I've never been keen on gardening. We have quite a big garden which isn't under control, and pretty well all I do in it is remove dandelions (to avoid annoying the Real Gardeners in the adjoining properties) and brambles (which would otherwise take over totally). We do enjoy eating the organically grown blackberries though. There are some other soft fruit bushes and self-seeded alpine strawberries, and we planted three apple trees when we moved in 21 years ago. Some years they have done really well.

Why do we have a big garden? So as to be far enough from the neighbours not to annoy them with our music-making of course!

I quite like gardening, although after we had our house extensions built 3 years ago - and basically I had no access to the garden for an entire summer/autumn, - the weeds kind of took over and things got a bit out of hand, and I lost heart as I found it too overwhelming and didn't know where to start.....happily I have since started trying to re-gain control!!

My idea of gardening is to see what the birds bring. Every plant is a potential star in my garden and weeds don't get removed until after they've flowererd. This year we seem to have gained some giant venus poppies, nigella, feverfew and carrots.

We're hoping to get a conservatory soon. Does anyone know whether we need to get permission? I've looked at a few sites ( http://www.conservatoryplanningapplications.co.uk/ ) but I'm still confused ...

I could quite fancy getting some carrots by accident. I'm pretty sure I would recognise them if we did. Our birds don't seem to be as useful as yours.

I'm having problems identifying parsnips at the moment. I planted a row, helped by my daughter who also managed to drop a packet of carrot seeds all over the place, then the cats helped, now I have carrots coming up all over the place and I have no idea which are parsnips and which are weeds.

With a bit of luck if you leave everything that's in roughly the right area enough of them will resolve themselves into a row for you to decide which is which, even if it is rather like completing a "join the dots" picture! Good luck!

I once (shortly after moving into the property 15 years ago) went along merrily pulling up what I though were weeds and chucked them on the chompost heap/tip thingy at the end of the garden. A year later these wonderful orange flowers came up all over the top end of the garden - I'd only gone and pulled up every French Marigold!!!!

Our garden was a total mess when we moved in, I did similar to you and pulled out every plant in case it was a weed! A helpful neighbour leaned over the fence and tried to tell me things were plants but they all went regardless. I felt a bit sad at having done it originally but it was possibly a good decision as the previous owner worked on the railways and had got much of his stock from there. Some of the plants are just not suited to a small garden and unchecked would be everywhere and that's after I tried to be rid of them.

We've just been told off about our dandelions... Shame - I think they look really cheerful...

W

I think dandelions get bad press.

If they were really rare and difficult to grow everyone would want them. They have lovely sunshiney flowers, glorious downy seeds, leaves that taste good in salads, and roots that can be dried and ground into a coffee substitute (though you may have to be desperate or under seige to try the last one).

How useful and beautiful they are.

Here we have our very own Dandelion Farm and are proud of it.

*goes to make a pot of dandelion coffee, and a dandelion and cheese sandwich*

I quite agree with you - but our neighbours don't...

W

A few years ago we had a family living opposite who'd moved here from a completely different part of the world - and had never seen dandelions before. They thought their front garden looked lovely covered in these bright yellow flowers, and seemed proud of their ability to have such a show. We and their next door neighbours, who like to keep our gardens neat had to be very tactful.

I agree they are very cheerful, but are more trouble than they are worth. Doronicums are comparatively cheerful, and no bother at all.

That's all true, and I'm happy to enjoy the flowers, especially en masse on a roadside verge a long way away from my garden. They are fantastically efficient at multiplying so I don't feel the need to encourage them and there's no obvious risk of their becoming extinct in this area! I've never tried eating the leaves. Do you need to pick them when they are very young? What do they taste like?

You would have to be very determined indeed to dig down deep enough to retrieve enough un-mangled dandelion root to dry, powder and make 'coffee' out of it. Probably tastes awful but I can't vouch for this.

I spent a satisfying half hour last weekend trying to rid the lawn (and everywhere else) of dandelions with a fantastic tool called a Daisy Grubber. It's great! Organic, too. You drive the spiky end down by the side of the little devil, push on the handle and up comes the whole thing, with any luck. If you're not careful you end up with a face and front showered in soil but the growing pile of corpses is reward enough.

Trouble is, one week later a load more have taken their place.
They looked far too skanky to eat.

Mel

Be careful eating dandelions- they are a powerful Diuretic, the old name for them was p***abed.

1. Make a brine of 1 part salt, 3 parts water, bring to the boil, and cool completely.
2. Gather dandelion flowers, rinse, drain.
3. Put flowers in a clean jar, pour over brine, weight so that flowers don't float, and store for a couple of months. This is to give you plenty of time to think about what to do with the salted blossoms.
4. Drain flowers, gently lay out to dry, and when more or less dry, strew coarse salt in the bottom of a jar, and layer flowers and salt, ending with a layer of coarse salt. They will keep more or less for ever like this.
5. To use, shake off excess salt, and soak in some water or water/white wine mixture.

This is really a variation on the technique for salting double-flowered cherry blossoms, and I imagine that as with cherry blossom, you should pick flowers that are just a bit more than half-open for best results.

You can salt violets or rosebuds too, if your inclinations run that way.

Well I'm afraid I was a very positive gardener yesterday - I planted my tomato, mixed salad and chive seeds, mowed both my lawns, dug up all my crocus bulbs from the top lawn (we're going to change the layout at the top of the garden and the crocus bulbs would have been in the way, so I'm going to re-plant them later into the lawn nearer the house.......) and dead-headed a load of dandelions ( - yes I know they're very pretty....)

and then you eat them? or glue them onto picture frames?

Petrat plays dandelions She's hoping to give a masterclass at the Leeds concert, provided that some dandelions are still alive. I've asked the gardener at the college where the concert is being held to grow some of different heights if he can He's going to try and humour me, even though he thinks I'm completely

Tell me more! Not sure if you are allowed to say where you got it, what it costs etc. on the Forum. Perhaps worth a try, but if it's not allowed please PM me.

Yup. That's dandelions for you.

That's the challenge really with preserved flowers really - stick 'em in your sushi, float 'em in your drink, hide 'em under someone's peas, drop 'em in the salad...

Can't see that it would do any harm - its a generic thing.

A Daisy Grubber can be obtained from most good garden centres where they keep the trowels etc. It's got a handle and it consists of a long flat strip of iron with a kink in it. It then forks into 2 prongs and it is this that you poke down by the side of the offending root. They cost about a fiver.

It's great fun. Hope you find one.