Does anyone know anything about gardening?

That's cheaper than round here :)

Can anyone recommend a good gardening book? I have started to take an interest in mine but could do with knowing how to prune and when etc, real basic shit!

Plenty hogs at Casa Brommers. This little juvenile came to say hello while I was in the garage this evening.

Not surprised to see young hedgehogs - there's been a lot of noisy hedgehog lurve action in the garden this year.

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Buy a big dead one, a small live one and some fixings!

Yes, I've previously been envious of your 'hogs. They earn their keep devouring slugs and snails. I had assumed they kept clear of our garden due to the number of dogs that are walked by our place on the way to a municipal golf course.
Also, I've seen more badgers, (resident on the fringes of the golf course), 2, than 'hogs in the last couple of years.

Buy a big dead one, a small live one and some fixings!

The tree fern chat is co-mingling with the hedgehog chat in a highly disturbing fashion

Get a proper sized one:
https://www.tendercare.co.uk/product/179171/dicksonia-fibrosa

I think it helps that I'm close enough to open countryside for mooing cows to keep me awake from time to time. That and the 3 hedgehog houses, the Hedgehog Café and the Hedgehog Al Fresco drinking den.

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Intriguing

any RHS book is good (although many gardeners differ in opinion on various things from 'the RHS way')
https://www.waterstones.com/book/rhs-how-to-garden-new-edition/dk/9780241459768

The D.G Hessayon 'Expert'Books are a really good series for more in depth topics. https://www.waterstones.com/author/d-g-hessayon/451916

This is my most consulted book: https://shop.rhs.org.uk/books/general-gardening/pruning-training/rhs-pruning-training-new-edition

got all my books second hand for v cheap. If you are near aNational Trust property they often have cheap gardening books in their second hand book shops (good one at Morden Hall Park)

There's some place out in North London that does wholesale plants.

https://www.thegardeningclub.co.uk/

Norfolk gets some slight rain next week, drizzle.

Can confirm Norfolk is currently that colour

Thanks for the suggestions, we will probably do a few NT properties in September so will wait until then - good tip!

If you have a big garden and you’re worried about the inconvenience of having to lug a full watering can from the tap to the other end of the garden, that’s part of the point of the hosepipe ban. It makes life more difficult and in doing so forces you to conserve water. Because who can be fucked doing that many watering can trips?

I think the point of a hosepipe ban is to discourage/stop people using a hosepipe to indiscriminately spray their plants , sprinkle their lawns and wash their cars.
If you are filling a watering can from a hose that is attached to a tap , for example 150 feet away in my case* you aren't necessarily using more water than filling the can up from under the tap and lugging it to where you need to spot water.
Making life difficult for growers is probably low down the list.

• water pressure has been reduced to a slow flow so with 2 watering cans one can be slowly filling up as I use the other one to spot/base water my vegetables - and repeat ...
  

In the category cheap plants: This is cut from a bunch of coop carnations, dipped in rooting powder (I got doff) and look at it go after just one week

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Surely you will use more water if you have the convenience of filling your watering can directly next to your flower bed instead of having to walk 150 feet for every trip? If you have to walk 150 feet for every trip, you will water more sparsely from the can, that water will go further, and you will likely get bored / frustrated and give up sooner.

Technically speaking you will be highly unlikely to get in trouble for it, seems like hosepipe bans are very loosely worded, full of loopholes, and difficult to enforce, but it seems contrary to the spirit of, you know, a ban on the use of hosepipes.

Surely you will use more water

I only use as much water as the plants need to survive.
Brown lawns and dirty cars will survive and I don't think the spirit of hosepipe bans is meant to be punitive.
I do know people who have 'given up' but I suppose it depends on where your priorities lie.

interesting moral quandary isn’t it - is it better to (a) use just enough water to keep plants alive, or (b) use not quite enough, so the plants die; less water is used but there is no benefit as the water that is used is wasted in entirety?

I’d be pretty relaxed about using a hosepipe purely to fill a watering can myself. Put it this way - if you’d used it as a water pipe and set up a tap in the same place, you’d not be thinking twice about it.

Hypothetical extreme scenario; If all the plants die, what are the environmental consequences for o2 levels, pollution etc etc

Wonder how much water a plant requires to get to the size at which you buy it if you end up having to replace it too

I've been watering the plants that need it, bigger stuff has been fine. Didnt even bother to try and keep lawn alive.

East facing location, with fence behind it. Looking to get some low maintenance, insect/bird friendly shrubs.

Pyrocanthus and mahonia have been suggested to me.

Yes? What else/instead? Got room for 4 plants in total.

A hebe in whatever colour you like?

A Berberis? I like 'apricot queen'

I have a callicarpa bodinieri 'profusion' - bees loved the flowers and it should have incredible purple berries which birds are meant to like later in the season, but I've not had it long enough yet to confirm this

And fatsia japonica is good for providing nectar for those bees that are still about in autumn and winter when little else is flowering

Cotoneaster and ceanothus are not my personal faves but fit your description well

Any reason you couldn't have a small tree? Bees, birds and me all love our amelanchier lamarckii. It doesn't get too huge and a multi-stemmed one in particular will stay shorter than a standard. Small-leaved so it doesn't caste much shade, and looks amazing in bloom: (not my photo)

Ijdgaf and water what I like.

I even shower daily.

Thanks lemonade. Good info here.

I could have a tree, but have quite a few already, so variety