Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Any thoughts on why grass seed refuses to germinate in my garden? Garden is south facing and gets a reasonable amount of sun although some bits are a bit shaded until late afternoon.

First lot didn't do anything despite reasonable amount of watering but possibly too cold.

Second lot I put down a few weeks ago. Broke the soil up first, raked through some compost, 5-10 minutes of watering each day. Fuck all has happened.

Is it still there? Ie not been eaten?

Yep, loads still on the ground.

Was it all from the same box/bag? If it was I would buy some more and try that.

No. Two entirely different ones (different brand as well). Second was "Guaranteed to grow" https://www.gardenhealth.com/gro-sure-smart-lawn-seed

It taken near 3 weeks for my seeds to come though and I get a lot of sun. Maybe you need more watering if it's not raining. A good watering really helped.

Have you put a lawn fertilizer down?

If you get down really low and look, is there really no grass coming through at all?

I turned the soil, raked and leveled, seeded, raked, trampled.

Does anyone know what this is? Some sort of sedum? Plant snap not particularly helpful. Saw it at Eltham Palace yesterday and seemed to be thriving and have subsequently seen it in a few other SE6 gardens.

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No mow 2023

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Yeah it's a sedum, don't think you'll be able to tell what cultivar until it flowers, or if you ask.

Sedums take super easily from cuttings...

I think sedums have been renamed to something incomprehensible if you are googling for pictures to compare.

Hylotelephium

Bless you.

I've had the sprinkler on for 10 minutes most days, any more than that starts to end up with standing water.

Didn't put any fertilizer down, most of the guides seem to suggest not to. Did rake through a couple of bags of compost though.

Nothing that I can see, although it is on an existing lawn so hard to be definite.

I leant on the rose, it snapped off and I fell over, so thats that. Will replace it with something with colourful autumnal leaves and a bit of blossom after summer but will use the space for sunflowers in the meantime. All the others have started to bud, they were flowering till November last year so I'm looking forward to 1/2 a year of rose flowers.

The slugs ate all my sunflowers (sigh) will try in pots off the floor next year.

Your Euphorbia looks lovely! Are there 2 different types there? Your Peony looks well advanced for this time of year. No heads on your Alliums yet?

Sorry for the slow reply, totally missed your questions.

I think the Euphorbia's are Wolfenii and something like Black Eyed Pearl, we've just added some red stemmed Purperea versions out the back and if they don't die I'll take some pictures. The peony is storming but some of our alliums have produced a lot of leaves and no flower which is odd - maybe it was a lack of water or sun last year... Here's a photo from another part of the same border and they're much happier including an orange geum that's gone nuts.

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I think my favourite element of spring is watching trees come out of dormancy, it seems to happen so quickly. My Acer Sangu-Kaku which I thought looked a bit sick, is happily back with a vengeance.

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Such a lovely garden. You clearly have a good eye for how colours and different plants work together. My allium and giant crocosmia patch has been the same this year. They're purple sensations. Of the 50 + bulbs, only 11 flower heads.
Hasn't helped that the local fox family seem to love stomping on it.

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What I've found helpful is to buy a load of cheap black pcv pipe from a diy shop. Then cut it into ft lengths, wrap with some bare copper wire and plant into that.

The roots will go down to the ground and the sunflower will quickly grow out of the tube.

This should stop the slugs climbing the stem and eating the leaves.

Resuable each year. If the copper gets too tarnished you can clean it.

Acer Sangu-Kaku

How much space do these need?

Is it possible to have a dwarf equivalent?

Thinking for a front garden

Ah good idea I can try that!

I even have some leftover pipe. The buggers climbed up 20 cm to get to the top leaves! They have parachutes lol

Oooh lovely

They don’t grow that quickly, can be pruned in leaf. I’ll get a picture of ours, which is about 20ish years old to give you an idea.

About 7 ft now. Has been dug up and moved about 5 times and had various stints in pots too.

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Raised beds with sleepers. Should I just slap them on the floor or put up on bricks/concrete etc ..?

I dug a shallow trench (about 100mm), filled with gravel and laid them on top.