Just missed.....

A place to chat about anything you like, including non-gardening related subjects. Just keep it clean, please!

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Diane
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.....bumping into Charlie Dimmock at our local InExcess yesterday morning. She was buying plants (not surprising). 10 minuites earlier and I could have seen what she'd chosen. I wonder if she's filming locally?
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robo
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We seen alan tichmarsh in a large garden centre some years ago we were there early and they were filming I found out he was working in a garden in ormskirk it's around fifteen miles from were we live , some time later I heard the house owner was not impressed and told them to leave when they were only halfway through
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Primrose
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I always wonder at these people who invite the experts in to give their garden a makeover. My garden is very far from designer or plant perfect but Its very much "the essence of me" and how ai want it to work and I think I would probably feel personally violated if somebody else came in and started to throw out everything I'd done, however imperfect it might be.

Suggestions for ideas which might work better are one thing. Wholesale "garden rape" is quite another. I wonder if others feel so possessive about their gardens ?
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Geoff
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I'd love somebody to come and makeover my garden by saying there's too much grass outside the back door we'll change that. Could be a shock when they find the concrete slurry pit full of rubble with a thin layer of something like soil to support the grass.
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Primrose
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Yes, I can imagine that would totally throw them when they have a 48 hour timescale to work on, and its pouring with rain the whole time ! One benefit of living in the same house and garden for a long time is that you actually know the history of the place and exactly how and why you've come to end up with the layout you currently have!

I doubt the next owner of this property will ever know the location of the remains of the underground concrete air raid shelter which we discovered in this garden when we moved in 40+ years ago when it was one of four houses built in somebody's former massive back garden. I can,t tell you what a massively hard job that was getting rid of the rest it, especially having to dig up that area of a newly turfed lawn to try and discover why it always turned boggy every time we had heavy rain ! I always envisage the original house occupants having this massively long run in the dark and the rain to the end of their garden every time the Air-raid warning siren went off.
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Primrose
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Yes, I can imagine that would totally throw them when they have a 48 hour timescale to work on, and its pouring with rain the whole time ! One benefit of living in the same house and garden for a long time is that you actually know the history of the place and exactly how and why you've come to end up with the layout you currently have!

I doubt the next owner of this property will ever know the location of the remains of the underground concrete air raid shelter which we discovered in this garden when we moved in 40+ years ago when it was one of four houses built in somebody's former massive back garden. I can,t tell you what a massively hard job that was getting rid of the rest it, especially having to dig up that area of a newly turfed lawn to try and discover why it always turned boggy every time we had heavy rain ! I always envisage the original house occupants having this massively long run in the dark and the rain to the end of their garden every time the Air-raid warning siren went off.
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Primrose
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Strangely this has reminded me of the concrete underground wartime shelter my dad had had built in the back garden of our childhood home which was the size of a single bedroom. It was a new build estate and there were apparently always lots of construction workers looking for extra work. Unfortunately he had it excavated and built in such hurry that he didn,t check the water table and there was always two inches of water on the floor so decking boards had to be laid down to prevent you walking through water. He got somebody to come and dig out a sump at one end but years after the war it was an annual family event which lasted most of a day with buckets to bail the structure out and empty all the accumulated water.

I revisited the subsequent owner after the house was sold one one day as I was curious to find out if it was still there. Apparently it had cost them a huge fortune to get people in to demolish the whole thing and have all the concrete taken away.
Monika
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As for horticultural 'name dropping': I once had an argument with Geoffrey Smith, the garden writer and broadcaster, in a garden centre. I was buying an apple tree and asked if they had any slightly smaller ones because the taller tree would not fit into our short wheelbase Landrover. Geoffrey Smith happened to be at the counter (he lived nearby) and argued that the taller tree would easily fit into our vehicle, but I stood my ground ....
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oldherbaceous
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He would have probably produced some loppers, if you had bought it, Monika.... :wink: :)
Kind Regards, Old Herbaceous.

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