Does anyone know anything about gardening?

Trim it first. Trim hard, you have some lovely structural shapes for winter, the one on the left'd look awesome as a frosted sculptured lollipop, plus they wrap around the house, privacy. Lift the crown, raise up the eyeline by cutting all the lower branches & let the light flood in for the agapanthus & hydrangea. .

You've got some great established plants there. In a lot of ways that helps because you're not having to come up with ideas/start with a blank canvas.

There are probably better ways to do this, but for our garden I went on Google maps and and printing off a birds eye view, then traced the boundaries and photocopied.

I also used some sort of sun web app to give a rough gauge of where shadows fall over the year. If you've been in there a while you probably know the sunny / shady spot.

JWestland makes a good point. Other random braindump points are:

• builders have no consideration for plants, builders who work outdoors have even less. Proactively protect and supervise!
  
• House sight lines - i.e. the views from your favourite seats. I've tried hard to improve ours and it's made me happier.
  
• year round interest. I've been working on this and am curious to see how successful it's been over the next 4m.
  

Decided to have a go at drying some hydrangeas.

3 Attachments

Looks great. Why did you soak them in water?

I'm thinking of taking some blueberry cuttings. What do we think "warm" means? In my shed which can hit 0° when it's really fucking cold. Inside the house on a windowsill?

Take hardwood cuttings of blueberries when the leaves have fallen and the plant is dormant. Hardwood cuttings are taken from one year old current seasons growth that has gone "woody" and hardened off. Softwood cuttings can be taken in spring from stem cuttings or suckers that come from the base of the tree.

Make the cuttings 15-20cm long, cut just below a bud for the bottom of the cutting and pinch out the tip just above a bud at the top. At the base of the cutting make a small downward 10mm slither or slice, to expose a small part of the bark. The cuttings can be dipped into a rooting hormone powder or Gel, available at garden centres or DIY stores, this helps stimulate root growth. Place the cuttings into Tui Superlight Potting mix with coarse pumice added 75/25 ratio or a propagation mix. Place the cuttings somewhere warm, make sure the cuttings are are kept moist and don't dry out.

If anyone has any experience pls shout.

Same with pruning actually. Although I'm just really enjoying the colours and shape at the moment.

1 Attachment

As per Gardener's World, apparently it's part of the process because the petals are really leaves in disguise and doing so helps keep the colour. I think. Fingers crossed.

Hi hope you are all having a lovely day. These three need cutting back so they are level with the fence. Can I do this now or do I need to wait until spring? Thanks

3 Attachments

Idk about these plants but generally if in doubt; after flowering or proper winter - e.g. new year.

It was on GW 👍🏼

Is this flictrum? No idea how to spell it

1 Attachment

It's gypsophila, also known as baby's breath

They expect to be eaten by herbivores at some point, so I'd do it whenever it's convenient for you. They might die, of course, but they look well established and will almost certainly recover.

How do people mulch?

I've got quite a few beds I want to mulch this year. I've already raided my compost bin, so that's out. I've got a half bag of strulch, which tbh I don't actually like because of the look, smell, and the way it blows all over the shop. But I'll use in spots I want weed suppressant.

So where do I get something? I think having a ton bag delivered will be firmly vetoed.

Also what about things like forgetmenots? And small bulbs - is there such a thing as too much mulch that will suppress them?

Nice, my mum used to collect them for a while for flower arranging :)

I need to get grab the flower of mine, it's the classic tough colour changing one.

builders have no consideration for plants: Leading to our old neighbours have a perma feud with theirs, as their builders ended up killing a bird cherry.

Agree on the sight lines, good tip!
I have to move the pear a little bit and I had to move some plants as otherwise I could not see the sink pond.

Soil is also very important, our heavy clay and the beebalm do not agree (sob) but most plants are going great.

What is the real question?

If you haven't got your own compost, you need to buy it.

If you can't get a tonne bag delivered, you need to get it in 40 or 50 litre bags

You can buy compost, soil improver, bark chippings, any kind of mulch you like, online or in garden centres or B&Q etc...

I know it’s not growing season but thinking ahead. Anyone tried growing clover instead of grass in problem shady areas?

Have a patch that only grows in summer when sun is higher and dies back in winter.

Asking again as I'll probably be going to the garden centre tomorrow

I've got a bed with tomatoes and sunflowers in it that I'm about to clear out.

Any suggestions for cheap winter colour in there? Will probably be using it for veg or similar next year so nothing permanent, just something to brighten it up until spring

What is the real question?

1. Do people mulch in autumn?
   
2. Do people generally have enough of their own compost to do this?
   
3. If yes to 1. and no to 2. What do people use? Compost, bark, something I haven't heard of?
   
4. Is there such thing as too much mulch?
   

Winter pansies are the obvious choice. They're what my dad always used to buy from the market.

You should be able to get them cheap. If not from a market, garden centre, supermarket, then definitely in bulk online.

are you trying to suppress weeds, restore nutrients, improve drainage or limit frost damage to stuff? Or i guess all of the above?

All of the above really. But I'm also unsure on the last one as I like the forgetmenots we have so wouldn't want to prevent them.

On beds I use compost if I have any, spent compost from potatoes and toms that I grow in pots and woodchip on pathways. I've tried strulch as I thought it deters slugs but they don't give a shit.

Out of curiosity do you like the way it looks?

I do, anytime from autumn to early spring when I get round to it. If you don't, on my soil at least, by midsummer the soil will be baked dry and cracking/crusty and the plants suffering from lack of water. Mulching makes a dramatic difference - if you lift up a layer of mulch on a hot day when it's not rained for ages, the soil underneath is usually still nice and moist. Also protects against cold damage over winter if you do it now. And if you don't, every year your soil will be slightly less nutritious than the year before (so, slower growth, fewer blooms etc) - with mulching it can improve slightly ever year instead.

Unlikely that most gardens would be able to make enough compost to do your whole garden, as per Monty Don's advice if I can't do the whole thing, I do some beds nice and thickly each year rather than trying to do it all but too thinly.

I've used bark - lasts well, looks nice, doesn't add much goodness to the soil; strulch - expensive, very easy to apply, didn't last very long, doesn't add much goodness to the soil, possibly helps reduce slugs; various bagged composts, soil improvers and mulches (essentially, compost with bigger chunks in) which have more or less varied in quality as you would expect according to their price. Homemade is better than all the above in my experience, possibly something about already being full of the right kind of fungi and bacteria etc for your garden because that's where it got made.

All of them have done a fantastic job at retaining moisture, make the garden look much better, and over time improve the structure of the soil. On my heavy clay I've found homemade garden compost and branded 'soil improver' type compost make the biggest difference to soil structure and help the plants grow best. They all suppress weed growth to some extent by keeping seeds away from the light - but will have the same effect on the self seeding of plants you like as well. In my garden the main weeds are perennials not annuals so this doesn't make much difference to me.

RHS says no less than 2 inches to have the desired effect, but ideally 3. Don't pile it up thickly directly touching tree or shrub stems/trunks as it could encourage rotting. Maybe try and avoid going too thick directly over the top of the crowns of perennials (depending on when you do this, you may not be able to tell). I've never found that bulbs have an issue - it's not like burying them 3 inches deeper in the soil because the mulch won't be anything like as compacted as soil. Most bulbs probably wouldn't care even if they were buried 3 inches deeper in the soil anyway - they 'swim' around a bit to find their preferred depth anyway. Possibly exception of tiny ones like fritillaries.