Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Yeah any old mint will do but avoid the ‘chocolate’ varieties, horrible.
It likes sun & water and then harvest to within an inch of its life.

Saw recently someone claim cucumber slices help feed the slugs and snails and avoid them eating flowers.

Since they ate every damn flower I planted I’m reluctant to offer free meals with accommodation.

The frogs are doing their best but clearly I need a smarter approach. Pond is still unfinished and unfilled.

Has the salad leaves and cucumber approach worked for anyone?

Also those plug plants were mini mini and half arrived dead/dying. Hopefully enough survive, they’re all potted and composted for now.

Finally built the "Power Shed" yesterday.

It was a long afternoon (with help) and I would be a bit hesitant to recommend the Ecobase unless you're sure you've got the area perfectly flat. My "this will probably do" attitude to things like that means the floor is quite uneven.

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Generally hesitant to recommend these sorts of deals since 'one of every colour' looks so much worse than eg. 3 of one colour and 5 of another.

But nonetheless this is a great deal on salvias - all the 'lips' but also nachtvlinder, which is my absolute favourite - has survived several winters with me, and flowers well even in part shade

https://hayloft.co.uk/ultimate-salvia-collection-g-k42208

Cheers for this. Handy as I've just had a salvia order cancelled.

one of each looks worse

Feels like an ‘order three cos it’s cheap’ kind of deal

This is also really useful:

nachtvlinder....has survived several winters with me

I now treat salvia as a roulette annual. It can't survive the perm spots I want it, only in pots being moved around like chess peices throughout the year.

That said I've realised how easy it is to take cuttings so am half planning to take cuttings for pots to keep for planting out the next year.

Anyone else loosing their garden mojo?

Finding my current TDL pretty disheartening:
Front

• weed
  
• remove pests
  
• spray roses
  
• collect forgetmenot seeds
  
  

Back

• scatter forgetmenot seeds
  
• weed paito beds
  
• buy mint, plant mint
  
• buy salvia, plant salvia
  
• transplant seedlings
  
• mow lawn
  
• protect plants from slugs
  
• yet more weeding
  
• thin irises
  
• remove 2tn bags of waste clay
  
• replace impossible to replace pannel in fence
  
• clean patio
  
  
  
  

Also basically no strawberries this year. Boo.

Yeah, I'm sick of mowing. With all the rain this year, I've had to cut the lawn once a week for the past 3 months. I've surrendered on the front garden and letting it grow.

Nachtvlinder, hot, cherry and amethyst lips all survived the last two winters here.

Mine were from a similar Hayloft offer, gone nuts this year

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I fucked the shit out of the lawn earlier trying to improve drainage.

Repairing it has been so dull. As has my OH's fretting over whether it'll grow back - "yes the sopping wet patch of bare ground in full sun surrounded by grass will grow grass"

It can be hard work until the garden is setup and only weeding / occasional replacement/bit of pruning is required.

You probably just needs break, I am not doing any more seed growing or digging this year after hours of clay digging, 100s of seeds, repotting...

I think I've made great progress on the front. But after the sun, rain, and being away loads of weeds have come up. Likewise at the back I've addd some things that need space and I've got to weed around.

Part of this is my fault for having previously making the garden more wild and lower maintenance, and now adding some things. And part of it is the weather.

I also think loosing one big climbing rose and just about saving the other has meant a big visual loss at an inbetween time for lots of my garden.

All that said I'm loving how amazing all my ferns are this year.

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Ah, yes that's a big difference. And it will take a while for the new rose to get to that size...

Weed-wise, we have a never ending supply.

Perhaps just cutting the seedheads for now and pulling them out near the plants you need to grow will do? If you have no weeds, your soil is dead and you won't have any plants either ;)

I still got 10 square meters to sort (ouch me back) it can wait until next year... enjoy your progress for this year :)

The rose will slowly do its thing and any insects will thank you for the wild spaces :)

Can anyone identify this plant? It was growing in a pot in our garden and we brought it with us when we moved, though it took a bit of a battering in transit (as did all our plants, including a nice plum tree that snapped in half)

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Anyone else loosing their garden mojo?

I hate the nagging feeling of outstanding gardening jobs too but there’s only so many hours in the day. Go easy on yourself and enjoy the time you can spend. Once the plants in the borders get big enough they crowd out the weeds :)

Could be a camellia but the leaves look a bit slim to me

Could also be a skimmia judging by the red at the base of the leaves?

Maybe an azalea or rhododendron depending how big it/leaves are. Has it ever flowered?

We're sure it's a plant, though?

It's clearly a triffid. Apply flamethrower immediately.

PlantNet is coming up 70% skimmia

Just witnessed a rat eating from one of the bird feeders in the garden, have photographic evidence but didn't post as I know not everyone wants to see that. I'm hoping it came from the building site at the end of the road and f*ked back off there after I emptied and removed the feeders.

The feeder was hanging from the roof of the bike shed. Should I be cutting down these shasta daisies? My worry is if there's more the daises would be good coverage for them.

Obviously I want to do whatever is in my power to stop them getting into the house.

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Get some of those animal proof containers and poison.

Small update here. Strimmed the grass as it was more like a brush than a lawn. The little grass that survived the overgrown trees was long and brown (we’re talking 50cm long!).

6th April is the first photo.
11th May shows the wall with ivy still on it, but majority of green removed from the vines themselves.
26th May the ivy partially cleared.
14th June strimmed back some of the grass now we’ve had some rain, and now the new grass seeds are taking in hard packed areas.

Other updates moved the pots to the back wall for visual appeal, grape vine planted, lots of plug plants trying to grow in pots etc.

There should be a fair bit of garden to look at by the end of summer.

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