Merry Christmas

[Neil Bromhall]

I wish you all a very MERRY CHRISTMAS

Thank you for all your kind contributions to this Forum.

I know that many people have found the friendly advice very useful.

I also hope you have a fun and Happy New Year

Best wishes

Neil

[digger]

Thank you Neil best wishes for Christmas and the New year my friend

[sue1002]

And a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone from me too.

[Miranda]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone from me too, and my compost bin :)

666

[AnnaDyne]

Merry Christmas from me too

[Suzie]

Hi everyone, I'm new to the CD-ROM and to this website. I too like to use the British customs, especially at Christmas, so Merry Christmas it is. Hope you all had a lovely time and I'm looking forward to being "introduced" to you all as and when on the forum. The CD (a Christmas present) looks like a well-designed tool and I'm sure it will help me tender to my garden, though I may be in danger of becoming an armchair gardener! I must say I'm a bit of a fair-weather gardener at the best of times and have tended to blame it on my lack of knowledge and experience. Now I have no excuse at all!

[Suzie]

Hello Digger, nice to hear from you. The first thing I can tell you is that, although I now live in the south of England, I am a Lancashire lass, hailing from Preston, but a fellow Lancastrian all the same. My garden is a reasonable size, probably about 30-40ft square, quite flat and fenced on all 3 sides. I have a lovely story to tell about my garden. I moved here 6 years ago and it was completely bare, the lawn impossible to mow due to being full of lumps and divots, and huge slabs of concrete (presumably the base of a former shed) ran the complete length of one side and almost half the width of the garden. I hadn't the means or the stamina to make drastic changes so was often in a quandry as to what I should to do improve it. About 3 years ago I went on holiday for 2 weeks and returned to find that my garden had had a complete makeover with sunny patio, flower beds, lovely lawn, gravel paths, even a Japanese style area. My first reaction was probably one of gaping mouth and wide eyes, second was to look round the corner for Charlie Dimmock or Alan Titchmarsh. Neither were there because it was my son who had slogged away for 12 hours a day every day for the 2 weeks, assisted by his girlfriend and my other 2 children, neither of them gardeners I add. I'm ashamed to say the Japanese bit has been taken over, but pleased to say the beds are filling up with beautiful (though economical) shrubs that I now need to learn how to keep under control and looking their best. Hence the CD-ROM which will help me do just that. I like to grow plants that have fragrance and/or colour, mostly shrubs at the moment (choisya, spireas, acer dissectum, hydrangea, forsythia, rose, hebe, euonymus, nothing spectacular, though I do love them all). They are just beginning to form the main structure but I often plant flower seeds or annuals just to fill the gaps. I fancy growing herbs for the kitchen but not successful so far, other than lavender and bay, and clematis, I love them though goodness knows how you ever get to decide which to choose! The garden faces south-west and is on about 1 foot of clay-ish soil with an undercore of flint and stones, very difficult to dig in parts. I'd better stop waffling, I'd like to hear about your garden too, please.