Does anyone know anything about gardening?

dedicate a week to it.

7 years and counting

I put snails and outdoor slugs in the hotbin usually, which is probably also horrible but at least doesn’t result in guts all over the place.

Indoor slugs either get salted in the bin or flung at high velocity with an egg slice towards the main road.

Mind control.

Not really.

Pick 'em up and drop 'em in. I used to go out slug picking for half an hour or so every night. Wore gloves of course.

We had a nematode subscription for a few years. Hard to tell if it made any difference due to not having a control garden to compare to. We still had a lot of slugs, that I do know.

I used to manually pick the little bastards up and dump them in a plastic container filled with soap and boiling water, but it was so much work. Tried nematodes and they made fuck all difference.

Eventually i gave up and stopped planting the kinds of things slugs like to eat. Funny how they never bother with the bindweed, eh.

It's the sodium content in washing up liquid that kills them. Salt water would do the same.

Eventually i gave up and stopped planting the kinds of things slugs like to eat.

100% this. They don't seem to like Euphorbia, Hydrangeas, ferns, Rudbeckia, Hellebores, Crocosmia, Salvia, Japonica Kerria, etc so I only now tend to plant things that won't be spirited away.

Huh. I always thought it did something to their slimy coating. If they come back in number I'll try salt water.

Got to say this fairy / saltwater method seems pretty dark compared to a quick snip or putting them in the brown bin.

Went out last night and snipped about 50 more of the bastards. My wife asked wtf I was doing, I told her some guy on the internet recommended it and now she thinks I’m a psychopath ✂️ 🐌 👌

Seeing what the ants (poison), frogs (eaten alive) and roving beetles (bite and start eating) do to slugs, perhaps the Slug Guillotine isn't the worst :)

So over the last couple of years, box tree caterpillars descended en masse and destroyed our box hedge - which this spring we pulled out and replaced with a pittosporum hedge that ought to be resistant.

I've just noticed a tonne of the same caterpillars on nasturtiums throughout the garden. Not a big problem as nasturtiums are cheap and easy and self-seeding here. But am I now cursed with these caterpillars destroying other plants one by one every year? I had assumed they would off-fuck in the direction of someone else's box.

Am I going to have to get the scissors out?

Been giving a plant in my border the side eye for a while now: who are you, where did you come from, are you a week, are you a potato carried across in the soil that I moved over from that raised bed?

Turns out it’s a monarda that I’d grown from loose root, but had totally forgotten about and had assumed had not survived my cack handed planting loose root technique that saw its other buddies die face down in he mud.

Glad I didn’t haul it out of there prematurely, quite pretty really.

1 Attachment

The answer to the slug / snail problem is chickens - they also bring the added benefit of tearing the grass to shreds so you give up lusting after a perfect, lush green lawn & let the weeds assume their natural dominance, promoting biodiversity & all that jazz (probably)

Chickens tend to end a lot of plants so keep that in mind.

Mature shrubs are fine but they do love herbs and veg.

Free eggs and fertilizer though and pleasant company, I used to keep them. I recommend a plastic coop as wood is harder to clean and warm weather beings out spider mites.

And get pet insurance in case they need antibiotics or treatment.

So the garden is a jungle...been looking at plants, and have some ideas but there is a 15 * 1.5 meter (yes...) perimeter to sort out.

What is the best way to get a lot of plants cheaply?
Seeds, sure, but they are hit and miss.

Looked at "garden on a roll" it's not cheap, but since individual good plants are easy £5...maybe it IS the economical option.

I bought dianthus and have taken cuttings, I will get rooting powder and will try to propagate roses, will try to grow lupine from seeds any other suggestions? :)

Often you can buy bare root plants which reduces the cost, although it does restrict the planting season.

Depends how quickly you want it to be full...

We have spent about 3 years filling our borders, which work out about 45m x 1m. We did it buy essentially randomly buying things whenever we saw things in bargain buckets, getting clippings, digging random things up people offered on facebook, and now the borders are full to the brim...

Edit: really hard to photo without it looking like a jungle

1 Attachment

What is the best way to get a lot of plants cheaply?

Church fetes. Gardener friends. Or go round at 3am on garden recycling day and nick stuff out of the brown bins, one bloke did that in a posh area and got enough cuttings for a 100 foot hedge. Bargain.

Funny you mention that I've lifted several garden plants growing in public land and love a bit of skip hoaking.

I'll ask on the local Facebook group if anybody is wanting rid of plants, there's a shop called stupidly priced plants nearby too. No nearby garden bargains alas, the spar just lets plants die but no discount 🙄

Big supermarkets can be a good place to pick up bargains, especially as summer goes on. The reduced roses we got (£3) have been been beautiful, Pink Abundance. Fruit canes for less than a quid. Any smaller nurseries near by?

One nearby will chat to him.

The big Lidl does plants but it's all a drive or 2 buses away.

What is the best way to get a lot of plants cheaply?

Loads of local gardening clubs do swaps and people are always happy to let you take cuttings.

Look up the National Garden Scheme - lots of plants for sale at those open gardens too.

Any Asda/Tesco or homebase/bq? I'd not bother with Lidl unless they had something you particularly wanted.