whats with the UK forum

hi all

whats gone wrong with the UK forum in my absence?
where's all the chat re plants and gardening now that spring has arrived (even though the max today was only just 7C) isn't private chat for the chatroom?

Mark

its died.

I miss it.

ive had a rotten day too.
I was emphatically told that I could not grow echium
pinnana north of northampton
anyone got views on that?
got two lovely spikes on the hedychium but i would love to see a echium standind pround out there

if we can grow Echiums over here you must be able to.

so why has this forum died and where have the locals gone to?

Mark

[ Removed per member request. - Admin]

I have been out all day!!! Chasing mirrors!! Thought I would find someone here. So where are you all? I'll be right back, going for some tea :-)

I have lurked a lot more than I have posted as I could'nt find a garden topic to chip in with either . Sadly I will continue to do so it seems .Thanks for raising the question Mark. (sorry-was'nt trying to be clever). Rob

Hiya Mark, yes we have not behaved ourselves why you have been away.

Tell us all about your trip.

I guess the race is on each day to see who can name the day and date first. I think that by looking at my calendar I can see where we are in the month. it doesn't make good reading when I come in to have a look to see whats going on. it's actually got to the point where I dont come to dave's that much anymore. I hope things pick up or I'll have to find myself another alias for over the fence.

[ Removed per member request. - Admin]

Hi ya Mark!

Just popping in to see what's going on in here, not much eh?!

Well on a brighter note the geranium seeds from beautiful someday wanna visit Ireland have turned into perfect little plants!! :)

Jody

Well every time I come onto this forum I hang around to see if there is any response and I do that a few times during the day. I know the chat room is affecting this forum but it need not do so. Summer is coming in also and many people will not spend so much time on their computers. I mean I do chat when I think there is no-one here. So do Lisa, Alan and Dori. But where are all the others that used to post here. Probably busy! I'm sure its a culmination of things. Even the other forums seem to be winding down. Just a thought! Have a great day. As for me, I'm off to the soup kitchen so I'll see you later. :-)

I was going to suggest it was a seasonal thing, but the way the weather is right now i am not so sure, its sent me inside diving for cover and warmth, doesnt seem to have effected others though.

Where Mary these days, havent hreard from her for a while now, you ok Mary ?.

I am here, Alan. Been reading everything, and written several messages, but deleted them and didn't post. I'm not doing much these days, just moping because the stupid people haven't sent the compost I ordered. They agreed to deliver it last Thursday, I think, then on Saturday I e-mailed (I seem to get a better response by e-mail than by phone), and today I got a reply 'Graham says he will deliver it at the weekend'. Aren't I lucky. You'd never think they were charging me a fiver for delivery so they're not doing me a favour, it's what I'm paying them for. And the ISP haven't managed to work out that a flat rate charge of £20 a month means all the bills are for £20. The last two have been for less, but they still owe me £3.31 from three or four months ago. And it's been freezing cold here today. Sunny, but windy and cold. And of course it started to hail while the washing was out but stopped the instant I got it back indoors.

There, satisfied?

Hello Mary
Glad your still with us,:), you do seem to have problems with compost there dont you, is it a new thing there or what, :), so many people want its in short supply, come back and post again, missed your input mary, bye for now.

how can people not be doing gardening things? I've spent the last 10 days potting summer bulbs, potting on last years cuttings, planting seeds for this year's throw away bedding plants and hardy perennials, potting up my mail order plantlet plugs, weeding out creeping buttercup, organising my snowdrop bed ...........

there aren't that many people in the chat room. The most I've seen is 4 including me.

can we PLEASE get away from posting the days of the week. How are we supposed to know whats the post about.

Mark
a very miffed plantaholic

Mark if you look you will find that i post on a lot of dg forums, such as rose forum, farm forum etc, dont just stick at the uk forum.

[ Removed per member request. - Admin]

I have been around, like Sheila, posting my opinion on other forums. As Mark says, we need a heading we can talk about here, not just the date.

There's more (you can't do this on GW - post twice) -

I WOULD have been doing the repotting and pricking out if I'd had the compost, Mark, and I would have done the weeding and clearing up, if it had been warmer. And I would have finished sorting out the conservatory if I'd had the compost, too.

No, problems about getting compost is not a new problem, Alan. Too many people wanting it - no, definitely not. They don't do gardening much round here, mainly a few scattered shrubs in a lawn with a beautifully manicured drive. There are only two places within 12 miles that I know of who do John Innes, and they can't pronounce it (John 'Einz). One doesn't deliver (I'm 6 miles away), and the other is the one who say they do deliver, but aren't very keen on it.

I don't drive, and I don't think I could ask a taxi to fill the boot up with compost. They only sell silly little bags, too - 25 litre, so I need four at a time to mix with one of the big bags of 'multi-purpose'.

[ Removed per member request. - Admin]

I agree with you alan this could be a seasonal blip.
not everyone has a greenhouse or a coservatory, so it dosn't leave a lot to talk about.
and when the sun do'es arrive there will be no one here wel'l all be to busy

Dont know about you Mark, but i prefer not to freeze ass of in this wind, so the outdoor will have to wait a bit, lol.

