Gardening is so satisfying

I've given up with the celandines Nana3 - they are in the lawn front and back and I used to try to dig them out but they kept reappearing every year. Now I just enjoy them and they die back quite soon. If they're in the borders I do try to get some out.

What's the best way to get rid of the vile bindweed? Preferably without spraying with weedkiller, not my garden but I have promised to help someone else.

Lisagran your garden is lovely

I have currently got celadines, primroses, forget-me-nots, and violets (!!!) in my grass at the moment. And the odd cowslip. Mowing will not be permitted until at least after Easter.

Yes notanan definitely a losing battle. Learn to love their sunshiney little faces.

I've got oregano growing in the lawn!
It has been mown, but it just gets everywhere.

Sorry Auntieflo -I take your point.I think I have grown to hate it recently because I see so many people seem to 'create' gardens that are little more than sterile box .An outdoor/indoor room.Like some houses near us where every single shrub unit ripped out.Its just,Astroturf flags and outdoor lighting.Poor wildlife.I'm sure your garden buzzes with life.

Ah. That blessed time when our hormones turn to horticulture - such bliss !

I'd rather be out tidying the garden than tidying indoors. So I'll be out mowing both lawns today and ignoring the dusting!

I love gardening, once I've broken the 'it's too cold' barrier. Once out there, I don't care about anything. We have a medium sized suburban garden backing onto a small area of woodland so the back of the garden we've made into a woodland garden - after years being a wild untamed wilderness. There's a herb patch, a pond which DH has recently re-lined and we've dug out the bindweed and other nasties from round it. I'm busy planting up the pond and its surroundings and working my way down the garden, weeding, pruning and re-planting. I'm a plantaholic but sometimes find plants struggle because parts of the garden is heavy, badly drained clay despite adding compost. I've had periods when the garden's been neglected - after my wrist fracture, for instance - and it doesn't take Nature long to reclaim her own. I have a constant fight with bramble, nettles, bracken and bindweed, but I still love it. It's not neat and tidy; it's messy and untamed and my MIL disapproves of it, but it's ours and wherever we go, wherever we move, I want it with us.

We had the garden of our dreams a few years back - it was paradise, with climbing roses, trellises, beautiful cottage garden style - it was a great solace to my dear late husband when he was terminally ill.
I've got a tiny garden now with a new build but I've jam-packed it with shrubs and flowers so it's still lovely to go out there and even just look at it. Again, it's a great comfort and good for the soul to be surrounded by nature.

Rowantree - so you dig out the bindweed.
this is going to be harder than I thought.

I do, Callistemon. I might be making a mistake here, but there is no other option when you have established shrubs in the border. I have recently dug up some clumps of perennials and tried to separate those horrible, nasty fat white wormy roots. It's satisfying, rather like squeezing a particularly pus-filled spot. However, bindweed is a survivor. It has a knack of re-growing from the weeniest fragment and popping up again when your back's turned - ditto bracken which is deep-rooting and almost impossible to erradicate. I continue the Good Fight on both.

Lisagran, what a beautiful garden you have! I love gardening too, but due to a bad knee I just cant do what I used to. so I call in the local handiman who tidies it up for me. I bught some lovely new hydrangeas through the internet and I will have a go at potting them into bigger pots this weekend, Happy gardening everyone.

I like weeds which flower, such as aconites and bindweed. They are so pretty, What's not to like? We had a young relative visit us from abroad and she loved those yellow daisy things that are poisonous to horses. I did not tell her they were weeds. I do have lots of beautiful shrubs and flowers anyway, such as camellias and roses, so not all "weeds" or wild flowers. And lots of violets all over the place!

Bindweed - train it up a stick where it is growing so that you separate it from your precious plants, and then you can spray it's leaves carefully with an organic weedkiller.

I have just had a new hip and have been told absolutely no gardening for six weeks. At this time of year when the weeds are just laughing at me! Never mind, I'll get them before long and meanwhile I can sit in the sunshine with a clear conscience.

Gardening was my hobby and I am very disappointed that I can no longer do it because of walking difficulties.
We bought our Hampshire bungalow not because of the building but the half acre garden where I spent most of my time. It broke my heart when circumstances forced us to move to Norfolk to a property on an estate with a small garden.
It is very difficult to find a proper gardener now. They call themselves gardeners but they don’t know a weed from a plant and charge the earth.
I now manage to supervise my home help while she does it. She and my previous help have learnt a lot and now enjoy gardening.

My daughter treats every leaf of Bindweed with a paint-on weedkiller! Patience of a saint that one!

I'm glad that I re-vamped my garden, some years ago, to make it easier to manage. The dreaded osteo-arthritis has settled in my right hip and knee, and makes gardening painful and difficult. I especially love my double front-garden wall, filled with colourful plants. Poking a handful of nasturtium seeds in, each year, results in a cascade of colour right through until autumn.
I have many shrubs and climbers, which aren't too hard to deal with, and lots of bulbs and perennials. My family has always joked about the large number of pots that I used to plant up every year. Sadly, I can't cope with growing and planting lots of annuals any more, but I have acers, hydrangeas, pieris and roses in pots which provide year-round colour.
The forget-me-nots are in flower, right now. They have self-seeded everywhere, and grow out of crevices in the pathways too. They look lovely!
I hope that I can continue to live in my home and cope with the garden maintenance. I would miss having somewhere to potter, and the colourfil view from my window.

Two questions, please....Is bindweed another word for ground elder and is artificial grass hugely expensive to install and maintain?

No Kim, they are completely different plants,

Thanks A1. Won't tell you how long I've been gardening!

We have a fairly simple garden - mostly grass with a few small fruit trees and a border on one side as we have 2 dogs who seem to have no knowledge of where grass stops and flowers start. We are lucky though, and mainly the reason that we bought the house, that we overlal the canal and the woodland that backs onto it.
Because of joint and heart problems, I can't do much in the garden, but my husband does all the heavy work while I point appropriately! We bought a couple of plants to fill in some empty space in the border this week and I left him to it after pointing out where the peonies and hostas were starting to come through, so avoid those and there may possibly be some other plants about to appear that I've forgotten about, so be careful.
I had a look this morning- and found that he's 'weeded' and dug up all my Canterbury Bells!! Bless him, what can I say, they're only plants after all. Back to the garden centre!

That should of course be 'overlook the canal'. (When are we ever going to get an editing facility?}

GreenGran78 about your double wall. I would so love one of those. We've got beech hedges though. Nice enough in itself, but a double wall looks so easy to garden. Love Nasturtians too.

Yes I agree, gardening is good for mind body and sole.
On our allotment we have those who are retired and those who are semi retired and those who are still working full time. Some of the retired almost live on their plots from morning to dusk. One man who separated from his wife actually lives in his shed, it has all mod cons, sofa / cooker / Heating via log burning stove. Solar panels On the roof. We and the council look upon him as site security. He belongs to a local gym and goes daily to shower. He is as happy and a pig in muck.

I wish I could still manage my garden, I used to love spending hours weeding, planting and looking after my numerous pots. Now I can't even manage to water the pots so have had to cut them right back. I have someone to cut the lawn and I pay a friend to do some weeding every couple of months.

Luckily my garden is planted with well established bushes which only need annual pruning which my lawn man will do in the winter. The rest of the beds run riot with undergrowth, ferns and the dreaded ivy!

I have created a nice patio and treated myself to a retractable sun awning as I prefer to sit in the shade. But tending the garden is beyond me and it frustrates me somewhat to sit there looking at what needs doing!