General Chat

I have a fairly small garden, that, when I moved in over 20 years ago, I planted shrubs in, and over the years have planted perennials in the gaps.
I'm not a great garden enthusiast - it lives or it dies, it gets severely pruned when it's too big, Ther is nothing to dig, and I rarely water it.
Can't use slug pellets, as I have sloworms.
Over the years, various plants that I didn't plant have established themselves, others have died off.
I had borage growing everwhere for a few years, this then disappeared and I had lemon balm - since been overtaken by Welsh poppies.
I've always had evening primrose, despite pulling them up every year.

This year I have some pink flowers growing on a barked area. Just looked them up - red valerian - which apparently I can buy for £2.95 a pot.
I've hacked down a buddleia that was growing behind some honeysuckle - it was about 4ft high before I noticed it! (willhave to dig it up soon)
I alsohave 2 yew trees growing in my forsythia hedge.

Last year I cut down a plum tree that was growing in totally the wrong place. After 2 years it showed no signs of flowering, and I didn't want my eye poked out by a non-productive tree!! It's shooting up again from the root - may make a hedge of it!
I also have a 4 ft high Guelder Rose - £24 online to buy!! (first noticed late last year, initially hidden behind some poppies).

Does anyone else get plants for free, or are you all 'proper' gardeners?

I've always had that kind of garden Maggie, now I've recently moved and haven't planted much yet, but 'next doors' raspberries are all over the place, scabious and nasturtiums have evidently come from the other side.

We had the valerian in Wales where it grows wild and that took over the edge of the path and right along the side of the house, one thing I did bring from there which had planted itself, is violets, which were lovely here earlier in the spring in a big pot :-)

Feeding so many birds we often discover 'free' plants!

My late Mum had a great garden, but like you she was of the 'It's got 2 chances, live or die' type.... Everything lived.
A small sprig of greenery left over from a floral display at a village club, grew huge, as did the 'I'll pop it in here' piece taken from a floral gift for her 80th birthday.

I have plants for free of one type, - enough to supply the nearby town. They are 3 cornered leek and an absolute pain to get rid of... Where they came from I don't know. There is a huge bed of them mingled with bluebells...... and anywhere else they can take hold.

Birds must have dropped an elderberry in the far corner of the back garden, at some point. That is now a tall tree with lots of blooms. I trim it back alot, but as it's tucked away, it can stay.

I have recently been looking after a neighbour's garden, while she was away and I looked in amazement at the fast-growing clump of yellow flowers, which were soon taller than the fence. Neighbour on the other side of that garden didn't have any similar, nor did we, so I thought they must have been planted.... They are oil seed rape, now with fair sized pods and returned neighbour is just as mystified because she didn't plant them.

Gwyn

Rose, you've just reminded me, I didn't plant the wild pansies that provide wonderful ground cover on a very dry bank.

Chris,I'm sure the birds flying over from people who feed them are the reason for my Welsh poppies!

Gwyn, I too have an elder tree at the far end of the garden, behind the shed! I hacked it down for about 4 years - then forgot it. It's a bit big now - and dying!

My sister gave me a Japanese Anemonie about 15 years ago. Now it's taking over the garden!!

I have four 20-foot tall, wide canopy Eastern Catalpas that are "volunteers" from the mama tree a couple of blocks away. And new ones popping up every year, especially now that mine make their own.

Unfortunately, three of them are crammed into a tiny space in front of the porch -- literally about 10 feet wide by 3 feet deep, betwen the sidewalk and the porch -- and directly under the hydro wires. The hydro people took note of them last year and hacked them viciously.

Fortunately, catalpas seem to be weeds and nothing stops them. They've grown to that size in about 10 years -- two to three feet a year is standard.

Also growing up in the side garden ... and wouldn't you know, directly under the hydro line that cuts diagonally across it and then across the driveway, to the house (a crap job of installing lines 50 years ago), is a volunteer soft maple. It's grown about as fast -- a good 12-15 feet now, sprung from a key sprung off the huge soft maple that stood forever in the huge yard behind ours ... until they uprooted it to build six ugly monster townhouses in our backyard instead.

And to think that 15 years ago I paid $1500 for a 12-foot high linden that grows agout 6 inches a year ...


edit - an eastern catalpa in flower

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=2294

it's a UK site, so I guess nobody will take me up on it if I offer to mail a few sprogs. ;)

and a page of the flowers here

http://www.google.ca/search?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&complete=0&biw=1024&bih=640&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=catalpa+flower&btnG=Search

but you can't smell them from there!

I bet that you all will be really envious of my free plants;

Nettles,dock leaves,dandilions,daisies ash seedlings..... the list is endless,and they didn't cost me a penny.

just been watering mine, most in pots now as gravellede garden, but i doint know if im watering weeds , i have plants that look like little trees, then when its rained i seem to have a rain forest out there, there seems to be the same plants in all the pots , aswell as the ones ive planted in there, sorry waffling , had my tablets lol xx

In other words ive got little plants growing out my plant pots and its not what i planted xx

Nina- a truly wild garden!!! Bet you get lots of butterflies.
One thing that doesn't grow in my garden, and I wish it would - preferably behind the shed - is nettles!!
Puss- sound like weeds! Although a weed is only a plant growing where it shoudn't. They may be weeds that become plants!!

Hi Maggie,it may have sounded like my garden is an unkempt unloved patch of weeds,but it really isn't that bad.

I love nurturing my plants,and am,indeed,in serious trouble with OH for spending too much on e bay buying them.

I do,however,purposely leave oasis of nettles for butterflies,and have a pile of old bricks and curbstones for toads to hide in.

My biggest headache is slugs and snails,it is so dispiriting when they devour my young seedlings,but I hate killling anything,all have a right to exist. Indeed,I feel sorry for them,can you imagine what it is like to have to be a slug that no-one loves.