The gardening thread

[Idaho]

sunny mornings like this with the honeysuckle in full swing make me happy/smug with my gardening choices (i.e. only ever pruning it halfheartedly)

My honeysuckle seems to leaf up, start flowering... Then lose all its flowers and leaves. Am I meant to prune at some stage?

 

[Leafster]

My honeysuckle seems to leaf up, start flowering... Then lose all its flowers and leaves. Am I meant to prune at some stage?

Mine is the same. Every year it puts on new healthy growth with flower buds and then about this time of year it just seems to give up.

I think it's in a difficult spot - up against a fence with little soil to grow into. My neighbour has a huge concrete slab on the other side of the fence and it's got paving slabs on my side.

I've been trying to keep it going for probably four or five years now. I thought it might be lack of water and nutrients so I've tried adding granular feed and watering regularly but it still fails.

I'm wondering now whether the ground gets too hot with the mass of concrete on the other side of the fence which has the sun on it for a large part of the day and my paved area. The sun also shines on the other side of the fence for a large part of the day too which probably heats it up. However, Welsh poppies seem to thrive in the same piece of ground as does a fern - all of which have self-seeded there.

 

[wayward bob]

My honeysuckle seems to leaf up, start flowering... Then lose all its flowers and leaves. Am I meant to prune at some stage?

i don't think so? by pruning i just mean hacking it back enough that i can get past - not at a particular time of year of anything. we don't have the roots for it, they're next door, but i'm pretty sure they don't do anything active to it.

when it was smaller it would sometimes wipe out with spotty/mildewy leaves, turn yellow and drop them all. these days the leaf loss is much less - but i've no idea what if anything's changed.

/useless post

 

[Leafster]

i don't think so? by pruning i just mean hacking it back enough that i can get past - not at a particular time of year of anything. we don't have the roots for it, they're next door, but i'm pretty sure they don't do anything active to it.

when it was smaller it would sometimes wipe out with spotty/mildewy leaves, turn yellow and drop them all. these days the leaf loss is much less - but i've no idea what if anything's changed.

/useless post

The bit I've highlighted pretty much describes what happens to mine.

Perhaps, I just have to be patient and let it find some decent root runs in amongst the concrete.

 

[andysays]

Mine is the same. Every year it puts on new healthy growth with flower buds and then about this time of year it just seems to give up.

I think it's in a difficult spot - up against a fence with little soil to grow into. My neighbour has a huge concrete slab on the other side of the fence and it's got paving slabs on my side.

I've been trying to keep it going for probably four or five years now. I thought it might be lack of water and nutrients so I've tried adding granular feed and watering regularly but it still fails.

I'm wondering now whether the ground gets too hot with the mass of concrete on the other side of the fence which has the sun on it for a large part of the day and my paved area. The sun also shines on the other side of the fence for a large part of the day too which probably heats it up. However, Welsh poppies seem to thrive in the same piece of ground as does a fern - all of which have self-seeded there.

Wild honeysuckle grows in woodland, climbing up trees etc, so is possibly better suited to semi shade, and the heat from your neighbour's concrete probably won't be helping its roots stay cool.

 

[Idaho]

Wild honeysuckle grows in woodland, climbing up trees etc, so is possibly better suited to semi shade, and the heat from your neighbour's concrete probably won't be helping its roots stay cool.

So lots of watering and then mulch?

 

[andysays]

So lots of watering and then mulch?

Maybe that would work.

Personally, I'm a great believer in finding appropriate plants to suit particular conditions, rather than creating different conditions to suit particular plants, if that makes sense.

If a honeysuckle really isn't thriving there, I'd try to find something else that would (and maybe try to grow the honeysuckle somewhere more suitable, though you or Leafster may not have anywhere better)

 

[StoneRoad]

I've got a clematis growing over the front of the house, which grows and flowers quite vigorously. It springs from a really dry, impoverished and tiny patch that gets sun from early morning until late afternoon. Between the house and concrete / slab paths. By the size of the main stem, it has been there many years ...

 

[iona]

Getting to my allotment is a half hour train journey then 45 minute walk on roads with maniac drivers and no pavements or streetlights. Somehow I still find it easier to leave at 5am so I can fit in a couple of hours there before work, than to drag myself downstairs to the garden where I live

 

[Artaxerxes]

Its a 5 minute walk from mine and I'm still occasionally to lazy to get down there

One thing I can't do is any heavy power tool or strimming work - no shed or storage for electric/petrol mowers or strimmers. So lots of tarpaulin over winter.

 

[Leafster]

Maybe that would work.

Personally, I'm a great believer in finding appropriate plants to suit particular conditions, rather than creating different conditions to suit particular plants, if that makes sense.

If a honeysuckle really isn't thriving there, I'd try to find something else that would (and maybe try to grow the honeysuckle somewhere more suitable, though you or Leafster may not have anywhere better)

Yes, the problem is trying to find something that will grow in the tricky location. There's very little soil. It's on the southwest side of my small courtyard which is surrounded by two walls of the house, a tall retaining wall and blockwork steps and the tall boundary fence with the neighbours. The retaining wall gets the sun (this time of the year) over the house and, as the sun comes round, it shines on one of the walls of the house (opposite the fence) and although there's reflected light from the walls, the honeysuckle doesn't get any direct sun.

