Thought I'd say hi and introduce myslf as it's likely I'll be pestering you
with questions for the foreseeable future. I'm Jo, and I'm a new gardener
(feels like admitting to alcoholism!). For some reason, I've never been
interested in plants, much - mainly, I think because I tended to make them
keel over as soon as I bought them - but this year I've suddenly been bitten
by the gardening bug, and I doubt life will ever be the same again! I live
in the west of Ireland (and this is the closest NG I could find, and I'm a
Brit, so it feels like the right place to be!), and have half an acre of
weedy boggy field (nettles, brambles, reeds, gorse and water
mint...arrggh!), plus two rough lawns at the front of the house (rough
thanks to 4 dogs, 3 cats and a chicken!).

One lawn is soon to vanish - we have plans (which are probably all wrong,
please do tell me if you think so!) to cover it with that woven fabric stuff
they sell in garden centers, then to shovel a lorryload of gravel on top,
and build raised beds on top of that! (All fenced in to keep out the
aforementioned animals). I want a veggie bed, and a couple of flower beds -
mostly perennials (and they have to be pretty hardy to survive in our
windswept, heavily rained on area) but with annuals bunged in here and there
to brighten things up during our few days of summer. In anticipation of this
gravel garden, I'm growing everything you can think of in pots - from
'patio' potatoes through alpine strawberries, a little mangetout, a shedload
of fuchsias (they grow wild in the hedgerows here, so seemed like a good
bet), more nasturtiums than anybody could want (4 different types!),
sunflowers ditto, a bit of lettuce, a baby Acer somethingorother, plus a
load more plants that looked interesting (honestly, the Thompson & Morgan
online shop should come with an addiction warning!). These include French
marigolds, some asters, foxgloves for the shady patch round the back, an
astilbe, a peony, some convovulus (free with a gardening mag), a lathyrus
something, some coleus cuttings fom a friend, lilac ditto, and four
begonias, which have yet to show any life at all - bought 'bulbs', buried
them in a pot about 6 weeks ago, and no action as yet! (is this normal?)

I also want a rockery somewhere, but haven't started planning that yet.
Indoors (I lack a greenhouse) I'm growing rat-tail radishes and chilli
peppers from seed - plus a couple of banana plants if the seeds ever arrive!
I'm desperate to get my hands on some Japanese Blood Grass, but I can't find
anywhere that sells it in either plant or seed form. Also on the shopping
list is a walking stick cabbage, which is out of stock at T&M,
unfortunately!

I'm hoping to achieve a very idiosyncratic, quirky garden that's a bit out
of the ordinary - and entirely gnome-free. Basically, what I'm looking for
are 'mad' looking plants that love boggy soil and rain. I bought my first
bag of vermaculite (is that how you spell it?) today, and am beginning to
feel like a 'proper' gardener! Even managed to stuff and hang two hanging
baskets, which haven't blown away yet! (Indian Mint, variegated ivy, lots of
allyssum and a couple of other things I forget...)

So anyway, that's where I am - at the beginning in many ways! Suggestions
for weird plants and sources of them much appreciated, as is general
encouragement and/or advice. Sorry for the length of this post - I'll be
briefer in future!

Jo