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The gardening thread

geminisnake said:
lambs-1.jpg
Mrs M would know what they're called!

And I could send some of this(sorry for massive picture)
love_lies_bleeding_iii_by_aegiandyad-d4yyqp5.jpg
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*fussy* don't like the lugs one but what is the pink one?
 
I love that colour Boudicca I like natural wood but have decided to paint the outside of my raised beds and that would look lovely...hmm....WHO TURNED THE SUN OFF? :mad: overcast and very windy here this morning...Mount Shat is taunting me from the corner :(
 
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Rutita1 said:
Sirena I read on the chuffed thread that you have been cutting back and prepping too...How's it going?


....and pics people please! I am nosey and love pictures. :)
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Badly, just lately. I was sawing away at a bay tree and then pulling out dead ivy bits when a bit came out quickly and I whacked myself in the face with a pruning saw. I split my eyelid!

I'm now sitting here holding the bits together with a cotton bud. It looks OK now (though my eye is really bloodshot) and I think I shall survive...:(
 
Sirena said:
Badly, just lately. I was sawing away at a bay tree and then pulling out dead ivy bits when a bit came out quickly and I whacked myself in the face with a pruning saw. I split my eyelid!

I'm now sitting here holding the bits together with a cotton bud. It looks OK now (though my eye is really bloodshot) and I think I shall survive...:(
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OH NO! :( Do you need a stitch?
 
Rutita1 said:
OH NO! :( Do you need a stitch?
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I did consider popping down to A&E because it was a proper half inch split and the two halves were flapping apart from each other but I bathed it all with icy water and pushed the two parts back together and I think it's healing OK.

I'm tough, me! ;)

I might haul some stuff down the tip but I'm not going out in the garden again today....
 
Fucking hell Sirena! You ok? Keep an eye on it (fnarr fnarr... Sorry) ivy is full of dust and bugs. However tough you are go and see a doc if it looks nasty tomorrow. We don't want another will I die thread on here
 
campanula said:
Bloody Hell, braver than me. Phyllostachys are not clumping types. My ex had a neighbourly dispute and planted a row of various phyllostachys (aurea, maybe bisetii) along the fence line (as you do) and they have invaded his entire lawn, lifted the concrete path and are now assaulting his pond. Concrete slabs - they laugh at them. Flame throwers, mmmmm, basking.

If you do go for these, absolutely do not skimp on a really good barrier (corrugated metal, sunk in at least 2.5 feet (the rhizomes are not terribly deep, just fierce).

Also, suspect your cherry is a flowering ornamental (maybe subhirtella autumnalis if it is flowering now) because generally, edible cherries have white flowers. Couldn't possibly be an almond, could it?
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I'm considering a barrier in front of them so they don't invade the lawn. They have a wall with deep foundations on the other 3 sides which should keep them in check, except one corner where the wall has collapsed. Just a wild bit of land with trees and weeds behind there, we'll see. I want it all to be a bit wild, I want to see monster plants, not my neighbours :D

I think the cherry is ornamental too, I'm unsure if it would benefit from a prune.
 
No, put the barrier at the back because you will need to trim the rhizomes twice a year as they emerge, a sharp spade will do the job - the new shoots are more or less at the surface. If not, the bamboo WILL undermine the wall. Honestly, I kid you not, these are monsters.....but, with a twice yearly root-prune, can be maintained. Another, less tidy way, is to dig a trench in front of them so that the growing rhizome is visible. Bamboo is basically a grass, like a turbo-charged couch grass on steroids.....there are bamboo forests, not little glades. However, check out places like Bamboo Garden - it can be tamed.
The cherry looks fine....but if you do want to prune out any dead wood or overgrown lopsided stuff, wait till May as the sap is rising now and it will be at risk of bleeding out but also allowing fungal disease into the pruning cuts which do not callous over because of running sap.
 
Manter said:
Fucking hell Sirena! You ok? Keep an eye on it (fnarr fnarr... Sorry) ivy is full of dust and bugs. However tough you are go and see a doc if it looks nasty tomorrow. We don't want another will I die thread on here
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I will, I promise.

It was scary at the time because it was a big whack that dazed me and I think it was the open blade of the pruning saw that cut the skin. But it's healing together now. I've got my little make-up mirror to keep checking but the halves seem to have knitted together nicely....

it just shows you. When I climbed up the ladder to get up on the wall to cut the upper branches of the bay tree, I said 'you be careful' to myself because I didn't want to be falling and damaging myself. And then I got sloppy and tried to haul out an old ivy stump with an open pruning saw in my hand...
 
yeah, the worst bit is uncovering the cuts and deciding what action to take,rather than hiding under a towel wishing it would all go away.
Sympathies.
 
