Does anyone know anything about gardening?

^ also, suggest a thick pair of gloves to handle any and all glass. Edges can be v. sharp.

Your chap was a God amongst lesser mortals! My jaundiced view is caused by removing a greenhouse being a classic 'can you just' on a landscaping job. They are invariably fixed with terminally rusted bolts and have a concrete base and three uncracked panes of glass. My latterday reply became 'sure, this is my day rate, or I can smash it down with a sledgehammer, knock out the concrete base and you can put it in the skip yourself'.

I've taken down two greenhouses recently. The first was a horror show of rusted clips and corroded and seized bolts that me and a pal spent about 5 hours taking down.

The second came down about 30 minutes, solo.

You adopted @Colin_the_Bald sledgehammer approach for the second then.

I think we have a work in progress wasps nest at the back of the garden in a pile of sticks I am waiting to chip. Given the precarious state of insects I don’t want to kill them, even though wasps are dicks (and I say that as a general animal lover), so I guess I’m living with it and warning everyone to stay clear? Not sure if I’m seeking advice or just confirmation.

My understanding is they only use a nest for one season/year, so leave them alone and wait for them to leave

Hmmm, season is ok but I need to build a shed there next Spring! Guess I’ll deal with that as and when.

The first frost tends to finish them off (at least from being active) so you could move the sticks then.

The kids brought home a tomato plant home each earlier in the year. They've been quietly growing in the conservatory since and last night they had some of their first harvest.

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I'm looking at getting the front of my house redone (victorian end of terrace, pretty bog standard) and will have ~50cm beds between the wall and the slabs at the front and the sides.

Any recommendations on what to plant there? Something high enough to go over the garden wall but not so high as to block the view out of the windows. Ideally a bit of colour in the summer and still green at least for the winter.

It is north facing so doesn't get loads of sun. Cheers

Not quite what you asked for but a variation of this https://www.hedgingplantsdirect.co.uk/hedging-plants/photinia-hedging

Ours is a dwarf variety called Red Robin, which we chose because it's growth hieght is around the hieght of our front wall. But there are variations that go all the way up to >2m and ones inbetween.

(old pic, it's bushier now, more green in the body)

Another idea is to check out varieties of camellia as they are evergreen, like shade, but also have flowers. Also the sort of think I bet there are a million varieties so you should find something that works.

These were on gardeners world last night. They didn’t say what they were though. Any ideas

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Red Robin

one of my pet hates - choose something else, please!

Lantana

I know it as shrub verbena
Sadly not easy to grow in the UK

https://budgetseeds.co.uk/product/lantana-camara/

I had one and it died in it's first winter

Why?

Pros vs Cons
✅ Evergreen
✅ Low maintenance
✅ Year round interest
✅ Prunes like a bush/dense/formal/etc
✅ Berries
✅ Spiders love it
✅ Mrs Hugo7 likes it
❌ ChasnotRobert does not like it
❌ Getting a bit common

Really just the bottom two points. It isn't a rational dislike.

It has become so prevalent in Walthamstow as a front garden plant that I once considered starting a thread just for pictures of photinia.

Edit - it's basically the hipster version of privet.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/culture/horticulture/behind-the-privet-hedge-michael-gilson-book-review-lucy-lethbridge

We have a privet hedge. Would never have chosen it, but it's probably as old as the house. So just going with the vibe really. Recently hacked a huge amount off one side of it, so it's looking a bit holey and bare, but hoping it'll re-green soon.

I guess this is how bay laurel started.

It has become more popular in the the nice bits near us where people have their gardens redone. More so the bigger varieties. I'm now not actually sure if ours is Red Robin or something smaller. Either way it does its job, and the far left one has done alright too despite having fuck all real soil to play with.

This is my beef with those sorts of hedging. Regardless of personal taste or wildlife arguments, so many of the trad hedges require more maintenance than I think you're average homeowner wants to provide.

Hmm. Not really. Imo. We did barely anything to it for years. It needs clipping but it doesn't really mind how or when. The recent hacking is because we decided we wanted to make it slimmer to get more garden space. Privet is fairly polite.

Any idea what this is? I feel like I planted it, but have absolutely no recollection. Tansy

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