Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Pond development - starting from this post

Added liner and underlay/overlay at the end of Feb then it didn’t rain for ages, so was just a puddle for quite some time.

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And then it did rain in March, filled up nicely and we have gone around tidying up edges a bit. Back edge is going to be a rockery bit and dug a bog garden section to the right of that. Had to adjust the edges a bit, and will see how it fills up in the next rainy spell before covering the rest of the liner with something. Now need some 🐸 to move in.

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looking great!

Layering and taking perennial kale cuttings today. Might have some going spare if they're successful.

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Can anyone ID this random plant that has popped up? Surely not asparagus?

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Certainly closer to asparagus than anything else that comes to mind.

Lovely!

Try some tall big loving plants to give the frogs shelter.

As the heron will probably visit too :)

Good shout. We haven’t got plants figured other than a couple of friends have said we can have some cuttings. But yep, that’s gotta be the next step.

Woops sorry hit reply! Removed a bit and moved to new post.

Irish flag irises are good for bogs.

Area around washing line planted, put milk thistle seeds in where nothing is planted.

Had to move three caterpillars while digging.

The "lawn" looks like a mess of couch grass, buttercups, cleavers, some sort of wild carrot or something that kills you dead but it's very biodiverse.

Plan is to dig a bit up and add more proper wild seeds as it's really mostly couch grass.

Two miles up the road there is a similar environment so I might just gather seeds there.

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I have loads of what I assume are sycamore shoots coming out my grass (and raised beds).
Can I just ignore them and cut the grass as normal, or should I try to pick them all out?

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Cutting should be fine, but a load of boiling water will make sure - albeit kill the grass for a month.

Yes, but keep mowing as the little buggers are persistent. If there are any popping up in beds, remove them quickly, the longer they're there the harder they are to remove.

Use any water you have boiled to make tea.

I just picked a buttload out of my garden, at this stage they still pull out very easily with the seed intact (or mine did anyway)

Just mow them

That looks great, a pond is on our wish list this year.

I’ve never had any luck lifting tubers and over wintering in pots - they always rot. So I leave ‘em in the ground and lift them now. I don’t think I’ve ever been happy with the positioning of a single dahlia first time round!
Anyway, these guys came out fecking huge today.

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Good luck!

I should check my dahlia actually...it's clay so maybe I should move it.

I've super heavy clay soil, are there any hand rotivators that work or should I just save up for a good electric one?

Of course digging it out with the trenching hoe works too but it's hard and slow work...

(And I'm not 20 anymore....) :)

What size piece of land are you rotivating and what are your reasons for doing so?
In my experience you will have to remove turf first which can be done with a turf cutter if you have a hire shop local. Which brings me to my next recommendation which is to hire the biggest, heaviest, petrol rotivator of doom you can afford and do the job once. I don’t think it’s great for soil health to continually ‘aerate’ it so I wouldn’t purchase the tool for repeated use but I understand needing to get some goodness into clay soil.
When I hired a mini digger and fully rearranged our garden I needed to do this on a 10x30M.

Also, won’t the milk thistle get your bedsheets on the washing line?!

Our favourite sheets got ruined last year when they brushed over some very happy daisies which I thought were at a safe distance but covered in aphid. Turns out aphid don’t just stain your fingers.

Have lost some of the dahlias I didn't dig up to the frost and some of those I had stored away have shriveled. Soaking the shrivelled ones in lukewarm water to try and revive. I also had some potted up and stored in a coldframe, these have been eaten by something

It's about 9*1.5 meter for hedges, reason is the clay is very waterlogged. It can be done by hand it's just slow...

As the garden was covered in plastic (FFS) the natural soil breakdown process never happened and so the clay underneath is just pottery clay :)

I cleared the water elder from it already. Yes, that stuff. Weed fights that cannot be won :)

Sounds like a rental is best then.

Didn't know about milk thistle seeds staining, well if they come up plenty of boggy lawn I can stick them in.

Just sharing my favourite part of the garden, the ferns have really settled in now!

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All this dahlia talk reminded me I bought a box of them online after a recommendation on here. Forgot all about them!!

About half seemed to be OK. The other half dessicated and a bit mouldy :(

Until it has dried out somewhat (before it turns into a brick), you'll be wasting your time with a rotavator, it will just churn the clay into plasticine. For a small run like that I would go down a spades' depth and dig it up in clods and allow them to dry a bit before adding organic matter and mixing with a rotavator.