Does anyone know anything about gardening?

I’m looking for some rhododendron advice. I have a pink one in a pot, except the last year the blooms have been few and they’ve been white.

Top soil with some compost dug in. Then add compost when you plant into it. As well as suppressing weeds mulch helps with water retention

Seems pointless if temporary. You'll just curse removing it all. The crazy paving isn't so bad

Anything to look out for?

Bike thieves.

They need ericaceous compost (the pink bags at BnQ) I'd lift it out, if it is pot bound (no room left for roots) then also stick it in a bigger pot.

If there is room left, shake off the old compost, add fresh compost and give it a good watering. It might just be pot bound / soil tired?

Anything to look out for?

Your back? :p

Maybe just stick the bike shed on, lift some stones randomly and put plants/soil in the holes?

I got it in a back garden as a small path. I will dump the cheap nasty concrete bits but re-use the strong grey stone bits for a path.

They already had what seemed to be reasonable soil in them (lots of worms in there) so I just dug through a few bags of compost and removed the bigger stones. Making sure it was well dug over made the planting a lot easier.

The beds had been relatively weedless previously so not bothered with mulching.

Ah, that's useful. Where was that from?

@hugo7 weedproof membrane is a good call

@skinny and @JWestland when I say temporary it may end up being there a good few years. Quotes for redoing the front are getting on for £10k (admittedly including a new wall too) whereas this seems like an option for ~ £100.

What's really prompting it is the crazy paving is too broken up where I want to put a bike shed (a fair few houses have them so hopefully not too much risk and nothing that expensive in there) and this seems a cheap way of levelling it.

I’ll take a look it’s in a massive point but hardly seems to have grown at all over the last couple of years.

Google image and asparagus lookalike suggests baptisia.

https://foragerchef.com/baptisia-a-wild-asparagus-look-alike/

Thanks for the info, as always I overthink it and it never gets done... so just going to give it a bash.

I'm in the middle of having the garden done. We've had knotweed historically, so dug down then laid membrane with concrete and porcelain slabs over the top of most of it - except a small pond and a couple of large beds away from the affected area.

I'm looking for ways to make it a bit more wildlife friendly, so was thinking of installing a few raised beds over the top of the porcelain: basically sleeper-based boxes with hardware cloth, landscape cloth and gravel for a base, then soil.

Can anyone think of potential issues putting these on top of the porcelain? They're on a 5-6" concrete slab so I don't think they'll crack, though I'm assuming they might discolour with run-off over time? (Can't see us removing them once in, but you never know

3 Oriental Poppies dug into the front border in the last few days between the Rudbeckia and Euphorbia. These were gifted to me from a mate. Thoughts and prayers for their survival.

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That's part of the reason we went with Dig, just to get it all going rather than constantly pondering what we were going to do.

You can be absolutely certain that the porcelain tiles beneath the raised beds will be a different colour should you ever move them. The porcelain shouldn't crack, so long as it was laid correctly on flexible adhesive, if it wasn't it will eventually crack anyway. Drainage may prove a problem as without downwards drainage the beds may well turn into a marsh in a wet period.

Thanks - assumed as much (and believe it's on flexible adhesive but will check). Will have a think about whether I could raise the bed a bit on battons or similar to help with drainage

Concrete gravel boards cut down with an angle grinder would be your best bet if you go down that route as they won't rot out, your timber boxes will and batten will rot even quicker. Lay them on a membrane trimmed to size to avoid scratching the porcelain. That way you might even be able to move the beds around to minimise staining and fading.

Edit: wide damp proof course would be ideal for the membrane.

Late to the party, but did you cover with compost or anything? Raking a few bags of compost over can definitely help.

Fantastic, thanks - have some gravel boards and DPM around too. Will report back

I didn't, hoped that raking the earth and treading it in would be enough. Next time round (probably tomorrow) I'll be going with a bit of compost or something on top.

Lots of garden plants are toxic

There's a poisonous plants garden at Alnwick ... it's got pretty much all the plants in my garden.

Concrete gravel boards

How do you join them together?

You don't, one either end and as many in the middle as necessary to support the raised bed. I am presuming a timber base (maybe 35mm treated boards) with gaps to allow drainage. A sheet of 5mm steel with holes drilled for drainage would be better, but the sleeper surround will eventually rot out anyway.

Oh right. That makes sense.

I thought you meant make the planter out of gravel boards.

Nope, but that could be done. 90 degree lengths of steel banding with short concrete anchor bolts would do it. Both ugly and heavy though!