Does anyone know anything about gardening?

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  • Any recommendations for garden lights (solar or battery) that last longer than a few months? Of the 4 I've bought recently, 2 just seem to have given up the ghost and 2 have been destroyed by foxes.

  • What are you wise wizard's thoughts on the bullshit that is Christmas trees then? I can’t face another year paying through the eye teeth for something that’s literally dying in front of me but I don’t want to be the dad who killed Christmas.
    What are the alternatives, plastic seems a bit unethical (I know in ten years the carbon footprint blah blah), tree in pot might annoy me the rest of the year… keep a dwarf variety in the ground and dig it up each year?

  • I used to get a real one from a local farmer at stupid money but bought a cheap real one from Home Bargains last year which was just as good.

  • Purchase one locally then chop it up into small bits for the compost and the trunk into smaller sections to rot away gracefully at New Years. Plastic is the devil.

  • Thompson's of Crews Hill in North London are usually sensibly priced

    Also Sliced Bread are doing Xmas trees next week: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p07012sf

  • I used to get ours from the market. Since having kids we got a plastic one so we don't have to get with the neddles. It looks a bit shit, but you know what? The point of xmas isn't really trying to replicate the Dec issue of Good Housekeeping.

    We do actually have a living one in a pot outside, but it's a bit threadbare. If it was my call we'd use that. So overall that would be my suggestion, get a living one in a pot.

  • Beth Chatto’s gardens are doing a late autumn sale if it’s of interest to anyone. And free postage over £80.

    https://www.bethchatto.co.uk/shop-by-other/offer

  • We’re using a fairly large Swiss cheese plant as our Christmas tree this year

  • What would be the drill with some of these. I assume it's too late for planting, so you'd need to have a greenhouse or something for 6 months?

    I had bulk order from BC this year and honestly half the stuff died within a few months. Probably user error but they were all so small, the plants gave up.

  • Yeah I just realised it’s dropping to the minuses by the end of this week! Others on here are much more knowledgeable than me, but I’ve bought three separate batches of plants in the last six months and I think everything is looking at least vaguely promising… just have to believe that the winter dormant ones are going to bounce back in spring.

  • Any dwarf acer recos?

    Alternatively I guess I can pot most to force them dwarf?

  • I have a baby rowan in my garden that's been going great guns this year. But in the hot hot heat we had in September, it really struggled, leaves went brown round the edges. About a month ago all the leaves dropped and it's essentially now a 5' stick. Has it had it do we think?

  • Does it have any buds? I'd wait until Spring before writing it off

  • Everything starting to looks pretty bleak and wintery after a couple of frosts, apart from one rose which didn't get the message

    Can't quite bring myself to cut back everything collapsed and dying yet as there is beauty still in the decay - to my eyes anyway


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  • I also have one rose still flowering 🌹

  • I'd suggest not cutting back anything - if it's perennial, cutting now risks frost damaging whatever it is. The messy stuff might be hiding little creatures over winter or hold seeds or other edibles.

  • Couple of healthy looking Euphorbias there. A great looking garden. How invasive is your bamboo? 😂

  • Nice :), My garden needs a few more tiers/ changes in height looking at yours has got me thinking again :)

    I leave all the architectural /solid stuff until spring but tend to remove soggy and slimy dead growth, not sure why as it goes on the compost lol

    Ois the rose Gertrude Jekyll?

  • Yeah although I wrote 'cut back everything', I actually leave what I can, but I think when stuff goes mushy and rotten (eg. nasturtiums, geraniums, banana) or completely collapsed and flopping over (eg. water iris, gingers, some of the crocosmias) then I'll cut back to try and reduce possible fungal or root rock problems.

  • Unknown how invasive they are as they're in pots, they are supposedly well behaved varieties though. Fargesia murielae and fargesia robusta campbell

  • Also have a single rose battling on!


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  • Rose is not Gertrude Jekyll (although I have just added one of those as a bare root), it's another quite similar one from David Austin - Strawberry Hill.

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Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Posted by Avatar for carson @carson

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