Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Our meadow is full of salad burnett (tasty cucumber flavoured leaves) and campion this year. The poppies from last year have self seeded over the rest of the garden.

Mine is dandelions, hedge vetch, nettles, milk thistles, wild grasses, wild geranium, and all the other non photogenic stuff.

The Vetch is very popular with bumble bees and kinda pretty too, so might be a nice add.

I seeded some campion in pots have to see how it goes...

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Think we reached peak Allium yesterday. The Ranunculus I thought were yellow are actually orange. I got some Crocosmia Lucifer from my neighbour last year and they're coming up nicely through the patch.

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Looking good!

Crocosmia spread like mad, they are an invasive plant in Belfast.

So enjoy but keep them in check as they will overtake the garden otherwise.

Our wisteria has decided to flower for this first time 😁

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That’s lovely. Needs a trim

I want to put window boxes on the front of our house. It’s a very standard sandy brick 60s semi. But can’t figure out if it would look crap

Hanging baskets or those wire cages attached to walls?

RATS!

Well, I've only spotted 2 over the last couple of weeks in the garden.
I think they are here for the bits of food dropped under the bird feeders.

Getting rid of the food source is obs the way to go but rather not as love seeing the birds visit.
Anyone dealt with rats before? Don't like the idea of poisoning them, are humane traps a waste of time?

Personally, air rifle.

Build a shelter (wood over a couple of breeze blocks is ideal), put down some lappy bait that they can’t just grab and run off with, then humane headshots as they sit and feed.

Use litter picker tongs to remove the corpses.

I’ve not ever had rats on my property (thank goodness) but clear them for a farmer using this method.

I border on farmland (and insanity), I also have bad feeders. Air rifle from kitchen window every time, instant and efficient.

Is there much point? Are they causing a problem being in the garden? If you kill a few how long will it take for others to move in from surrounding areas anyway?

Can you get air rifles on Amazon Prime?

No. You need a gun shop.

If you want any advice please don’t hesitate to ask.

@RagnarHairybreeks

The Prime question was me just pissing about.
Really appreciate the advice, but not sure I'll be buying a gun any time soon ;)

Ah, OK! (Embarrassed face)

not sure I'll be buying a gun

slingshot it is then

My grandpa used to use a slingshot to launch Mint Imperials at squirrels in his garden. He did run a sweet factory so was never short of ammo.

My father in law could hit a flying bird in the eye with a copper/plumbing tube blowpipe and a ball of putty.

Doesn't look like much but underneath are reasonably level Ecobases, on reasonably level earth. It's a bit of a headfuck, but the string is actually horizontally level.

There was a reason for not having the front and back square with each other, but I started so long ago I can't remember!

I decided not to use any weedproof matting as it didn't seem necessary.

Still to do:

• re-level of the shingle
  
• move all the rubbish to the alley ready for the tip
  
• move the Wendy House
  
• wood chip everywhere
  
• plant stuff
  
  

I did buy a little bamboo in the discount section of a garden centre, fargesia rufa. We'll see how it progresses.

Thanks again to @rhowe for the shingle.

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Also it's a fucking hot day to be doing all this.

I’m sure you know this, but bamboo in pots only unless you want to budget for a JCB in a few years time.

I know this is received wisdom, but I got a really decent sized and aggressive growing clump out in under a day using an angle grinder and enthusiastic mattock-wielding.

Done similar for next door (and got a load of huge canes out of it as a bonus - I have a strange American made chainsaw disc for the angle grinder). Really not convinced it won’t rise from the dead though.

Really not convinced it won’t rise from the dead though.

It will, you just need to paint the leaves with glyophos when they appear. Every year, for the next 4 years. (or hopefully less).