Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Sunflowers are starting to bud and at least a couple look like they'll be putting out side shoots.
Wish these toms would get a wiggle on and ripen.

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Chapeau, those heritage toms look epic. I’ve never had any luck with those as it always ends in blossom end rot.

Yeah, that’s one of my favourites, really lovely colour combo on it. It came as part of a mixed bag of heucheras from J Parker’s, I believe it’s a Green Spice: https://www.jparkers.co.uk/heuchera-green-spice-p9/

Cheers, will definitely track one of those down.
Think I’m going to pop to Wisley next week (on a school day!) for my birthday and I love their nursery so will report back. Last time I got a weird urge to buy a dwarf conifer having never looked twice at pines… now I’ve got two!

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Fingers crossed. Bought them as grafted plants from the local garden centre and they're about 3x as vigorous as the ones we grew from seed. One split into two main stems and I couldn't bear to chop one

I think two stems is how the pro’s do tomato plants anyway, it just becomes an advanced game of hunt the side shoots. I’ve allowed ours this year to spur off so I could half the number of plants I shoehorned into the greenhouse to make it more manageable. Last year I had something crazy like 15 plants including tomatillos and the crop wasn’t great. This year I have 7 (3 Shirley’s, 4 Gardeners Delight) and the fruit have set much better.

Local garden centre was having a special offer on alpines so put this together as a table centre piece. There’s a bit too much going on but we’ll see what survives!

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Went to Hampton Court on Thursday. Got some interesting Alliums and this stunning blue dwarf Delphinium (diamond blue).
I found the Hampton Court show to be excellent value for money but it wasn't Chelsea (which I've only been to once a few years back). Shame Chelsea is so damn expensive.

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Croscosmia Lucifer is making it's yearly appearance and is having a great year. I've also started the backbreaking task of removing the path on the right hand side of the garden to double the size of the bed and improve growing conditions. The base of the path goes down about 40cm to had to dig down a long way to get it all out. Dug a full compost bins worth of compost in yesterday and removed a huge number of stones after about 10 rubble sacks last weekend . Given the rate at which I produce compost, it'll take a year before it's complete but will certainly be worth it. I'm going to replace the fence in the next 6 months.

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Your Croscosmia are looking great, mine aren't happy due to the lack of rain and shade. Hoping as the garden matures that they'll be a bit more protected.

Still utterly bewildered by garden irrigation systems, not for all-year round but just to keep pots alive when we're away on our summer holiday. Any one recommend something, can be mains powered.

We went on Tuesday and got absolutely drenched. It was alright but 90+ mins each way from North London, mediocre (at best) food and a soaking meant it lost some of its appeal.

Didn't seem to be as many show gardens as previous years?

Food this year at Hampton Court was terrible compared to last year. I've seen some show gardens online I just didn't come across so assume they were hidden away somewhere.

utterly bewildered by garden irrigation systems, not for all-year round but just to keep pots alive when we're away on our summer holiday. Any one recommend something, can be mains powered

I have shit loads of pipes, connectors, sprayers etc, after a cock up with the delivery of a maintenance pack saw me getting two bumper ones.

Are you anywhere near se24?

Happy for you to cycle over, grab some kit and have a gander at how mine is setup? Two zones, one for beds and one for pots, on a Claber Duplo timer controller.

Lidl recently had bargain bits of kit, including controllers.

This might be useful to some on here, but one of the questions on GQT was climbers that can be planted in containers.
....
Q – Could you recommend some climbing plants that can be grown in containers and pollinator friendly?

(32 minutes 21 seconds)

Kirsty –

Sweet Peas

Cup and Saucer plant

Neil –

Schizophragma

Schizophragma integrifolium var fauriei

Schizophragma hydrangeoides

James –

Jasminum polyanthum (jasmine)

I've grown cup and saucer plants from seed this year. They've grown about a foot tall and then done fuck all for a month. They are in full sun and watered regularly so no idea what's wrong.

Nice

Very nice!

Very kind but my se22 Peckham days are a hazy memory. I've been looking at the Claber brand so I'll follow up on their kits, cheers!

A small but regular harvest from our gherkin plant which go straight into the Sarsons malt pickling vinegar.

They only need to be in there about a week before they are fiery hot and tasty.

You can see where some gherkins have hidden on the plant and only been discovered once they are the size of small courgettes. Cut em up and pickle those too

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Aww yis, love a little gherkin

PA: loads of bulbs for 25p a pack in Poundstretcher right now.

Ooooh, I love a poundstretcher punt. I have a lovely rose that I got bare-root there for a quid.

Total noob here. After some building work we’re finally able to use the garden. Is it too late in the year to spend £100 planting a bunch of stuff out? Even if it’s autumn/winter friendly stuff. I’m tempted to get a Beth Chatto starter kit as it actually works out pretty cheap. Just want some grasses and fluffy stuff with some pretty stuff in front of it, then can be a bit more prepared for next year

This one?

https://www.bethchatto.co.uk/discover/our-blog/guides/perennials-for-great-autumn-colour.htm

The two best times of the year for planting are spring and autumn, so definitely not too late.