Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Any ideas what these are? Cockchafer grubs? Beetle grubs? Came out of a pot full of bulbs. They're not vine weevil - far too big for that.
Will they do any harm?

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Probably rose chafer grubs. My garden is full of them, don't seem to do enough damage to be an issue.

@JWestland thanks so so so much for your kindness sending over the geraniums - they all flowered and they are bringing a lovely bit of colour to the estate

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Cool. I've buried them in a planter. Must be incubating about 100

Awesome, glad they worked out for you :)

If they go nuts like in our garden they will quickly cover large area.

I can recommend big root geranium too, also tough and flower well. They flower earlier and then these take over :)

Might have some spares of those next year :)

Heavy rain tonight, I’ve been putting all the snail-eaten tragedies into pots and have just brought them inside. Will it work? Who knows. There's probably slugs in the potted soil waiting for their indoor feast.

That'll feed a family of 4 in these hard times, get the BBQ on

144 perennial plugs £24 delivered

Absolutely don’t need this, but can’t resist. I’ll fit them in somewhere!

Half tempted to make a second order. Slugs have already made a picnic of the few flowers we had out.

My guys would be like “fuck yeah, you got us 144 more?!”

Thanks - ordered!

x x x ! um, yes, big rooted gers sound brill.

That's pretty much what I fear!

Rain & Sunshine =

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I deleted the thread because of the risk that comments were just going vitriolic. The tldr is the trees were tall enough to risk damage to the house, blocked all the light to neighbouring properties, took up more than 50% of garden space, and the roots had undermined the drainage system (needing a full rod clean due to blockage).

No matter how ‘nice’ it looked it was way overgrown.

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Ivy at the back was a few feet deep.

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Cut most of the bases of the ivy that we could get to. Fairly established and thick trunks. Waited a few weeks having ripped down as much as possible, and having got rid of the trees that were too big and too matted to keep.

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The handful of roses that were totally overwhelmed by the tree coverage are now showing new growth. I cut them to stumps to force new growth as low as possible. Another has been left taller for climbing.

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The ivy was fully carpeted on the wall.

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Looks great. It’s amazing what a good clear out can achieve.

Dead ground shows how bad the tree coverage was, and how much more space for pollinators to go in.

Need to get up on the wall and get rid of the remaining ivy. Heavy as sandbags up there though. Once it’s clear it’ll be hanging plants that add colour.

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Before/after for when we moved in early last month, and how far the chainsaw has got us.

You can see the start to the bedding on the right, but need a stump grinder before we can plant in earnest.

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Trees need to be kept in context with the size of garden and surrounding area, unfortunately too many people just let them get out of hand.

This.
Think I posted about the birch trees in our garden?
We're in a Berlin city 5 stories house with a garden that's next to an even bigger green back garden. Owners had the old and incompetent tenant do the garden like forever, and maybe have someone in with no idea.
There's two nice, maybe 30-40 year old birch trees. No one did maintenance on them, until two weeks ago. Tree guy gives them max 5 years, said if he had intervened a few years ago they would be good for way longer.

For sure. The tree at the back was taller than the neighbouring houses and blocked all daylight for half the day.

Beautiful as it was, it was twice as big as would be maximum size. The lowest point of the canopy was too high, and the trunk spurred too low to raise the crown. What’s more, it was totally invisible behind the other trees until they came down.

This one certainly had roots undermining everything nearby. The ground wasn’t even flat around it.

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