Does anyone know anything about gardening?

I’ve got some borrage growing at the allotment. What’s it good for?

Medieval medicines, pleasant flowers, invading everything, not dying when (you think) it's been dug out. In short, not much..

Bees love it, it looks nice, you can put the flowers in cocktails

You can put virtually anything in a cocktail and someone will drink it, preferably on Instagram.

You can make a fermented plant fertiliser with it. Chop it up into small pieces, rub together with equal weight in brown sugar and then cram it into a jar. Cover the top with brown sugar to weigh it down and use a piece of muslin or a coffee filter as the lid. Leave for 2 weeks and then strain off. It's super concentrated so you only need a little bit diluted in water. It's high in nitrogen.

You can also do this with nettles and comfrey.

There seems to be some very cautious medicinal uses but seems a bit flimsy

We have it in with the strawberries as some sort of anti-pest thing (I think)

My "Pink Ball Black Steel" Hydrangea is starting to flower. My vision of a Hydrangea hedge down the front path is starting to become a reality.

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Love a hydrangea hedge. We went to the Azores and all the roads are hedged with hydrangeas.

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Wow!

Wow, that's my dream right there! :)

The Isle of Wight is like that. Almost.

Amazing!

My hydrangeas all died almost immediately. I have a bed where nothing grows, full sun, clay, neighbours shrubs suck all nutrients out of the soil and most plants wither and die, foxes piss on what’s left.

They need a lot of water, almost daily soaking. And they’re greedy, good feed twice per week.

Aluminium sulphate in the soil if you want them blue. And I also put coffee grounds in the soil.

This is what happens in my bed that borders neighbour's oak tree hedge / forest.

Stuff will just about grow if I continually mulch / fertilise / water. It's a struggle and even then I think I'm mainly helping the next door oak thicket.

Perhaps a combination of green manure plants, tilling over and digging in some horse poo / spent mushroom composts works?

It'll take time but our full sun clay patch is full of weeds which generate soil.

Geraniums are also nearly unkilleable maybe they work for you?

Supposedly preventative pissing keeps foxes out but never had to try it :)

Dahlias are kicking off

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Thanks for the suggestions, coffee grounds, preventative pissing and horse shit.

Latest attempt is some low growing ground cover. Didn’t add geraniums but I could soon fix that. I’ve no idea what I did plant without checking the labels, just went to the garden centre round the corner and bought a handful of stuff to chuck in the ground and hope for the best.

Now I am getting really concerned.

Home garden has loads of wildflowers and walls covered in blue Passion flowers, massive Belfast sink full of lavender.

Allotment has a sea of wildflowers - I mean seriously a ridiculous area.

I have seen one honeybee so far. One.

I’m really thinking that catastrophic bee collapse has hit this area. Lots of bumbles (and I love a bumble) but no honey bees at all. Normally by this stage in the year you’d have to beat them off with a stick.

Little bit scared…..

We usually have a load of honey bees on our passion flower, not seen many at all. Loads of solitary and bumbles. There's a couple of apiaries near me too.

Gardening level 1 :)

eBay has a bunch of plants, lots of info on youtube.

But there is an element of randomness, some of my seeds never came up, some needed a year and some plants grow in the worst places ignoring their proper place.

Where are you based?
My hives in NW London are absolutely bursting with nectar,I'll be spending the weekend building frames and adding more supers,there hasn't been a summer like this for years.
Pollinators are very good at avoiding flowers that have already been visited,and most flowers take 24 hrs to "refill".
My guess is they are around but maybe you aren't noticing them ?

Grew some yard long beans in the porch. Now eaten.

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Might be a regional thing.

I'm Hertfordshire boarder with LDN and we've had tonnes so far this year. Slowing off a little now as the flowers are changing up, but I'm sure they've just somewhere else.