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The gardening thread

Often find greenhouses on freecycle if you have a vehicle for pickup.

Benefits of a warm, sheltered garden - I've already started putting seedlings out to make room indoors. Might risk a few things up at the allotment under cloches/fleece next week. Chillies currently germinating in the oven...
 
You will be familiar with that most resonant gardener's lament ' this year is going to be loads better than last year', bimble. Gardening is the absolute epitome of hopeful optimism. And we witness minor miracles every day. I was minded to resist horticulture as impossibly straight, middle-class, dull...and yet the second I lowered my guard (doing parental duty), it proved to have an ineluctable grip on my psyche. A tremendous stroke of luck.
 
I love my greenhouse. It occupies nearly a third of my garden area (10 x 14ft) and was free (on freecycle - although there is a story...) It is best in winter when it is full of tender plants...and all the cuttings and seeds from autumn. I have a last push in April/May (biennials, leeks, broccoli), but then the greenhouse is empty all summer (I grow quite a lot of stuff around and over it, like fast growing annual climbers (mina lobata, morning glory, thunbergia, cobaens scandens, peas, loads of things, which keeps it nice and cool. I didn't have one for a long time, but I always had coldframes, cloches and stuff...but you can be IN a greenhouse, in winter sun, with green things...O yes, get one. And get the biggest you can - you will fill it ++.
 
I've got first dibs on my next door allotment neighbour's 6x8ft greenhouse when she replaces it in a few months, if I can pull down my old shed and build a greenhouse base in its place before then.
 
campanula said:
You will be familiar with that most resonant gardener's lament ' this year is going to be loads better than last year', bimble. Gardening is the absolute epitome of hopeful optimism. And we witness minor miracles every day. I was minded to resist horticulture as impossibly straight, middle-class, dull...and yet the second I lowered my guard (doing parental duty), it proved to have an ineluctable grip on my psyche. A tremendous stroke of luck.
Click to expand...
This - the optimism thing- it's so true! Always living a little in the future, the future which will be full of blossom and scent even as I plant a stumpy looking thing.
Especially amazing for a person who isn't very optimistic about most things really, on the wider scale, the world out there beyond the garden.
The downside of this optimism is that now I have googled all of the climbers on your greenhouse, and feel that all of them should be here, and that they'd all blossom heartily for me in no time if I just buy all of the seeds on the whole internet. ( i won't but want to).
 
Disaster, the little patch of earth next to front door where I was about to plant my rose, it’s a slab of concrete under about 15cm of soil, not going to work is it. I will have to plant her elsewhere : (
 
This concrete - is it part of the house footings? How solid is it. I ask because I have a pot garden...and every single large pot which has stood in position over a season, has rooted through the bottom, down through the block paving, into the builder's rubble which constitutes ther main soil bed in my garden. Roots are some of the most tenacious, questing explorers in the universe. Unless this concrete is absolutely impassable on all sides, there is a way to do this,bimble. You could start with a large planter - there are some really nice 'Versailles' style, timber ones to be had. Knock a large hole in the bottom use a drill to drill a 3inch circle and bash it through or use a chisel. Fill with good quality loam (John Innes 3 , mixed with 1/5 peaty compost mix, 1/5 grit and some Osmocote slow release fertiliser. Plant rose. In a couple of years, it will have rooted right through, down into the base around your house...and if there is any soil within reach, the long taproots will find it. If not, you will have a potted rose which you can relocate somewhere else...and you will know whether it is thriving or not. So yep, choose a nice pot. Even terracotta can be drilled with a ceramic drill bit to enlarge the drainage hole. No reason to give up the idea of a rosy entrance just yet.
 
Mmmm, not really a fan of rigger gloves, although they are cheap. I use Showa neoprene gloves (there are numerous copies from Briers, Town and Country).These are waterproof, so ideal for grubbing through wet soil, but more importantly, they allow for much finer articulation of fingers for fine weeding, pruning and so on. I get through a couple of pairs a season (and I am using them daily) Riggers rarely come in small sizes and are only really fit for basic digging, imo.
 
