The FastDay Forum

[janeg]

Thanks for the link andy. Lovely photies

I don't think I've posted here yet so can I join in? I love my garden and I love going to gardens and appreciating the work that people have done on their gardens. My favourite garden close to me is the walled garden at Felbrigg Hall, I love it all year round...it's worth a visit if you're in Norfolk.
OH and I tried to grow some perpetual spinach this winter, the pigeons love it the little blighters!

Hi @auriga and everyone - yes I have such a problem with pigeons eating my leafy greens that I have to net my vege beds, using poly pipe as a frame.

Lovely to hear everyone's gardening stories, very relaxing and good for the soul.

Happy gardening everyone!

Thank you @rawkaren.

I have a 'good sized' garden, we've lived in this house for nearly 14 years, hubby was a landscape gardener but I sort of took control of this one when we moved here - except for the grass cutting which I don't like. I made new flower beds each year which has resulted in more work, but even though it would be easier to turn them back to grass I can't do it - the flowers and shrubs are my babies, many of them I grew from seed or cuttings.

I look forward to the spring when I can get out and tidy the worst areas but there is always something in flower or peeping through the soil in the darkest days of winter. We have winter flowering honeysuckle and mahonias flowering, plus the odd primrose, soon to be joined by an early camellia and snowdrops. There are still splashes of colour throughout the garden from last year's plants which are too stubborn to give up yet.

Welcome @auriga and @jools7

Rhubarb harvested

On the weekend, my rhubarb plant was screaming to be harvested and i set aside a Nigella recipe from her Summer cooking book for this special day.

I changed it up and added a tub of marscapone cheese to the whipped cream and a tablespoon of Marsala... the result was totally awesome. I ate more than my TDEE i know but what the heck it was just one day. And it still felt like Christmas.

@juliana.rivers That looks incredible

[janeg]

Juliana that looks stunning. I always think of Spring when I have rhubarb. First picking usually made rhubarb fool. Then next pulling as soon as the first cut of silage was done and turned into jam. (closer to midsummer!)
Yum

Ooh that looks so delicious!
I'm a bit of a gardener since giving up work and moving here two and a half years ago, so can I be in the club? At the moment I'm just hoping that everything is still there, I know it's nothing compared to problems in some parts of the world, but I'm now fed up of what our met office calls 'exceptional weather'! It's been VERY windy all night.

Wow....thanks for the comments on the garden. Here's my gardening CV

1982-1985 Apprenticeship with brighton parks department. Spent 6 months at each park within the city whilst going to Plumpton college for 4 years on day release. Trained in everything from nursery work to fine turf, sports and general ammenity.

1985-1993 Once the training was over, we get to choose where we want to be based....i chose the stunning nursery in Stanmer Park, brighton, Staff there were responsible for 2 greenhouses....big greenhouses, not 8 x 6 jobbies. I got the Fuschias, xsanths and seasonal pot plants in one and cyclamen and summer pot plants in the other.
eventually, i got to look after my dream house, the magnificent palm house where i looked after all the exotics and a lovely Orangery.

1993-1994. unfortnately, they shut the palm house down and they sent me out on a tractor cutting grass on run down housing estates.

1994-1999 Couldn't stand that so i left and joined Rentokil Tropical Plants where i was part of the interior landscape team looking after huge tropical landscapes in massive atriums, shopping centres, leisure centres etc etc all over the south of England and London....i even looked after the plants in Andrew Lloyd Webbers house in Belgravia, London.

1999-present rejoined Brighton city parks, initially back at the revived nursery where i was propagator but in May 2000, i became garden manager of the rockery where im responsible for the day to day running of the garden and its development.

So that's where i am now. We're currently trying to get the garden into an absolute show piece. it's a slow ol job but we're getting there. In the past 3 years (since my wonderful new manager took over) we've planted around 100,000 bulbs, 1,000 new herbaceous and countless shrubs, water plants and trees.

Im lucky that my boss just lets me order what i want....i go up to Wisley regularly and take a look at their superb herbaceous borders and order what i like....im like a kid a xmas !!!!

When im not at work, im on my allotment or down the garden in my greenhouse. Just started on the lotty but love growing veg at home in containers.

Sorry for the rant, hope you're still all awake.

Hope to get this gardening lark up and running especially with spring on the horizon !!!

Andy

[janeg]

inspiring andy
*must get out and water the very sad looking petunias in the tubs*

That's a coincidence Andy, my son studied horticulture at Plumpton College!

Hi @david f. Thanks for volunteering! My sprouting broccoli is looking a bit windswept after all of our weather. A lot of leaves blown off but the centres are still in tact. Any advice appreciated!

Move them somewhere less windy.

There, glad you asked?

Andy considerable more impressive than my hort cv.

Andy considerable more impressive than my hort cv.

To be honest mate, im probably a little bit of a fanatic. My boss always says that to be a really good gardener or plantsman, you have to be a fanatic.

Im always up at Wisley or kew or visiting locals gardens....we have some stunners round Sussex icluding Sheffield Park, Wakehurst Place, Borde Hill and Nymans.

Had the pleasure of doing The Eden project, Lost gardens of helligan and Trebah down in Cornwall last years. To be honest, when you have Kew and Wisley within an hour's drive, nothing else compares and apart from Heligan, i was a bit disappointed.