I'm new here

Hi all!

I have no idea if I'm allowed to be here because I'm Swedish and live in Sweden (but married to an Englishman). My husband have been here in Sweden with me now for just over 17 years and we have started to talk about to move back to the UK in a few years. So I want to get the knowledge about how it is to be a gardener in the UK so I know what to expect then the move is done. I am a very keen gardener have been since the mid 80s and I'm interested in all type of growing, but where we are living now in the country we have long and cold winters and sandy soils. This winter we have been down to -32 but last year we went down one night to -47 so growing here is hard and it's getting on my nerves. So this move to the UK that we now are planing is something I'm looking forward to and my husband is coming home to family, friends and children again.

 

Hi there and Welcome.

 

A warm welcome is what you need by the sounds of things Diana! :D
I wish you all the very best of luck with your move when it happens
With those temperatures even our really bad winters (and we had had a few these past few years) the UK is going to seem like the Tropics!

I for one would be very interested in know what you manage to grow over in your chilly country.x

 

Thank you so much!! Love the welcome gate. Is it your design?

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Thanks a lot! That was nice to hear.

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Thanks!

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Thanks for the welcome.

Thing is that the summers are hot and short and winters are cold and long. So you can grow all types of vegiesbut you have to start most of them indoors and then the greenhouse before they go into the ground. But some you can sow straight into the ground so that isn't really a problem. It's more the fruit that is harder because its only the bottom part of sweden that can geow mor of them than we can up here in the north.
But the worst part for me is all the flowers, trees and so on that makes me frustrated. There is so many lovely flovers that I would like to grow but the climat is killing that idea for me :(

I heard from my husbands mother that she have snowdrops and crocus flowering and the daffs are on their way upp and here I am with 5 ft of snow and minus 22!!!

 

So do you have it without the welcome message on it? I would like to have it for my webpage if you don't mind?

 

Hi Diana welcome to GC, we have members from France, Portugal, Canada, USA and Lithuania so anyone and everyone is welcome here, enjoy your stay.

Growing in the UK is easy compared to Sweden although we have been lulled into a false sense of complacency by having over ten years or more of relatively mild winters and this incouraged people to plant palms and exotics everywhere and risk very tender plants and then we get three consecutive bad winters and we lose a lot of them! Our winters are obviously milder and shorter than yours although our summers aren't always warm and sunny. The soil can be very different depending where you are, sandy, peaty, solid clay (mine is) chalky, soft loam (I should be so lucky), allsorts.
You can grow all kinds of fruit as well.

 

Thanks for this info.
Well the last house I lived in had fantastic soil and in a warmer growong zone but where I am now I have very sandy soil . My Hemerocallis don't like that so I have problems with them, but will work on that this summer.
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Well, I thought it was only for the UK but I'm glad it isn't

 

Hello Diana
I am new here myself as a member I find this a fascinating place to be I hope to read a lot more from you so we can get a more international viewpoint on things gardening

 

Diana, hello, and a very warm welcome.

We look forward to hearing from you about gardening in Sweden. We all have loads to learn from people who garden under different conditions. I think I practice Swedish gardening here, in the north of England - I have taken half my garden into the house this winter to avoid the cold.

 

Hi there!

Well at the moment there's not much going on here in upper part of Sweden bekause of the White stuff outside the window We have had the worse whinter for 150 year I think they said and it's really cold (-30) and lots of snow, so all I can do is dream of flowers st the moment.

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Hi!

Thanks for the nice welcome.
We also need to bring lots of stuff indoors for winter and if you don't have the space you can't grow it unless you grow them as annuals.

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That's weird, because I planted the Frans Hals in my garden and the leaves turned yellow and it did look ever so sad, so I looked it up and I found out that they do not like sandy soil and that will tusn the leaves yellow and sometimes die. So I moved it and it looks better now but not perfect. So could it be that some types of them don't like the sand or?

I have built a nursery corner with lots of good soil for them and there they will grow strong before I move them into the garden, so I'm worried that they all will die for me unless I fill every border with Loads of good soil.

But I will try this summer (if it ever comes) to put some out and see what will happen.