Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Got a photo?

Can she not play in the garden while you work*? Or is it not safe enough there yet?

Not yet, no. Need to also put in a small side fence to stop her fucking off into the neighbour's brambles. But that needs more clearing before that can happen. There's also still loads of fairly dangerous rubbish that keeps coming out of the ground (broken glass, rusty pointy things etc.). She can be quite demanding with play so it needs either ms_com or myself to relentless push her on the swing or answer the "what's that?" questions.

What I used to struggle with was fitting things in without then leaving my OH to pick up the childcare

Nail, head.

Basically taking holiday from work to do housework.

I took a week off as I had to use up leave from last year. Put mini_com into the childminder's for the whole week. Allowed me to finish one room.

Also impressed by mini-howard's ability to pick the worst things they could possibly do whilst in the garden

for e.g. picks up water sprayer, points water sprayer at lawn mower robot, fires

for e.g.

@fizzy.bleach

Currently like this.

Would like to put in one of these for the cargo bike.

1 Attachment

Fuck. That is actually perfectly nice, I can see why nobody cba to quote. You should see our front.

On kids, for some reason with me No.1 is happy to potter by themselves 80% of the time. My battle is the difference between my risk assessment and my OH's. I let them play with my impact driver for e.g. (not the drill obvs, because that would be silly) and got told off.

I'm finding that as they're getting bigger their ability to fuck themselves up is growing. 18-24m seemed to be a sweet spot of moderately acceptable damage to self and others.

Fuck. That is actually perfectly nice, I can see why nobody cba to quote.

Yeah it's OK. Relative to the others on the street, it's on the shitty end of the scale, but that's our street.

I would like it to be much easier to get the cargo bike out on to the street and reduce the use of the space as a giant cat litter tray though, and most of the hedges are dead / dying and there's bindweed..... I'd also like racist tiles on the path / porch (I presume they are racist, being victorian).

If it were me something like:

Remove front hedge, replace with Corten steel planter of bamboo.
Brick weave paving (or whatever you dancy)around circumference of garden
Replace gravel with four square raised beds with brick weave paving between (or could keep gravel to make cheaper)
Bin store at left hand edge and replace ropey hedge with some more colourful plants

Or something like this

1 Attachment

@cozey where was that bamboo link ?

this one ? https://www.scottishbamboo.com/

I ordered (and received) one of their bundles recently. I'll post up a pic in the morning so you can see the size.

I'd also like racist tiles on the path / porch

My experience of trying to get these put down is no-one is very keen, I assume because they are fiddly.

Three separate builders have tried to talk me out of it and now everyone is just ignoring my emails.

Three separate builders have tried to talk me out of it and now everyone is just ignoring my emails.

Getting trades in 2020/2021 in a nutshell there

Family next door had a nice one, then the water board found a leak in their supply pipe and smashed it to bits getting to the pipe. Now they can't find anyone to fix it (it probably can't be fixed because the mix of old / new tiles would be weird).

Mmm this is nice.

Was wondering if a bench would be worth doing - it's south facing, so quite nice in the morning and the street is quiet.

@chrisbmx116 is a big fan of front garden seating and think @cozey maybe also. I think it's a nice idea, would probably have it against the front window (so drinks/pizza/canapes can easily be passed out)

I'm end of terrace and have a 6' wall at the edge of the garden leading on to the street. I'd like to make this a bit more burglar proof (but not looking shit). Current thoughts are:

1. Some form of low spikes. Don't want anything that looks shit or makes it look like a prison so not sure what the options would be there.
   
2. A trellis. I've seen suggestions that you can get weak ones that collapse under a person's weight and make it awkward to climb. This doesn't seem to be an advertised feature though so not sure how you pick out ones that are a bit weak. Also concerned about it blocking the sun as that's the direction it comes from in the evening.
   
3. A low planter attached to the top with some low lying spiky plants. Can't find anything quite what I want online so would have to build something. Not quite sure what plants would go in there though.
   
   

Spiky bushes on the inside have been ruled out for a number of reasons (we like the look of the wall, small child and part of the wall is a narrower passage).

Anything else I've missed? Any suggestions for what spikes or trellis to go for or what low lying spiky plants there are? Cheers

There is no such thing as burglar proof, if the bastards really want to get in they will. Deterrent is closer to the fact, particularly of casual passing thievery. Basically, just make your property less attractive as a target than your neighbours'. The trellis would work just fine, no crappy garden centre trellis will support the weight of a climbing scrote, the low garden wall and expensive ornaments on the windowsill next door will prove more attractive.

Put these low spikes on my side garden gate, very minimal and easy to fit.
Wanted something just to deter / make a bit harder for someone rather than an all out weapon.

https://www.cactus-products.com/

here is a bundle of 5 I got recently. think they were £100 delivered? slightly smaller than I was expecting but probably had unrealistic expectations. for ref here are 5/6 fargesia rufa we bought last year which were 60-70£ each

2 Attachments

At 17.5mm isn't it the kind of blunt spike you could just throw a sturdy coat over?

Speaking as someone with previous experience of breaking and entering (squatter rather than burglar but the skills are transferable to a degree) most anti climb deterrents are pretty ineffective against everyone but the most opportunistic thief. And the best deterrent against opportunistic thieves is to ensure that all your windows and doors are properly locked and anything valuable in your garden is nailed down.

Is it still allowed to cement bits of broken glass bottles to the top of a wall, was very trendy around me in the 70's. Cue lots of deflated footballs....

Blackberry bushes are Nature's barbed wire.

Reasonable trellis, and train the new shooting stems through each square/rectangle.

Can the frost please piss off now? Thank you.