Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Strawberry pot planted up.

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Nice, reminds me we need to get some strawberries sorted…
We have raspberries that are getting past their best now, gooseberries, red and white currants, rhubarb and mulberry

All a bit of a mess and need to get some nets up to stop the birds taking them all.

Got the mower out as it’s finally stopped raining - managed the lower lawn

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I can't wait to get to the stage where we're making our garden nice and not just less horrible.

Today's job was trying and failing for the second time to remove a wire fence that's more than a foot underground. The garden looks like the Somme and the fence defeated me. The fence posts aren't shifting either.

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Those posts, presuming they were done properly, will be concreted in 2' to 3' deep. There are ways if removing them using a tractor jack, but your best bet is smashing out the concrete below ground level and cutting the reinforcing steel with an angle grinder. You're on your own with the buried chain link, happy digging!

I bet 10yrs ago the dude who installed it was posting on a forum about what a rock solid job he'd done and how it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Could you put a decent ratchet strap around the tops of a pair to start to create some movement?

Probably, but you'll still have 2' minimum of post with concrete surround to hoick out. Moving the sods is one thing, getting them out is quite another. Ask me how I know...

I did start smacking one with a brick and it started a bit of movement. I don't have a sledgehammer but I think if I can borrow one locally that might be fruitful.

Ah yes. Knocking them over is one thing, lifting and shifting them another.

Don't worry, if you can knock out the concrete part of the post cutting the reinforcing steels will take seconds with an angle grinder and metal cutting disc. Subsequent homeowners will call you every cunt under the sun when they try to plant in the exact position of the remaining stubs.

We're planning to plant some screening plants where the fence was, so the subsequent homeowners will have wildly overgrown laurels to contend with before they can think about new planting.

Ah yes, next door has a raised bed next to the fence with something that looks very similar. Cheers

If you clean around the trench you have dug, the metal cutting disc will also nip off the chainlink very quickly, but metal discs don't like cutting dirt. If you decide to go full hero and completely remove posts and chainlink, please supply your address and date of said task. I will bring a folding chair and a lot of beer, I do enjoy a full day of incoherent swearing.

This is where the giant tree was which we had removed in September, so there are bonus roots holding up the digging as well. Though on the plus side, that means that as well as the thick clay soil (and 1960s rubbish) a lot of the digging is just ground up stump.

We've got concrete fence posts in one of our beds. Ours have holes in so we've fed wires through them to use as a trellis for climbers.

Fill the hole with mercury and float the sucker out, surely?

I drank all the mercury, which explains a lot.

This is precisely the sort of job that allows landscapers to decide whether to work for a client.

Me: if you want that lot out, it will probably take two blokes a day and cost 'x'.
Client: that's too much.
Me: let me know when you've dug it out and we'll do the rest of the job.

Other than yellow rattle are there any other parasitic to grass flowers?

I don’t want a wild meadow far from from it. Dahlias, peony’s etc etc all need lots of nutrition. But I do need to kill off the grass. Any ideas

There are a few more, such as Bartsia

https://www.countryfile.com/wildlife/parasitical-plants-of-the-british-meadows

Grass is in my experience very hard to kill, I dug it out but still get bits coming up that I need to pull out. Good luck :)

Any ideas

Cover with cardboard, soil, then strulch.

That was going to be my worst case scenario.

The only issue here is that without the grass, it will need to have something either in bloom or providing interest all year round.

Emptied a planter today and found about 10 vine weevil grubs. Hope this isn't the start of a new battle.

There are loads of ground cover plants you can use. Creeping jenny if its wet and dark (it probably also grows in sunny spots too). That spiky purple stuff.

Have a search for ground cover plants to see what will work.

Not good a good surprise :/

I only ever have a few, the ground beetles in the garden seem to eat them.

The angle shades caterpillar loves the most expensive Hellebore I have because of course it does...hole-lebore ATM.

They love your greenhouse plants and go nuts?