Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Just splashed out on a potting shed for the allotment.
Is there a forum-approved woodstain? Preferably in exciting colours? It’s already pressure treated but I’d like to give it another coat prior to assembly. My experience of exterior wood paint is that it’s fucking rubbish and flakes in months so I assume it’s good old fashioned stinky Cuprinol or similar? Oh and how many litres roughly for an 8x6” shed inc doing the floor joists and underside.

1 Attachment

We painted our shed during the first lockdown with one of the Cuprinol Garden Shades range. Still looking good.

https://www.cuprinol.co.uk/product/cuprinol-garden-shades

1 Attachment

Oh cool, how many litres did you need for that?

We did our daughter's playhouse with Cuprinol Garden shades. A little smaller than that ^ perhaps, a 2.5l tin only just did two coats.

I think you'd want to get 5l.

Great, thanks for that. I assumed I’ll want a bit more anyway as I want to do the underside and all the edges prior to assembly.

Yeah we used a 2.5l tin but Simon just told me he didn't bother painting the back or the side that faces the fence.

Cabbage turned out well.

1 Attachment

amazing! :)

Wow that's a huge cabbage!

And no damage either was it grown under covet? :)

Yep, in a planter with some fine mesh. Constantly mobbed by butterflies trying to get in

I want to train a clematis up a narrow section of brick wall.

For my roses I use heavy duty green wire + concrete screws with washers. For my (evergreen) star jasmine I use a mix of things, including chicken wire (which is great for that sort of thing BTW).

I'd like something more discreet.

I was thinking about 3 vertical lines of wire and painting smaller screws and washers with some black outdoor paint, or using some old rusted screws and Japaning the washers...anyway that I can work out.

But what wire do I use? Is there a good thin guage stainless or galvanised wire that will be strong enough to handle the tension?

Ideally something I can order easily like from ebay.

Cheers.

I dug out a part of the grass to sow wildflower seeds.

The ground is clay and somebody suggested ti add poor soil on top. But of course garden centre top soil is nutrient rich and building sand is not suitable. I need to cover 3*3 meters and don't have a van so delivery is needed.

Being a consumer customer and in NI rules out special wildflower turf shops..

Any suggestions? Should I just add sharp sand? B&Q has that at least, I can just rake it in.

You could add gravel or grit surely

If you add sand of any variety, wash it through first as it is generally saline. Sharp is your best bet. Alternatively, as others have noted most bought compost is pretty much nutritionally bankrupt.

Any builders merchant shingle also needs washing for the same reason.

I know you're in NI, but not sure how close you are to the coast, the ideal solution would be to dig a few bags of sandy coastal soil from just inland.

Thanks! I'll ensure I wash the sand if that's the way I go.

There is some rough ground nearby that used to have a house on it, that soil might work too.

For garden plants the shit compost situation is mitigated by my clay, everything has taken off anyway, even if the compost is just for drainage the clay feeds.

But some people claim it's equally as good as peat compost...I can only say I had no issues. The tomatoes are happily cropping in brown bin "new leaf" compost from nearby.

Cross post

Short story -a pigeon has built a nest and is living in the wisteria next to my back door. How can I (somewhat responsibly) get rid of it? I'm fresh out of pigeon barges at the moment.

Grow to love it, we had one on our balcony and by the time the chicks had grown a bit and were predated at a week old we were pretty attached to them. Also, it is illegal to move or remove a nest.

1 Attachment

Rudbeckia is coming out. Not drooping yet but providing some nice colour.

1 Attachment

OK got you. Thanks for the advice!

Any idea what this? It’s just spring up through a conifer

1 Attachment

Looks like White Bryony,
(5-lobed leaves rather than the elongated heart-shaped leaves of Black Bryony).
Useful hedgerow plant, seeds typically spread by birds who consume the ripe, red berries.
Any youngsters in the household?
The red berries are poisonous to humans.

A grape vine?

If so lucky you! Free food :)

No youngsters thankfully

I’ve got a question about petrol strummers. Strumming wire seems crap so I’ve bought a blade. Problem is it doesn’t attach, so I found out I need a fixing kit. When the fixing kit arrived the bolt was too big and it seemed like it was missing something to hold the blade in place. I’ve made sure to find the right model when ordering but no luck.

Does anyone else use a blade and if so how did you attach it? Strimmer is stihl fs40

1 Attachment

This is a pretty common issue as there’s a seemingly endless range of collets/spacers/bolts for these things.
Back in my tree days the landscape boys had a big box of bits for exactly this reason.
When you bought the strimmer did it come with any additional parts? My cheapo strimmer had a couple of collets for the various heads.
Sometimes it’s a bit like angle grinders where you just need to remove/flip over the spacer/locknut for various things.

Sorry I can’t help better but in my experience getting various strimmer attachments to work in harmony has always been a ballache…