I've not done well with rigger gloves either. I bought a pair of these a few years ago and they're superb, good for brambles and have lasted exceptionally wel. Also long to protect lower arms. So impressed I bought another pair for when they do eventually give out :)

Briers Premium Suede Gauntlets - Gloves.co.uk

Buy the Briers Premium Suede Gauntlets for £8.29 from Gloves.co.uk with FREE UK delivery on all orders over £40. Protects hands and forearms
www.gloves.co.uk
 
When I was looking at rambling roses I did read somewhere that the roses of roots tend to go across the soil surface campanula - is that not correct? (well clearly not if there are tap roots)
 

Rose rootstocks Mehlen Pflanzenhandel

Rosenveredlungsunterlagen der Mehlen Pflanzenhandel GbR
www.baumschule-mehlen.de www.baumschule-mehlen.de
In this country, @two-sheds, we graft roses onto a canina var. laxa rootstock, which does indeed have a large taproot as well as many fibrous feeding roots. Annoyingly, the main taproot will often lurch sideways, growing some distance away from the rootcrown. If you have ever tried to lift and move a mature rose, this will be very familiar. By and large, we really don't have many problems with surface roots unless we are growing certain gallicas,moss roses and those madly suckering pimpinellifolia 'Scotch' burnet roses. True, ramblers will carry roots quite a distance, but never too densely to be in danger of damage if we choose to grow ground covering plants underneath...or indeed, get busy with a hoe.
Yeah, I use red suede welding gauntlets for rose-work...but I do have to wear gloves or my hands would be ravaged, so I need ones which allow me to do fine work such as seed sowing and hand-weeding. Those neoprene dipped ones are a perfect solution, keeping my fingers dry while allowing for aeration across the back of my hands. Cheap too, at around a fiver a pair...and most importantly, come in sizes.
 
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campanula said:
This concrete - is it part of the house footings? How solid is it. I ask because I have a pot garden...and every single large pot which has stood in position over a season, has rooted through the bottom, down through the block paving, into the builder's rubble which constitutes ther main soil bed in my garden. Roots are some of the most tenacious, questing explorers in the universe. Unless this concrete is absolutely impassable on all sides, there is a way to do this,bimble. You could start with a large planter - there are some really nice 'Versailles' style, timber ones to be had. Knock a large hole in the bottom use a drill to drill a 3inch circle and bash it through or use a chisel. Fill with good quality loam (John Innes 3 , mixed with 1/5 peaty compost mix, 1/5 grit and some Osmocote slow release fertiliser. Plant rose. In a couple of years, it will have rooted right through, down into the base around your house...and if there is any soil within reach, the long taproots will find it. If not, you will have a potted rose which you can relocate somewhere else...and you will know whether it is thriving or not. So yep, choose a nice pot. Even terracotta can be drilled with a ceramic drill bit to enlarge the drainage hole. No reason to give up the idea of a rosy entrance just yet.
Click to expand...
I love the imperturbableness of this. The concrete does look solid and stretches to the edges of that little bed. Oddly the patch (south facing) just outside the kitchen, which looks the same, is fine- ive dug a good 40cm down and I think this bare root will get tucked up here. I will not give up on rosy doorway though. Will see what happens if I introduce the concrete to my drill. Otherwise will go the big planter route yes.
My favourite sitting spot is right there outside the kitchen door next to the future rose so possibly this is not a disaster after all.
 
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New Dawn is a very lovely rose...and, interestingly, is very strong on its own roots. Plant as deeply as You can, covering the graft union, and within a couple of seasons, it will grow it's own roots to overtake the scion. Which also offers up some potential for increasing your stock by growing hardwood cuttings. Not only have I grown a good few New Dawn on their own roots, I have even used them as graft scions for some miffy varieties such as Ash Wednesday and Julia's Rose (bizarrely coloured roses which lack innate vigour). All-in-all, I think you will enjoy this rose, bimble.
I haven't really touched on the great rootstock debate...but rose growers will have some opposing positions regarding planting depth, various scions and even the grafted or own-root arguments. As a general rule of thumb, planting fairly deeply will enable a rose to grow its own roots from the buried crown, minimising the likelihood of rootstock suckering (and eventual takeover of the stock-rose (I had a 'mare of this last year).
 
like a knob i planted a vicious rose that i've regretted ever since but never managed to get under control enough to hack the roots out. this year :thumbs:

i have a question about rootstocks campanula - our apple tree is 20 years old and 10ft tall. it promised to be really small, i'm sure it was the smallest rootstock, m27. could it have bypassed the graft or something? is the tree likely to get taller still?
 
campanula does it look alright the depth? Instructions were a bit confusing if you don’t understand grafting, but said the place where it branches out to be 2.5 cm below firmed surface, and I think I’ve done that (not with measuring).
DF618A2B-371B-4767-B8AC-8AE1EC17588E.jpeg
I did it with love, manure & special rose pellet things.
(Spiky plastic mat is just necessary to stop cat using the bed as toilet).
 
