last summer

Ooh, that looks nice

Welcome to GoY Maezy. lovely cottagey feel in the picture.

Nice reminder of summer

are those sunflowers in pots? I have plenty of pots, but never thought of growing sunflowers - got packs of seeds, but never thought of trying them in pots.

I love the blue flowers on the right of the picture, what are they?

?lobelia?

lol what I know about plants I could write on the bak of a postcard in inch-high letters and still leave room for the adderss!

I do love blue plants, I'd love to have a blue garden, or at least a blue corner, with all shades of blue flowers at different times of year and blue-tinged cconifers all year round.

i have to grow most stuff in pots, when we moved here everything was paved or concreted :(. Have 3 small narrow beds and a rockery but lots of pots! Those were dwarf sunflowers, sowed lots of seeds slugs got quite a lot but did rear these, i adore sunflowers. Wanted crammed boxes of mass of colour so as you see lots of lobelia, mixed colours and varieties, cheap way to get long lasting colour!

Thanks, Maezymare. My tiny new garden has only very thin beds round the mainly paved area, and they only go about six inches down to a layer of brick, so I'm "potty" too. I don't know if what ground I have would be big enough or deep enough for full-size sunflowers: I'll have to check exactly what I've got.

I bought a couple of strong tables to bring smaller plants up to where I can get at them with less back-strain - also, because different levels give more variety and more interest. The bigger plants on the ground should hide the tables, and the storage space they give underneath.

I'm a bit nervous of overfilling pots, espeically with different varieties: don't want to stress the plants by making them compete too much for resources - *s* if I had the room and the resources I'd probably give each plant its own pot! - but mass plantings do give an amazing effect, especially when grouped closely.

that table idea is a good one, i may pinch that!!
I am guilty of overstuffing in a big way, hanging baskets especially, but think with summer bedding they are only for a short while and i feed them ( big fan of Miracle gro) and water and they seem to thrive. Different with longer lasting plants and nothing worse than a poor pot bound plant looking sad and sorry.
Your garden sounds similar to mine, it is restricting not to have nice deep soil, but then hey ho at least we've not got lots of digging to do, which would be beyond us!

I found some tables on eBay, plastic and folding metal lets, metre squre, rated to take 300 kg - I thought that should be about enough! didn't want to risk pots on a normal, ie flimsy, picnic or patio table.

I went back a little while ago to think about some more: that particular table don't seem to be available any more, but I've seen folding tables, 2x1 metres, that claim to take the same weight. Would be glad to forward the link - at least that'll give you something to base a search on!

thanks ebay link would be handy would give me an idea for planning ahead.

these are the people I bought my tables from: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/CBP-Enterprises/_i.html?_nkw=table&_sid=75470196

they don't seem to do the metre-square tables, only folding ones, which would be less weight-bearing, I think, because of the hinged surface -

then I put "300" into the shop search:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/CBP-Enterprises/_i.html?_nkw=300&submit=Search&LH_TitleDesc=1&_sid=75470196
variety of sizes, all stated to be able to take 300 kg

in case you thought I was on commission from them, I tried "table 300 kg" in the general search window, to get other sellers -
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p4634.m570.l1313&_nkw=table+300+kg&_sacat=See-All-Categories

and this one:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/150711480505?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1438.l2649

some of those "lifting tables" sound good - depends on how much muscle power needed to lift them!

hope this helps - and, lol, hope this is allowed in here!

coorection: 4 foot table - it's the legs that fold, not the table itself! which is why it's able to support so much weight, I suppose

Your garden looks lovely Maezy. I like pots too. Never tried sunflowers in them. Blue plants can be so bright and beautiful. Most of my blue/mauves come from long lasting aubretia bordering the front of the curved border. By the way welcome to GoY.....I see you just joined us. I come and go, as GJ is not well, and just added to his probs with a slide down the staircase!!!! Mine too, as I broke my left ankle in the melee.

I use 2 old slightly damaged and not very beautiful white plastic garden tables to raise pots of overwintering plants nearer the skylight in my loft. It was fine until the guy who came to sweep the chimney (always done from the top) stood on one of them to climb out of the skylight and onto the roof, and cracked it!
Beautiful colour that lobelia, Maezy, is it "Mrs Clibran"?

Dorjac hope you both recover soon, sounds painful!
Fran thanks for the links on tables, appreciate it.
Gattina hope you did'nt have plants on it at the time! Not sure now on lobelia, i bought lots of types and mixed them all together, which seemed to work well luckily. I was quite late doing the boxes so it was get what i could!

No, luckily no plants on it then, Maezy - was just putting them into place before starting the endless treks up and down the ladder with dozens of big plant pots. However, today I was up there watering things that needed it, and Badass Brumas (small, white, desperate-to-be-involved-in-everything idiot cat) decided to come up and help. Aargh!! 2 terracotta pots and all my fuchsias gone.