Friday - a much better day! Cold this morning, but sunny, and a lot warmer this afternoon. When I got the wrong compost a while ago, I wrote a complaint to the manufacturers, saying I thought their packaging was misleading. Today, I got two bags of JI2 with their compliments! Been busy repotting and sorting out, but got to the stage where it looks worse half done than it did untouched.

Lots of bulbs were frozen to mush, but several things I thought were gone have poked up little green shoots. I even had to rescue one healthy 6" high plant in the pot of compost and dead stuff I threw out last week. And there's an awful lot of pots with no labels - how does this happen? And then there's the labels that have turned green or yellow with algae, or faded in the sun. I just hope I can put a name to them if and when they flower, so I can collect the seeds to swap.

Mary, you do anything about that strange daff of yours ?.

Apparently it's a very old variety (grown since 1620), and according to one of the people who replied to me, it only produces the double trumpet in its first few years. Strange you don't come across it in catalogues, though.

By the way, did you see on GW that Spike is trying to stop people from trading seeds with everyone in Europe? As is his custom, he doesn't want any argument, so he's made it so no-one can post a reply and correct him. He even made up a pretend Member page, and put seeds to trade as ssss or dddd - he could quite easily have left it blank. He's even more zenophobic than you, Alan.

wierd man, what do you mean Mary, more than me ?.

I seem to remember reading some observations about the people in Brussels?

LOL, Mary they are different.

mark
there tend to be loads of people in the chatroom about 11 pm - midnight our time,if you're up that late

Hi everyone,

been sunny there ? it is down on the south coast, sun shines on the righteous LOL. Who,s spike mary? am i missing something ? I,ve spent today pricking out yet more seedlings, my greenhouse is full, they,re moving out onto the deck now :-} would love a bigger greenhouse, mind you i suppose it would never be big enough. i had echiums growing in my garden last autumn, fatuosum and pinanna, one of the types died, the others hanging on in there, not sure which ones survived, i hope it,s the tall one. try again next year, we never have frosts here, sods law the year i try something like this, we get some :-{
the gardend springing to life, the rose on my front wall has loads of buds on it, the montanas are flowering their little soxs off, and my fredmontodendron is fiiling up with buds.
hows everyone elses gardens doing?
sue

Sueone,

Spike? No, you're not missing anything. And, no, you can never have a big enough greenhouse - although possibly one of those things everyone in the US talks about might do - 20' x something! For a while, anyway.

I had a few babies of Echium fastuosum, but I think they've all snuffed it. I think the tall one you had may be only a biennial. Yes, just checked in Chilterns catalogue (amazing what some people keep next to their computer, isn't it?) and it's monocarpic. You'll have to start again. Perhaps you'll be lucky and it self-seeded? I got seeds of Echium russicum from the AGS - they have deep reddish flowers so that'll be different.

I have a small Fremontodendron in the conservatory. These are the only plants (apart from the Agave) that irritate me, so I have to make sure I have long sleeves when I do anything with them.

Did some tidying in the front today, and hunting for something in my potting shed found a robin nesting - five eggs, and she lets me talk to her while she's on the nest now, and doesn't fly off. It must be very boring, just sitting in the dark with only a door to look at, wouldn't you think?

ok, I'm new so I might have misunderstood...is this bit a "general chat" bit? Wheres the garden stuff?
Jackie

hi Jackie

it looks like this forum is going through a state of depression recently. I am however doing my bit to bring it back into line.

fingers crossed

Mark

wasnt being funny..just not sure where the different site bits are! I have posted seed swaps on international bit. Where do plant swaps go?
Jackie :o)

Jackie,

Glad to see you here.

This is Dave's. You can post what you like where you like. Occasionally, Dave will move it to another Forum if he thinks you'd get a better response, but he doesn't remove your messages!

You seem to have posted in the right place. Obviously, we can't trade plants with the US, so this Forum is better for that, and seeds either on the Seed Trading Forum or the International one.

Have you read some of the older threads? We were a lot livelier before the Chat Room.

Hi Jackie and welcome. I'm in Virginia and have been here for 4 years but my home is in England. The UK forum has lost a bit of popularity partly due to the new 'chat' room. However, there has also been some misunderstanding here of late where there has been a conflict of opinions and which drove some members away from this forum. However, the misunderstanding has been cleared up and we are all back in full force. You can open up any thread you wish here, whether its about a particular plant or anything to do with gardening. You can also have a 'general' thread where everyone posts their news of the day so to speak and we get to know one another that much better. With the arrival of the good weather, here in the US at least :-) - many of us are busy out in the garden and have less time to be glued to the computer. Believe me, before this month we were all stuck to our chairs! I hope you enjoy Daves Garden as much as we all do. I can't tell you how many friends I have made since I became a member. So much so that the friendship doesn't end here, it carries on into phone calls and emails nearly every day. Welcome again and enjoy :-)

Sounds great :o)