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The gardening thread

Callie said:
There were loads of plane trees that had dropped their bark round my way. Never seen that before but apparently it's a way to conserve water! It looked pretty brutal, wouldn't fancy standing near one while big chunks of the outer layer fall off

Anyone else noticed it??
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I've been seeing that too. Areas of dead grass with a covering of crunchy plane tree bark is becoming a common sight.

Lots of trees are also shedding leaves (and in a few cases small branches) to reduce transpiration and conserve water.
 
Quite a few silver birch, small leaved limes, and other broadleaved trees as well as some of the coniferous trees are casting leaves, needles and bark in considerable amounts.
My 'Bramley' apples are chucking off loads of applets, the bigger ones might make cider ...

Having said that, yesterday's thunderstorm and heavy showers this morning will improve things, but I doubt if there has been enough to close the drought cracks in some areas of grass and under the rowan.
Will still have to water some containers tonight.
 
Callie said:
There were loads of plane trees that had dropped their bark round my way. Never seen that before but apparently it's a way to conserve water! It looked pretty brutal, wouldn't fancy standing near one while big chunks of the outer layer fall off

Anyone else noticed it??
Click to expand...

Yeah a lot of it looks like it blew off yesterday in the wind and I was wondering why.
 
As I understand it, Planes - and other trees - drop bark for several reasons.
One that I have heard described is part of their growth cycle and is to discard old / dirty / damaged bark and reveal clean bark that has formed underneath, I think that this new bark will allow some transpiration.
 
I’ve seen a couple of distressed trees with large long cracks running deeply in the bark. No doubt these are trees that were in some kind of distress or old age anyway, which has been compounded by the dry weather. But I can’t recall seeing these long cracks running up and down the trunk before now. One was some kind of plum, another was a hornbeam.

A horse chestnut near me, which has been throwing up honey fungus for the last two or three years, has pretty much died this year. It bravely put out some spring green, but nines of the leaves grew, and most of them are dried and brown now. I knew it was in its last years because of the honey fungus, and this dry weather has seen it off. I really hope that when the council fell it (they’ll have to, it’s near several busy footpaths) they leave it in situ. We have a good old colony of stag beetles in the area and they could do with the woody habitat.
 
I think the wind has contributed to the leaf etc shedding. Half the plums have come off my tree in the last 48 hours, which is great because I still have most of last year's in the freezer. Poor trees though.
 
I was horrified by the amount of foliage dropped by the poplars in my wood. Also, entire limbs dropping off at abscission points caused by long-term drought. Anything with a waxy cuticle (such as evergreens like holly, spindle, mahonia, holm oak, some maples, small leaved lime...also many roses, are shrugging off the lack of water by closing down transpiration. Broadleaf trees with a large surface area of leaf elder, or foliage which is more papery (viburnum, elder, some, but not all, prunus ) are being devastated by a viciously drying s.westerly wind. The elders have simply aborted all their berries.
 
The wind over the last day or so is doing more damage than the drought, at least that's what my garden looks like.
 
It's the same here. We had gusts of between 40 & 50 mph at the weekend and combined with the wait of rain on leaves has resulted in a lot of battered plants. The budleias on the boundary with my neighbour seem to have suffered most but my artichokes are a mangled mess and a sycamore on the road lost a branch of about 4 metres.
 
StoneRoad said:
The wind over the last day or so is doing more damage than the drought, at least that's what my garden looks like.
Click to expand...

Well over half of the apples on our cooking apple tree were lost during Sunday's storm. Still a good few on the tree -we won't starve for lack of apple crumble.
 
Finally !
The "Big Greenhouse" is built, glazed and the door works (nice idea / theory but practical, nope!)
I've put a couple or three plants in on the staging and when the path / power+lights / border (or is it bed) are complete then I'll move over the majority of the tomato plants ...

In other news, the transplanted roses seem to have survived the experience as they all have put on some new growth.
 
Yesterday evening the conditions were perfectfor the first time for my containers of mixed cabbage family smellies below my bedroom window :)
Mignonette, 12 week stocks and night-scented stocks - plus a few bonus snap dragons that were freebie seeds.
I'm not sure what particular plant was smelly last night.

smellybox.jpg
 
Nicotiana (affinis and suaveolens), lemon verbena,salvias, a handful of scented geraniums and lavenders are doing it for me - any of those oily mediterranean aromatics are surviving the drought - hopeless year for phlox and night-flowering catchfly. I used to have zaluzianskya ovata...a gorgeous little plant which I lost and have never found again.
 