The courtyard gets hot as it's sheltered on all sides and I was trying to find something which would "green up" the shady fence. I haven't got a photo of the specific area but here's an older one which just about shows the end of the fence on the far left. I'm open to suggestions of what I could try here instead of the honeysuckle.

 

[two sheds]

Getting to my allotment is a half hour train journey then 45 minute walk on roads with maniac drivers and no pavements or streetlights. Somehow I still find it easier to leave at 5am so I can fit in a couple of hours there before work, than to drag myself downstairs to the garden where I live

I don't think you can know how impressive that is

 

[iona]

I get my mum's partner to bring his strimmer from their house a few miles away but it's a small, friendly site and people are generally happy to lend stuff or mow your paths for you in exchange for some watering next month when they're away or whatever. When I needed a post driver I borrowed one from someone in my mum's village in exchange for picking a load of fruit in his garden coz he'd not had time, it's that kind of place.

I don't think you can know how impressive that is

And yet my own garden is a state and I have the day off and here I am, lying in bed and failing to summon enough motivation to even get dressed or make some coffee

 

[two sheds]

I'm just going to have some toast and marmalade and finish off the hedge-cutting/strimming/branch lopping.

Honest.

Mind you it's so much easier with cordless hedge trimmer/strimmer/mini-chainsaw thingy. I'd just not get to it if it weren't for them.

 

[iona]

Yes, the problem is trying to find something that will grow in the tricky location. There's very little soil. It's on the southwest side of my small courtyard which is surrounded by two walls of the house, a tall retaining wall and blockwork steps and the tall boundary fence with the neighbours. The retaining wall gets the sun (this time of the year) over the house and, as the sun comes round, it shines on one of the walls of the house (opposite the fence) and although there's reflected light from the walls, the honeysuckle doesn't get any direct sun.

The courtyard gets hot as it's sheltered on all sides and I was trying to find something which would "green up" the shady fence. I haven't got a photo of the specific area but here's an older one which just about shows the end of the fence on the far left. I'm open to suggestions of what I could try here instead of the honeysuckle.

Got a similar space in one of my work gardens and there's an Akebia quinata doing really well there.

 

[wayward bob]

Yes, the problem is trying to find something that will grow in the tricky location...

i have a passionflower thriving in the bed of death under the honeysuckle - nothing else i've ever planted there has lasted.

 

[two sheds]

I'm surprised there's room for anything other than a passionflower

having said that I've got one in the conservatory that's flowering but not putting on a huge amount of leaf. One place I lived a passionflower went a good 30 foot by 10 foot across a wall

 

[wayward bob]

they look so delicate - never occurred to me they'd be thuggish

 

[Leafster]

they look so delicate - never occurred to me they'd be thuggish

My parents had one in a pot which they put on the floor of their greenhouse one summer. By the end of the season it had put roots down through the bottom of the pot into the ground so they left it. From then on they didn't ever need to shade the greenhouse in summer as it grew along the inside of the roof and out through the vents shading the tomatoes etc. The roots spread throughout the ground in the greenhouse and even to the outside.

Regular pruning and digging up the new shoots kept in check...

...just.

 

[campanula]

Leafster, I am going to boringly suggest clematis...mostly evergreen. Woodbine (honeysuckle) is indeed a woodland plant and will be desperately unhappy in the conditions you describe...but traditionally, clematis very much like their heads in the sun while their roots are shaded (and usually a concrete or stone slab put over them). The most obvious choice, if you are wanting coverage, is c.armandii...but try to look for the smaller, more mannerly varieties, rather than the true species or varieties such as 'Avalanche'. I believe ClematisOnline sell 'Little White Charm' - the most beautiful evergreen. Mostly, the evergreen clema (cartmannii, cirrhosa, armandii, uruphylla and tangutica) are all winter or early spring flowerers...but what a show they generally put on. The armandii are also beautifully fragrant.
I was going to suggest tracleospermum...but they like the sun and are painfully slow.
Avoid the montanas. They are not evergreen and will leave a tangled mass of wood which are fine when stashed behind a shed but horrible, when on show for the rest of the year.

Talking of clematis, one of my favourite species, c,recta is in full, frothy growth at the moment. I despise those large flowered clems but absolutely love the smaller species, along with nodding viticellas and texensis...and especially, the fragrant autumn flowering terniflora and flammula. Clems - truly a flower for every month of the year.

O iona - I feel your pain. I am detesting my garden at the moment. The massive ceanothus, box and euonymous have robbed all the sun and I feel like I am standing in a lowering corridor, barely held in control. All creeping in from the other side too - a whopping lemon verbena, kirengoshoma and chaenomeles have resulted in all my little beauties being squashed in their pots, overlooked by verdant, but oppressive greenery. Much worse after I visited a friends gorgeously open and sunny garden yesterday.
I am struggling to justify ripping out entire trees, huge roses and giant lilies but yep, feeling hateful and oppressed. Everything is so bloody huge - even the scented leaf geraniums are 3 feet. and I now have too many shrubby salvias....O, it just seems hopeless.