The sun yesterday caused a massive dash down to the allotment where I learned an awful truth why veggie gardeners have it over flowers (nothing to do with eating the produce either). Whilst everyone else was throwing great forkfuls of soil around, working up a nice head of steam, I was huddling on a plastic kneeler, grubbing away, square inch at a time, using an implement the size of a teaspoon. Blades of grass pulled singly and almost down to tweezers in the alpine beds. If it was in my garden, the weed pressure would have diminished by now but the veggie growers down tools the instant the last crop has been harvested, taking the winter off till now.....while the weeds have had a joyous winter reproducing and infesting every nook and cranny, with especial concentration on the middle of my tiny saxifrages, aubretias, androsace.
Bastards!
Being a slacker myself, I am simply going to allow the grass to grow and the weeds to do their worst and try to grow cheerful thugs instead of dainty jewels. Rudbeckias, oriental poppies, foxgloves........
 
campanula said:
No, put the barrier at the back because you will need to trim the rhizomes twice a year as they emerge, a sharp spade will do the job - the new shoots are more or less at the surface. If not, the bamboo WILL undermine the wall. Honestly, I kid you not, these are monsters.....but, with a twice yearly root-prune, can be maintained. Another, less tidy way, is to dig a trench in front of them so that the growing rhizome is visible. Bamboo is basically a grass, like a turbo-charged couch grass on steroids.....there are bamboo forests, not little glades. However, check out places like Bamboo Garden - it can be tamed.
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Not sure I can be bothered to put in a barrier near the wall, I'll see how it goes, it would be very awkward to do, especially as the plants are in now.
Twice a year prune? I thought they only sent out shoots once in late spring/early summer.
If I do put in a barrier, why trim too? Surely the barrier will contain it, the equivalent of being pot bound? Will it not go as dense as it can within its space and then stop? That sound ideal.
I'm not having an open trench around it :D probably will put barrier across front, can't see why you wouldn't.
 
The trouble with concrete foundations can be cracks,,,which bamboo runners will open....and the wall next to yours looks old enough to be at potential risk. The main problem is being unable to see and prepare for any possible damage. Leaving an access for shoots does give you a chance to prune those roots - twice because the rhizome is actively growing all summer (roots and shoots) so a cut in May and again in September will go some way towards mitigating the effects. The roots are soft and easily cut or even stomped on. In effect, it might be the better option to avoid any barrier since a tough one in front of the bamboo will certainly lead to increased pressure at the back against the foundations.

There are a few clump formers (fargesiodes or thamnocalamus, for example) but as a rule, it is always best to be contained by a heavy barrier which is impenetrable by those thick shoots (which can be eaten, by the way).
Be prepared to water like we have never heard of drought and also, bamboo drops its leaves throughout the year (not a tidy plant).

I garden for a living and am a bit alarmed at the resurgence of bamboo )aka the fastest growing plant on the planet) having spent a great deal of time in the 80s and 90s removing problem bamboos from gardens....and seeing for myself how bamboo can easily invade foundations, even houses. Round up is, thankfully, effective when applied in a similar way to Japanese knotweed treatments (injecting directly into the vascular system of the plant).
 
A neighbour a few doors down from us planted bamboo and I don't think ever made sure it was in a pot. Any way she moved out ages back and it's currently trying to escape across the shared path. It better not make my side or I'll go nuts.
 
aqua said:
Is this the place I ask for help choosing plants? I have a small front garden that is almost always in the shade (except in the height of summer and then it's only morning sunshine for a bit). It has a couch grass problem, and another creeping thingy problem, which have got out of hand in the last couple of years. I've dug lots of it out and ditched the plants it was growing in most but I am not daft to think that's it. I hate that stuff :D

Anyway, it has a gorgeous hellebores in (need another two of those as I love them), some sea holly, a plant I can't remember the name of, the fern and the magnolia, which is a shit shape and I'm not convinced it won't come out :oops: BUT I've just dug in some allium bulbs (late I know, there are genuine reasons) and I was some lavender and rosemary, both I love in the summer.

Apart from walking past it we don't spend any time in it, and I would like to move in the next couple of years anyway so don't want to spend a fortune but can anyone recommend some nice flowering plants?

I've also planted some iris bulbs, no idea if they will work or not but hey, they were on offer :D

So any ideas? I was thinking of sticking to a colour scheme but fuck that frankly.

Will post photo when my Internet connection stops being a bag of shit
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I thought you'd already decided what you want to plant? You were going to put in lots of geraniums like I suggested.
 
ringo said:
I think the cherry is ornamental too, I'm unsure if it would benefit from a prune.
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If it hasn't outgrown its space then limit any pruning to removing dead/dying/diseased growth. Very few trees need regular pruning (if any) once established.
 
_pH_ said:
I thought you'd already decided what you want to plant? You were going to put in lots of geraniums like I suggested.
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No because they're shit. We had this :p

I also have lost our emails, which you know, doesn't help :D
 
aqua said:
No because they're shit. We had this :p

I also have lost our emails, which you know, doesn't help :D
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Yes and as I told you at the time you are WRONG about geraniums.

I will have a look through my emails and see what we came up with. And reply to the one you sent on Friday which I haven't replied to yet as I've been away for the weekend (there's a surprise).

In all honesty though you should just do an Ideas Garden (have you still got a picture of that? Send me it if you have xx)
 
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