Apologies for thread crashing / if this has been asked before, wasn't sure where else to post. I'm a relative newbie to caring for plants, but since chucking a few Poundland seeds and bulbs into some windowboxes in spring, my little garden has brought me endless joy and happiness all summer. Im going to be away for a few days and terrified my babies that I've grown all summer are going to dry out and die im the hot weather. Been reading mixed reviews of those plastic or glass 'bulb' drip feeders on Amazon. Anyone know of they work? Any tried and tested tips for keeping windboxes alive and watered for a long weekend?
 
Really water them well, as in make sure the compost is thoroughly damp all the way to the bottom, as opposed to a little dribble.

No comment on drip watering, as I haven't used them.
When we were all away last time for a week in the really hot spell, I asked a friend to water my containers and ventilate / water the greenhouse ...
 
I have filled a 4pint milk carton and made needle holes so water will drip very slowly over 24 hours but a truly deep watering is essential. If you can lift the window boxes to the ground, you can also set up a bootlace wicking system - the feed will need to be higher than the plants, hence moving to the ground. I have also hung one of those collapsible camping water carriers over a hanging basket. I entirely understand and sympathise with plant worry.
 
I got one earlier in the summer :) :thumbs:
But it's full of couch grass and bindweed :( :mad:

I nearly gave it up, but instead I'm covering it in thick plastic which will stay there till next winter.
There will remain a few spots where I can try and grow a few random seeds, as well as chuck in the plants my son occasionally grows at school.

Anyway, one day I'll be able to post here.....
 
My bike broke so I've been walking home past the spot where I first spotted a "dyer's weld" (Reseda luteola) plant and I noticed a whole load more popping up along the line of some drainage works along with teasels (appropriately).

It's a shame the closely related "mignonettes" I'm growing are a lot smaller (as well as not actually having any scent that I can detect up close :hmm:

But "mignon" itself means "cute" - and -ette is almost tautological ...


weld.jpg
 
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mojo pixy said:
I got one earlier in the summer :) :thumbs:
But it's full of couch grass and bindweed :( :mad:

I nearly gave it up, but instead I'm covering it in thick plastic which will stay there till next winter.
There will remain a few spots where I can try and grow a few random seeds, as well as chuck in the plants my son occasionally grows at school.

Anyway, one day I'll be able to post here.....
Click to expand...

Reluctant to break the bad news, Mojo, but you could cover it with plastic till 2050 and the couch and bindweed will still be there. There are only 2 effective methods of ridding yourself of these particularly persistent (practicallyimmortal) rhizomes...and one of them involves endless moil and toil...while the other involves no effort but some creeping psychological shame and, depending on site ethos, may require sneaky night-time effort. I have done both (and various failed attempts at other solutions (cardboard, black plastic, clear plastic, deep mulches). So, it is either careful and persistent digging with continual removal of the wicked roots...or a blast of glyphosate now and again in April.
FWIW, I have 2 allotments - one of which I sprayed off late summer, built beds and resprayed again in spring...while my second one was much more piecemeal and had many things I wanted to keep so opted for the continual digging. 15 years later, it is still obvious which plot had the best start...and it was definitely not the ethically sound but fucking hugely weedy, hand dug one.

TBF, years of being paid as a pro-gardener has pretty much diminished my qualms about chemical herbicides. Just about every customer pays lip service to organic principles but they either have a secret stash in their own sheds or balk at paying endless hourly rates handpulling weeds when a vicious spritz takes 30mins and the guilt is hived off onto 'the help'.
 
I was asked by some friends (a lot of years ago now - well before the current policy) to have a look at a weed that was invading their rural garden from the corner by roadside / field boundary.
I had a look and tentatively ID'ed Japanese Knotweed, which seemed to be growing along from a area behind the field hedge with a load of dumped tree, shrub & hedge prunings.
My remedy was to cut it down, burn the arisings and repeated applications of glyphosate onto the regrowth.
We got rid of it all within three seasons.
Never did find out who was dumping their stuff behind that wall. I pulled it apart whilst treating the knotweed, and there was loads of leylandii in the middle and my friends didn't have any nor evidence of ever having had any in their patch ... being tidy souls we asked the farmer if we could burn the dumped stuff, an idea with which he was ok.
 
Can anybody help me to if this plant please?
83CECBCD-CDAD-4B41-AEA1-1B8919053834_zpsk5jiqjhl.jpg

I must have planted it because there's just one pot of it on my balcony. I think it's kind of pretty but I'm wondering if it's a medicinal herb I might have tried to grow. And if so, which one? :facepalm:
Good intentions man, good intentions...

Oh shit. I can't load a photo :rolleyes::facepalm::hmm:
Does photobucket not work on urban anymore?
 
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