 

[Leafster]

campanula would a clematis be OK with no direct sunlight? There's probably lots of reflected light from the cream coloured walls of the house and retaining wall but the sun doesn't actually shine on that bit of fence.

 

[StoneRoad]

Dammit, I think I need to get the lawnmower out again ...

Maybe later, atm (or after I've eaten my snack) I'm currently weeding / cleaning parts of a gravel path that runs on two sides of the house (solid surfaces on the other two). Very boring ... looks good when done, but oh, so boring ...

Don't suggest weedkilling as I try to be chemical-free as much as possible and I'm stealing some free grass for a small bare patch on the front lawn ... the rest gets composted.

 

[campanula]

Yes, surprisingly, quite a few do rather well on north-facing walls. Direct sun causes the flowers to fade and can also lead to leaf scorch. The evergreens in particular seem to do very well without direct sun.

 

[campanula]

Gravel paths are exactly what propane weedkillers were invented for? Some people swear by white vinegar (have not tried it myself) but am often amazed at some of these 'household' remedies such as salt (ffs).

 

[campanula]

So, I think I need some hand-holding from my fellow gardeners. I have stood around in my gloomy garden and absolutely know that there can be no real change without some serious destruction...and removing a fully healthy, evergreen is not something I feel comfortable doing. 2 of them. have been awaiting this moment for the past 3 years, knowing it was going to be inevitable. The 2 best and sunniest spaces in my minuscule walled courtyard-type garden, have been filled with 2 enormous (and dull) plants not of my choosing, while the 3 huge roses are also in need of severe 'rationalisation'. I feel a bit sick at the prospect but cutting back will not solve anything (and may even make things worse). I rarely feel much compunction about plant murder in other people's gardens but this is worse because both of the plant choosers (sweetheart and youngest offspring) would be grieved to see me wield a chainsaw to their beloved trees...but I am sick of them and really want to get rid of loads of stuff (non-flowering paeonies, massive alstroemerias, ferns, kirengeshoma, O, it would be a massacre. If I don't pull my finger out, my summer will be a sad and gloomy garden fiasco. What to do, what to do? There is no saving these plants so it is death or disappointment. And a visit to the tip, feeling guilty and horrified.

When the rain stops, I am going to take some photos. If ever I needed some more opinions, now is the time.

 

[friendofdorothy]

cuting things down is so difficult! I find geting rid of plants almost impossible too. I feel for you campanula

If your space is small there is no room for unwanted plants. Best wishes x

 

[wayward bob]

i understand the lowering fullness thing campanula - in my case worse cos i chose them all. but i get a comforting cocoon vibe more often, so it just gets worse g'luck in your pursuit of a sunny spot

 

[bimble]

Oh no campanula i can well understand your dilemma . Sounds like it has to be done. To make space for new life, you know. Not any of them would survive being dug up and moved? Moved as in adopted.

 

[andysays]

So, I think I need some hand-holding from my fellow gardeners. I have stood around in my gloomy garden and absolutely know that there can be no real change without some serious destruction...and removing a fully healthy, evergreen is not something I feel comfortable doing. 2 of them. have been awaiting this moment for the past 3 years, knowing it was going to be inevitable. The 2 best and sunniest spaces in my minuscule walled courtyard-type garden, have been filled with 2 enormous (and dull) plants not of my choosing, while the 3 huge roses are also in need of severe 'rationalisation'. I feel a bit sick at the prospect but cutting back will not solve anything (and may even make things worse). I rarely feel much compunction about plant murder in other people's gardens but this is worse because both of the plant choosers (sweetheart and youngest offspring) would be grieved to see me wield a chainsaw to their beloved trees...but I am sick of them and really want to get rid of loads of stuff (non-flowering paeonies, massive alstroemerias, ferns, kirengeshoma, O, it would be a massacre. If I don't pull my finger out, my summer will be a sad and gloomy garden fiasco. What to do, what to do? There is no saving these plants so it is death or disappointment. And a visit to the tip, feeling guilty and horrified.

When the rain stops, I am going to take some photos. If ever I needed some more opinions, now is the time.

I don't know if Marie Kondo applies her tidying principles to gardening, but she suggests asking yourself if your possessions "spark joy" and if they don't to get rid of them.

This will create more space in your life/garden which can potentially accommodate different stuff which does spark joy, or you may decide that the space sparks its own kind of joy.

(but please lets have some "before" photos so we can see what it looks like now)

 

[Calamity1971]

What andysays says . I got rid of a few things ( asked if anyone wanted them beforehand) because I hate killing any plant, in fact one was a rescue when someone had their garden landscaped. I felt terrible doing it but I'm much happier now I've replanted and it's not overcrowded and too busy.