Does anyone know anything about gardening?

I have a 15 meter porous pipe buried in the flower bed linked to a water butt that collects bathwater/rainwater. It doesn't need a vast amount of pressure at all. The water butt is only about 1ft higher than the bed .

Gardeners - what have I got for free from the village fete?

1 Attachment

Oo they have these in Burgess Park, no idea ofthe name sorry

Phlomis Russelliana. Apparently.

Yeah, Turkish sage.

Ta!

We dismantled a rockery. Mother in law suggests people are still after these, that we could freecycle them, even sell them... Is that true?

Back in fashion according to last night's Chatsworth flower show coverage

Yep they freecycle easily. "Dinosaur gardens" also seem to be a thing.

Great! That's encouraging!

Good rocks are expensive and nice for planting alpines around

Any tips for keeping slugs away from my meadow sage? They're devouring the bottom leaves.

Beer traps. Set a ramekin into the soil and fill with beer.

Does anyone know what's growing (cock shape) in my rockery, is it a weed?
It's growing pretty fast and giving lots of ground cover .

1 Attachment

I've heard this one alright. Does it work? Do you have to set them around the entire circumference of the plant?

Beer traps work in the sense that they fill up with dead/dying smelly slugs but they don't stop more coming.
The only remedy that seems to work well is biological control with tiny nematode worms which eat their way into slugs.
See https://www.agricentre.basf.co.uk/en/Products/Overview/Nemaslug%C2%AE.html Problem is that Nemaslug is unavailable in the UK at the moment. Usually it sells for £13-15 for a small pack. One Ebay seller has it for £15.95 with delivery around 27th June, another has it for delivery in two days at £120.39 !

Crushed egg shells seems to be keeping slugs away from our stuff. Scattered it all over the tops of pots which normally get slug hassle and have had nothing this year.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45652170

Nothing else does it quite as well as slug pellets.

oh and salt :)

Scissors.
Must be a pair reserved for just slugs.
Be prepared for odd looks from the neighbours.

Scissors.

Jesus

We also have hedgehogs in the garden, so chemicals are out of the question since the remains are usually eaten.
Not by me in case there's any doubt.

Do the hedgehogs not sort them?

Not entirely: the hedgehogs are nocturnal and I'm finding slugs during daylight hours, hence the non-chemical and highly selective approach. To be fair, I see more hedgehog crap in the garden than actual hedgehogs. I choose to believe they're eating the half slugs I leave for them in addition to crapping on the lawn.

The RHS research suggested nematode biological controls, the BBC article doesn't mention slug pellets

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-envir­onment-45652170

Nothing else does it quite as well as slug pellets.

oh and salt :)

The RHS does list 'safe' chemicals and mentions those to be banned from gardens next year https://www.rhs.org.uk/science/articles/Stop-slugs-and-snails