that nothing could survive on (anything that did got trampled or eaten by chickens or sheep), I am so delighted to have a garden I can use! We moved in about a year ago. You had to duck under some ancient collapsing trellis covered with marginally less ancient honeysuckle that blocked out the light from a third of the garden. There was immensely straggly and overgrown rose bushes broken pots etc. The elderly woman who lived here before was no longer able to do anything with the garden. Within a year I have redesigned the borders (which are fairly well planted now), planted more new trees (we already have a lot of mature trees), put in a small wildlife pond, rockery, woodland area with a footpath through it and a bricked herb garden. I have also put in seating and am using the concrete foundations that I assume were for a greenhouse, as a patio area. This is the first time since I was a child that I have been able to do any amount of gardening (I now have 5 children of my own as well as being half way through a HND in Illustration) and I love it so much. I will find any excuse to be out there, the problem is I can rarely sit still and admire it, I always see something that needs doing and leap up to attend to it. Our garden is full of birds (and hopefully full of bees and butterflies in the summer) and it's a fantastic escape from the stresses around us. I feel frustrated that although I have had a lot of compliments from neighbours, many people in the area where I live do nothing with their gardens, or worse, use them as a dumping ground for rubbish or simply pave them over completely. Space for gardens is disappeared so quickly (new estates near here have tiny gardens that you would be lucky to fit a greenhouse in) I wish more people would realise how important they are. (I live in a cottage flat built in the 1930's which has a large garden compared with most housing today.)

• 01/04/2008 11:09 PM

  In reply to

  Plantman Location: North Yorkshire Joined on: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 276

  Reply | Contact Hi Penny, Just reading through your message now. Don't know how I missed it before. Your garden sounds lovely. Have you got any photos? Must have been quite a change from where you were to this comparitively well protected piece of land. You should never feel frustrated by other peoples gardens or what they do with them. Use your own garden as a means of release from the normal stresses and strains of todays life. Imerse yourself into your own garden. Don't be upset about their attitude to their plot. We are all different and, I know it is difficult to believe, but not everyone has the same love of the garden as we do. Don't let them spoil it for you. There are so many properties now that are being built with little or no garden, giving little hope for the young gardeners of the future, who don't know that they might like gardening, to have a little go. My dad started my interest in gardening some 50 years ago, and I still love it. I even do it as a job. Gardens are where we can relax, express ourselves, show off our pride, enjoy the weather and engender others to take up the cause. Develop the young. Enjoy your garden... always.   Plantman

• 08/04/2008 07:43 PM

  In reply to

  schol49 Location: Oban Argyll Joined on: 28 Aug 2005 Posts: 81

  Reply | Contact Whilst all the above answers have validity No-one has yet spoke of the Gardener`s Responsibility to contribute to a) Continuance and Maintaining the diversity of species without introducing further pests such as Japanese Knotweed, Leylandii, Rhodedendrum Ponticum, etc Almost all of these were introduced as Garden Ornamental Plants. Other pests such as bracken was introduced as cover by hunting estates   b)  Continuance of Native Species of Fruits, Vegetables, Herbs, Flowers, and Shrubs, for future generations to enjoy as well as providing habitats for Birds, Insects, Animals, Our Gardens are chronicles We are The Managers and Stewards of that which belongs to the future.  Running Wild in The Wilds of Argyll

• 08/04/2008 08:38 PM

  In reply to

  Plantman Location: North Yorkshire Joined on: 30 Jan 2008 Posts: 276

  Reply | Contact I believe the introduction of species as garden ornamental plants should be attributed to a higher order than us common gardeners. Whilst supply and demand dictate certain developments, it is hardly the duty of the 'gardener' to monitor other species. We do not know what other introductions will do to the countryside in the future. What might seem a good idea now, may turn out to be a poor decision for the future. Not just plants but animals too. Just take the grey squirrel as an example. The introduction of Wild Boar and Wolves to the UK. Is it or is it not ???? Continuance of native species is important, but not to everyone. This again is out of our hands to a large degree. We can support the breeding and growing of these species, but there must be a good reason and at the right cost, for the general gardening public to sit up and take notice. That's very few people again. We are all aware of providing suitable habitats for our birds, animals and insects. This subject being screened on TV on many occasions by the like of Alan Titchmarsh. Bravo to him. Getting the gardening populus to change their ways is not going to be easy or quick. I cannot see the well manicured borders and lawns of suburbia suddenly becoming wildlife preserves. I agree that we are managers of the future, but I think they are few and far between. We still need to look after number one before we can look after others, including the environment. Plantman.

• 09/04/2008 09:33 PM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact I like the idea of the Gardener's Responsibility - can I put in a word for conserving soil?  It is after all the basis of most  life on dry land.  Boggy     Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 10/04/2008 12:42 AM

  In reply to

  schol49 Location: Oban Argyll Joined on: 28 Aug 2005 Posts: 81

  Reply | Contact I agree if by soil you mean peat  just as oil and coal are irreplacable so also is peat which makes the idea of describing  composting as  a negative act total insanity Once we lose our Peat Bogs......thats it no more Another Biosphere Lost   and what about sand depleting sand banks leads to erosion of Dunes and Sea Cliffs Two more Biosperes Gone   Running Wild in The Wilds of Argyll