Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Just hack them back to the size you want them, highly unlikely to kill them

Cut off as much root as you can, and those bits of root potted up will make free plants for your local freegle group.

But in my experience, yep, they will regrow. Only way to keep them smaller is to cut off as much root as you need and stick another plant next to it.

is that ‘hotlips’ too?

Yep. It grows like a weed here.

This sedum spurium is an absolute magnet for bees and hoverflies, recommended if you are looking for something like this in your garden design.

Hoverfly larvae eat aphids and are good to have around.

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Cheers all. From the way they shot up I suspected they would be difficult to kill off but just wanted to make sure that would be the case.

Cardboard in an open compost bin: Does it work in wet UK IRE or just go mushy?

I don't have any brown material until the street trees drop their leaves.

Outer layers of cardboard have a (slightly) water resisting coating, that protects the inner crinkly layer.
Tearing the cardboard to reveal the crinkly layer greatly speeds up decomposition, avoiding gradual waterlogging.

Thanks!

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2383869-huge-amounts-of-plastic-from-artificial-grass-end-up-in-the-sea/

As if people needed another reason not to do it.

It needs banning completely.

@andyp I didn't think I couldn't possibly hate it any more...

Last years fuchsia succumbed to weevils so I’ve been double pleased with how this Deltas Sarah has performed, although it’s competing with a thuggish fig that has suddenly found its feet.
No all happiness though as my lack of watering skills have produced blossem end rot on my Shirley’s, boo.

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Have two tomatoes in the same box planter. Planted them late and soil was/is bit shit (found cigarette butts in in the soil when I was planting stuff) but nonetheless they flowered and are producing fruit. The one on the left however stopped putting up new leafs after it produced fruit and I've been watering and feeding them equally. Any ideas as to why? Just a bad part in the soil / not as strong of a plant?

I also had some bird?/rodent? come up and remove my pepper plant right after I had I planted it, so growing here has been an experience thus far! This is on the second floor for reference

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Got a couple of dahlias in a corner in the garden that survived the winter, wasn’t expecting to see them again so a nice bonus

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I would say your soil quality has probably played a part, also when outside you're really at the mercy of the elements - rain and temperature. I've grown a bunch of tomatillos in pots this year and ran out of tomato compost so mixed up some normal potting compost with topsoil and the plants in the less rich mix are rubbish in comparison.

That's an unusual petal, very cool.

Have bought 4 oblong galvanised corrugated iron raised beds for the corner of the garden

Going to arrange them in a square with gravel in between to walk down

What's the best way to make sure they are all lined up and at the same height? Buy a laser level?

If they are not all lined up it will annoy me for ever, like a wonky painting lol

A length of timber with a normal level that you (probably) already have will do the job and will also help with alignment. Set them out and measure corner to corner diagonally across the pattern. When the measurements are identical both ways they're perfectly square. Use a string line (any old string stretched tight between two pegs will do) to set out one side of the pattern and work away from that.

Figured. I’ll get them nicer soil next go around then. Before I started adding fertilizer they were not growing more than 6/7in so I’m happy if they produce anything at this point!

Some friends divided their Canna lily last year and gave us a section which we potted on.

Very excited to see it flowering already this year

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Nice! I bought some cannas 3 years ago and they've never bloody flowered.

Thanks :). I have string, pegs, length of wood and quite a long spirit level.

Just have to think about edging that will match the galvanised steel of the raised beds to keep the gravel in a straight line next to the beds....

That’s the ‘Tropi-canna’, such a cool leaf. I also picked up a tuber this year for £3 and didn’t expect much but it’s been front and centre of my pile of pots and it’s awesome. Bonus if they flower!

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