The gardening thread

[ringo]

My experience with hanging baskets was just the one year trying them and forgetting to water them and everything died.

Yep, going away on holiday or evenfor the weekend can be lethal. Massive challenge to get these right, at their peak at the start of August, and alive.

 

[ringo]

Last time a folded up a plastic bag in the base of each basket to retain moisture. Might add a layer of newspaper above that this time.

 

[two sheds]

there's always that stuff that retains loads of water. I did buy some one time but it turned into a slimy mess, not sure I was using it right tbh

 

[gentlegreen]

I line my baskets with compost bags - but with some drainage holes in.
Hanging baskets are a nightmare IMHO - a ridiculously small volume of compost - unless you plumb in drip irrigation.

 

[gentlegreen]

"Just a little salad" I thought ....

 

[ringo]

there's always that stuff that retains loads of water. I did buy some one time but it turned into a slimy mess, not sure I was using it right tbh

Think I've got some perlite in the garage, I'll add some of that.

Hanging baskets are a pain, but they look great in a little festival and are less prone to drunken/accidental damage.

 

[StoneRoad]

I have used compostable pots a number of times, with varying levels of success.
My usual trick is to cut a slice down the sides, or poke holes in the bottom when planting out, and do so with them very wet from a fresh watering.

The newspaper pot hack is something I haven't tried, my usual alternative is bog and kitchen roll centres, as they're "bottomless" pots.

Otherwise, a mass of mixed "proper" pots, plus an assortment of yoghurt / cottage cheese and similar containers do their duty. I make quite a bit of use of the segmented trays, including the ones for 3" pots the growers send out to garden centres.
What I do try though, is not to do too much transplanting, as I have loads of pots and a reasonable amount of space, that isn't usually a problem.

Because of the prospect of late frosts and rabbits munching on things, I do grow a few crops & flowers in 3l and 5l pots, like dwarf peas and beans.
I also like hanging baskets, but the watering can be a problem, I keep thinking about rigging up a drip feed system ...

 

[iona]

You can just rip the bottom of those cardboardy pots open when potting on / planting out, if you're worried plants won't root through it.

 

[iona]

One couple I sometimes do a bit of work for have a wild rabbit that hangs out in their garden. They like to sit in the kitchen and watch it hopping around on the patio just outside.

Their next-door neighbour, who I also work for, has just texted me to say he saw a rabbit on the lawn "... to be discussed "

This will end well

 

[two sheds]

wild rabbit

 

[iona]

Ykwim Not a pet

 

[Calamity1971]

there's always that stuff that retains loads of water. I did buy some one time but it turned into a slimy mess, not sure I was using it right tbh

I saw a hack once, and it was to use the stuff out of nappies to retain water ( clean ones)

 

[two sheds]

grr dp

 

[Calamity1971]

Wild, it was livid

 

[two sheds]

Ykwim Not a pet

I know exactly what you mean. A previous boss of mine was attacked and chased into a field by a :wild: rabbit.

 

[StoneRoad]

What annoyed me about the previous rabbit infestation was that we live in the middle of fields, yet the perishers had to come and eat my flowers, rather than the extensive swathes of wildflowers growing just a few feet away.

I did some re-fencing, used raised containers, other protection and noise-making deterrents ... which mostly worked.

 

[two sheds]

Used to get dozens of rabbits in my place but haven't seen one for several years now - many fewer in the area plus Cosmo the dog dissuading them from appearing in the garden.

 

[campanula]

I love a wallflower (who doesn't)...and have quite a few perennials such as Winter Orchid, Harpur Crewe, Jacob's Coat, Jep's Red and the already-mentioned Bowles Mauve, along with ever cheerful orange Siberian wallflower(C.allioni). Because they are such prolific and long-lasting bloomers, they inevitably flower themselves to death over 2-3 seasons (not unlike certain campanulas such as Kent Belle). They are so easy to root from cuttings that I have a few new ones every year, ripping out the stragglers. Even the biennials will return for another go-round, if dead-headed and cut back hard...and often do surprisingly well in unpromising locations such as under a hedge.

Hanging baskets! The year I built my first pergola, I had around 13 or so, hanging from the pergola and various brackets around the garden. Never again - my entire summer was a stressed nightmare of hopelessly poking the watering lance into dried out potting mix, while run-off soaked my neck and shoulders...and no matter how conscientiously I kept up with the watering (and I needed to do it twice a day,some days), it was still an impossible strain on my nerves. If I ever went down the hanging basket road again (doubtful), I would probably settle for the largest possible basket of sempervivums, sedums and dianthus. Pots are hard enough to keep moist, but hanging baskets are a special kind of irrigation torture. Happy to admire other people's without vanishing into drought-ridden purgatory.

 

[Calamity1971]

I started taking my hanging baskets down an sitting them in a bucket of water ( same getting soaked putting back up, but seemed to drench them more) Went down the coir lined route a couple of years ago and the birds decimated them for nesting. Yes, they're a pain in the arse but can look lovely if you get them right, which I don't always. Poached egg plant seems to like them I find.

 

[gentlegreen]

Think I've got some perlite in the garage, I'll add some of that.

Hanging baskets are a pain, but they look great in a little festival and are less prone to drunken/accidental damage.

