Does anyone know anything about gardening?

I have a toddler and grow foxgloves.

People always single out foxgloves as toxic but the truth is you need to teach kids not to eat ANY plants unless they are certain they are edible.

Daffodils can be fatal, so can hyacinths. Yews are absolutely everywhere and incredibly toxic. Privet, ivy, crocuses.... Rhododendrons. The leaves on tomatoes or rhubarb. And so on.

you need to teach kids not to eat ANY plants unless they are certain they are edible.

Lol. It depends on your kids nature.

I'd never worry about my youngest, but my eldest is different. I've explained which plants are herbs from infancy, but even at 5yo you have to keep half an eye on them. I lost it yesterday as they put a bottle of glitter in their mouth.

Ok fine but then you need to watch him around plants whether or not you grow foxgloves - they are not uniquely toxic

I sadly don't have room for a Mahonia or Forsythia those are great early pollinator plants too :)

It's again been too warm too early :(

My commercial primroses are already flowering but the spring bulbs aren't yet.

Dahlias: When do you plant yours out?

There should not be any more frost and I can put them on a windowsill to grow out (otherwise slug nom) or is that too early?

There should not be any more frost

Are you sure?

I find they're only really happy when the nights are 10 degrees, and certainly not before the equinox, but obviously depends where you are.

It's only really time to start the tubers off, indoors, for me

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Tx! We don't have 10 degree nights yet, so I'll wait.

It's not giving Snowmageddon!!! for Belfast ATM, just wind and pissing rain.

Our Euphorbia seems to be turning into a monster and is in flower very early.

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Likewise! What I don't understand is why one is lovely and dense and compact, while the other is rangey and ungainly. Sometimes with similar plants, it's a response to sunlight conditions (more compact in sun) but these two are near identical. Hoping that a severe prune after flowering might make the lanky one behave

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I thought leggy plants could be due to a good food supply too? Maybe the soil has more nutrients on one side.

https://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/72-plug-plants-busy-lizzie-beacon-salsa-mixed-ps598-delivered-4295209

At poncy garden centre prices that's about £200 worth of mature busy lizzies.

You will make your garden look like a home counties beer garden though - you cannot possibly need 72 busy lizzies

Yeah, could be a possibility. No idea what the soil was like originally (most of the garden is clay and builders rubble), neither get fed as such, both get mulched with a variety of things each year but the same on each side.

Bulbs starting to appear. Summer’s on its way

can anyone ID this? maybe Turkish sage?

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basically the garden by st Pauls was looking really good and I want some more evergreen in my garden as it looks totally dead in comparison

Any shouts for the grasses too?

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What’s the simplest thing I can do with this hideous, godforsaken lump of shit conifer? I’d get rid of that and the Euonymus next to it but A) I can’t be bothered to dispose of it and B) it kind of gives the only real separation between mine and the neighbour’s front gardens.
Shall I borrow a trimmer and make it into a small box shape of shit conifer? Might look a bit random.
As I’m typing I’m fantasising about paying someone to rip it all out and build a fence or plant a nice hedge. But that’s money I don’t have.

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the simplest thing

Nothing.

If you don't like it, get rid of it. If you can't get rid of it now, then wait until you can.

Is it the sort of conifer you can lift the crown of and then do something underneath?

Thanks @lemonade @hugo7 @mespilus. Will go shopping at the weekend.

Preteens here so not biddable but instructable.

Ha yeah I get you. Just want it at least reduced in size for now, but don’t know if you can just trim down any conifer willy nilly

Do you mean strip to the trunks on the lower half? Not sure. Think I’d rather lose the top half if any

if you can just trim down any conifer willy nilly

Many (most?) will not regrow from old wood, so if you butcher it, it'll look butchered forever.

Bird nesting season now so if I were you I would just embrace its privacy and wildlife value, until you can afford to get it properly removed.

Maybe grow a climber up it so you get some flowers
https://www.rhs.org.uk/plants/clematis/grow-into-trees