What are your best gardening pleasures? (Your list)

I couldn't find a thread for this (searched back a few months) so I am creating this topic here.

- Being a naturalistic gardener, I take great delight in nature's 'gifts'. For example, in my back garden a hawthorn bush has sprung up, rich in white flowers. Also a white rambling rose has branched over to my side, from next door, and merged perfectly (in alignment) with my red arbour roses.

- I enjoy deadheading and generally just pottering about, doing small tasks as and when they present themselves. Peaceful and relaxing.

- I love just sitting in the garden I created and enjoying the view. Very often though this quickly turns into mental notes of "ooh that needs doing" etc. Such is the lot of a gardener!

- I like using my creativity e.g. seeing what can be recycled. You can see some of them here

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/gallery/albums/my-naturalistic-garden-click-here-for-photos.377/

 

THAT is the life of a gardener

 

a) Just past the beginners post, eclectic gardener
As an eclectic gardener, I take great delight in being free to experiment with any plant which takes my fancy (or, any generously donated to the cause ) The garden also has to accommodate 8 hens, 1 dog and a bench for the cat.
b) Highlights in my garden:- anything which is surviving!

This is my first year here, so I suppose I've taken a degree of delight in seeing the plants I brought here with me surviving and thriving (some better than others, but no total disasters).

As a new-to-me garden, my greatest pleasure was discovering my "triffid" - it is obvious that, at some point in time, someone lived here who loved this garden. That wasn't immediately obvious when I first saw the state of the overgrown wilderness I had to tame from the residents of more recent years

My most enduring pleasure in this garden will come from what I call my "GC" plants. They hold the most sentiment for me.

As for tasks in the garden, well, that goes without saying ... sitting in my arbour with a nice glass of something and feeling that sense of calm and oneness with my world.

 

Thanks for sharing "M". I amended my OP to omit (a) and (b) (as seen in your post...quoting me) since I thought it might put people off just saying what their pleasures were. It is optional so I thank you for taking it up.

 

I'm much more of a 'doer' rather than a 'sitter'.

Greatest pleasures are:

- seeing everything come to life in spring
- deadheading Rhodos (feels quite calming)
- seeing things you planted as tiny plants grow over the years
- painting fences (again, it focuses the mind and distracts from the stresses of life)
- pottering about in the morning seeing what needs to be done.

I really should take some time to sit out and enjoy the garden but I never do because it depresses me when I notice how much still needs to be done before I get it to where I want it (which will be never because I'm always changing my mind)

 

I like's having a smoke in the greenhouse when it's raining

 

I like growing things from scratch. I don't think there's anything more satisfying (to me) than planting seeds or taking cuttings and watching them grow into new living, breathing things.
It just makes me feel as though I've accomplished something

 

1. Wandering around the garden at 5.30am in Summer on a clear, warm morning with a mug of tea, listening to the dawn chorus and looking to see how everything is growing.

2. Watching loads of bees visit the plants I've grown for them from seed.

3. Wandering around the garden around 8.30am on a late Winter/early Spring morning with another mug of tea looking to see if any of the Spring bulbs are pushing through the soil. I love to see the bright colours of the Spring bulbs after a dull and dreary Winter.

 

Well, I won't ask what's in that smoke!

Do the plants start to change colour?

 

I had begun to answer your post earlier in the day and returned to it later in the evening - hence why parts of your original post were still in my quote.
I thought I'd keep them as that is what you were originally wishing to hear with your thread.

 

I see you enjoy deadheading Rhodos....I find them a tad problematic because (a) they tend to be a bit sticky, (b) sometimes not easy to grasp all the pieces together and (c) I have heard that the pruning needs to be done carefully because the next lot of flowers are there, dormant, in the same section. Do you have a particular method?

 

Im not sure what gardening style i have tbh

I like things to have a formal layout and have symmetry and a design to them but Im not keen on formal planting so i like the planting to be messy and cottage garden like, so soft and frothy. I think the best way to describe it is i like gardens where it looks like someone has coloured slightly outside the lines, so a formal mess.

I don't like using chemicals if at all possible as well.

So my favourite tasks are anything that involves tidying and organising because i love that. I hate cleaning but love tidying and organising and everything having its own place to live.

so i enjoy

- deadheading
- weeding
- killing weeds with boiling water so you can smell them boiling (that sounds a bit sadistic doesn't it lol)
- staking plants
- trimming, reshaping, pruning etc

I have started to really like the aftermath of mowing a lawn. Before because there was no structure or design to the garden i liked the lawn looking slightly long and wild and soft and frothy

Now i have a layout, i like it when its just cut and looks really formal and neat and tidy while the flowers in the beds are spilling over on to it.

My most fav thing about the garden tho is peaking out the blind first thing in the morning and going wow because my brain cant remember that it doesn't look how it use to look. My brain does the same trick to me when coming down the side passage into the garden I go wow every time because i forget that is what it looks like now lol I kinda of want my brain to catch up and remember but its nice being surprised daily.

 

Surprising how many of us like dead heading , I like deadheading sweet peas.
Finish mowing the lawn and putting the mower et al away.
Sitting back and seeing this and that needs doing as soon as you do.

 

Well there was like this giant green lepricaun that kept pulling up my tomato plants, so I say to him hey man, why are you doing that? and he says the red fruit is symbolic of communisim and that by growing it I might as well be growing a copy of chairman mao's little red book, so I said ok man, but just leave the yellow tomatoes, as I kinda like need somthing to eat...

 

Hi @rosebay

It's important not to damage the new leaf buds which sit just underneath the flowers. I use my hands and pinch them off. Have a look here for a good pic. It can be a bit pernickety but if it looks like there isn't much room on the stem and I'd be in danger of damaging the leaves, then I'll snap it off further up and then snap off the last few stalks. You're right about the sticky hands though!