Perlite is for improving drainage - unless you mean vermiculite ..
I was a monster for both of those years ago - until I realised that what you need to do is max-out all the other good stuff in the compost.
If you take it to the extreme - which I probably did - as well as risking scarring the lungs - you end up with hydroponics through losing the buffering ability of the compost.
(Though the compost in 4 of my baskets probably is just an inert substrate now)

 

[two sheds]

They are so easy to root from cuttings

oooo

/goes off to check

 

[StoneRoad]

A couple of preserved railways I am very familiar with have hanging baskets, but quite large ones, mounted under canopies.
Thus getting zero natural watering, the solution was a drip-feed / irrigation system run first and last thing at night, plus a hand-pump device for "emergency" watering.
A system like this is what I want for my baskets.

A couple of years ago, a wren nested in the coir lining of the basket nearest my back door ... so the plastic strip inside was their waterproof roof, it protected the youngsters very well.

 

[gentlegreen]

Indoor growing in a controlled environment tends to make one a little nerdy.

So far, so good with the Westlands compost - they've put a bit of effort into it structurally - has a little "heft" to it and wicks very well ... some long fluffy fibres suggest maybe coir and there were a few actual lumps of wood - note to self - filled 32 7cm square pots with one "10 litre" bag ..
Using a plastic bag and water I squeezed 230ml into one ... so 7.59 actual litres ... the pots have "24"on them and I always had "1/4 litre" in my head ...

I'm currently waiting for the grow area to warm up.
Given the increased cost of electricity, If I come across suitable materials, I'll see what i can do to make the setup a bit more energy-efficient ...

(thermostatic heater is 250 watts-ish when on, lights add up to about 50 watts)

Doubtless if I ever get to France and have a whole lean-to dedicated to salad, a potager and a stab at Monet's garden, doubtless I may have to be a little more relaxed about the whole thing - though looking into the future there will inevitably be telemetry, robots and likely even drones ...

Not just because one day I will start to acknowledge I'm getting on a bit, but also because I have other things I want to do like taking off in a boat for days on end - and quite likely also weeks of being away from home by other means now and again ...

 

[campanula]

Grief, the garden is getting a battering at the moment. Even though it is a tiny walled backyard, the wind is cyclonic from being funnelled through the surrounding flats. Long-term stuff like the lilac, roses and ceanothus are staked, tied and supported but all the herbaceous stuff has taken me by surprise (as it does every freaking year). Plus, I have had grand-daughter for a week and I am distracted, exhausted and knackered. Larkspurs, alstroemerias, clematis, campanulas, flailing horribly, in a mini-typhoon. Pots falling off the walls and horrors, my latest auricula has toppled into a salvia and mangled it's sole flowering stem.Have performed emergency surgery with micropore and kebab skewers.

 

[gentlegreen]

Yes - 4 degrees of windchill will take the edge off my park walk in a bit - at least for the westerly section ...

 

[Artaxerxes]

What annoyed me about the previous rabbit infestation was that we live in the middle of fields, yet the perishers had to come and eat my flowers, rather than the extensive swathes of wildflowers growing just a few feet away.

This is me and slugs.

Next time I grow green veg I’m doing it in a greenhouse and with a flamethrower to clear the ground.

 

[StoneRoad]

Slugs are always going to be a pest in many gardens.

However, I don't use poison pellets because I prefer to have live hedgehogs & birds ...
Greenhouse has sharp gravel and slabs as a path inside, and apart from the first couple of months after it was built I don't usually have a problem in there. I've a straw filled plant pot that hasn't caught anything recently.
Outside I keep a close eye out in the early evening / morning when the weather is damp enough for slugs and I have a few pots and other traps. I usually chuck any I find straying onto flower beds into the wild wood or onto the compost heap.

 

[contadino]

Slugs are always going to be a pest in many gardens.

However, I don't use poison pellets because I prefer to have live hedgehogs & birds ...

Last summer I made a bird table that's been very popular over the winter. It's great having so much fauna in the garden. I put my spinach seedlings out yesterday - to get them used to being outside - and the flippin pigeons went for them rather than the seed on the table. Idiots and bastards. Bastard idiots.

 

[StoneRoad]

Last summer I made a bird table that's been very popular over the winter. It's great having so much fauna in the garden. I put my spinach seedlings out yesterday - to get them used to being outside - and the flippin pigeons went for them rather than the seed on the table. Idiots and bastards. Bastard idiots.

Yeah, I've had pigeon problems at where I used to live in Newcastle [too many racing as well as ferals]
I ended up netting seedlings, onion sets and a few other things - or used cloches / mini poly tunnels ...

The barstweard birds pulled up the onion setts and ate some of the roots and the sprouting leaf.
Not to mention that the mice ate seeds, crocus corms and bark off the trees. Rabbit / deer damage is generally higher up.

I love wildlife, all of it, and feed birds etc but you do have to protect stuff against them.

 

[campanula]

-Occasionally, pigeons have eaten every single leaf and bud on the cherries, before the leaves have barely unfurled. I have given up on growing quite a lot of fruit as I cannot keep up with netting and pest deterrents. Plums, redcurrants and cherries are the most vulnerable, while gooseberries, blackcurrants and rhubarb are ignored. The strawbs are fairly easy to protect (seeing as I don't have to clamber around on ladders) but since I have no longer been immersed in some sort of 'earth-mother/Goodlife' fantasy, (cos no jam and cordial-demanding offspring), I am fairly OK letting the local wildlife enjoy the fruit as long as I get to see the blossom.