I have moved in with my love and am enjoying getting stuck in to the new to me garden.

It’s very big, overlooked and was totally neglected for years. It’s a formally laid out Victorian garden with high quality stone work, paths and features (not that you would have known with the chaos and weeds).

I have used a pressure washer to remove moss and crap off of the paths and surrounds just to give me a bit of room to work and get a sense of it.

The beds have loads of hibees ? I don’t mean those cheeky bastards from Hibernian but these huge impenetrable bushes that bees love and have taken over half the beds. I obviously had to buy a new chainsaw to deal with these.

I love to grow vegetables and have discovered the foundations to three raised vegetable growing beds. Great fun.

One problem is a neighbour who used to have a big stone wall and had it demolished some time ago and they threw the multi ton rubble into our garden. My partner is only little and was a single mum then and they were not nice when she complained and the rubble remains. It’s had other inconsiderates adding to it with all manner of shite since. I think my general clearing/chainsaw work/general presence might provoke some generosity. I hope so.

I went to Lidl today as they only get one carousel of plant seeds per store and they are in now. I spent a lot. I’m considering doing a plants swap sale freebie thing. Meet the neighbours and that.

And what a fab day it’s been too!
 
wayward bob said:
like a knob i planted a vicious rose that i've regretted ever since but never managed to get under control enough to hack the roots out. this year :thumbs:

i have a question about rootstocks campanula - our apple tree is 20 years old and 10ft tall. it promised to be really small, i'm sure it was the smallest rootstock, m27. could it have bypassed the graft or something? is the tree likely to get taller still?
Click to expand...
The graft union should be above ground so you should be able to see if it's rooted from the scionwood. Could it be M26 rather than M27 - they grow to around 10ft iirc?
 
My tip bearer is on M116 (a mistake, on my part). I have read that M116 is ideal for cider apples and some of the pippins (Kidd's Orange, Cox etc.), helping to even out the trees propensity for biennial bearing. While I love pruning and training, my grafting experience was mostly confined to ag.school. Do keep us updated on your experiments, Iona.
 
A push mower, on a flat surface with sharp blades will give a truly excellent cut, Sugar Kane . Cylinder blades are always superior to rotary mowers, imo...but with coarse, tufty grass, and an uneven surface, a pushmower really isn't up to the job. I use a little Qualcast on the allotment path...but a strimmer for between the beds or for doing the meadow cut.
 
iona said:
The graft union should be above ground so you should be able to see if it's rooted from the scionwood. Could it be M26 rather than M27 - they grow to around 10ft iirc?
Click to expand...
it will totally be this :oops::D will try to stop fretting about it going up forever then blowing over in a storm and devastating the neighbourhood at my cost to rebuild :thumbs:
 
campanula said:
A push mower, on a flat surface with sharp blades will give a truly excellent cut, Sugar Kane . Cylinder blades are always superior to rotary mowers, imo...but with coarse, tufty grass, and an uneven surface, a pushmower really isn't up to the job. I use a little Qualcast on the allotment path...but a strimmer for between the beds or for doing the meadow cut.
Click to expand...

If I ever actually get a garden I'm probably going to stick to a strimmer for grass. Mowing was always the most horrific part of my chores
 
campanula said:
My tip bearer is on M116 (a mistake, on my part). I have read that M116 is ideal for cider apples and some of the pippins (Kidd's Orange, Cox etc.), helping to even out the trees propensity for biennial bearing. While I love pruning and training, my grafting experience was mostly confined to ag.school. Do keep us updated on your experiments, Iona.
Click to expand...
A few people involved in teaching and various commercial and community orchards round this way recommend M116 for the clay we get around here. The four apples I planted this winter are on M9 so be interested to see how they do in comparison - will be using both rootstocks for stepovers so differences should come out more through yield and tree health than size.

Have also got plans for some guerilla grafting pear onto a few hawthorns around the place since reading that's possible.
 
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