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Someone in england managed to breed s red podded sugar snap by crossing yellow and purple podded varieties and stabilising that took 5 years, but she seems to have dissapeared without releasing them sadly.If you can garentee the space to work for many years its a good project to breed...

I blame TV gardening shows, they have no relation to real gardening and growing. Instant effect, not keen on garden designers personally.

I would go for smoother curves rather than the wobbly amoeba shapes, and some deeper areas of border. Maybe an oval or pear-shaped lawn, or two interlocking circles. The path doesn't have to be the same width all the way, for example in the attached sketch there are some wider areas where you...

Looks a bit old for me.

I can understand why you need a path now @Dan1981, clay based lawns are a challenge. I'd try to locate the path on the shady side of your garden, if there is one, allowing the lawn and plants in the borders to get as much sun as possible.

The variegated Pittosporum Elizabeth could work well - one of my neighbours has a very attractive hedge of this. I liked @Plantminded's suggestion of a flowering climber for the arch itself, too.

Personally I prick all seedlings out into those cell trays, the ones I don't are things like onions which I sow three or four seeds to each cell and plant out the whole cell when it comes to that time.I don't think you will find any hard and fast rules how you do things, people often find...

That one’s a good vibrant blue @Clare G, now on my list .

First bloom of 2026, Hibiscus Red Pagoda ...There s a Standrad Red and an April Yellow to open soon.

I think I poked them vertically into the compost. If I remember rightly they're quite big and easy to handle individually. If you have lots of seed you could try different ways and see what works for you.

It needs a good prune, I'd remove perhaps half the branches coming from the base, any crossing branches and any obviously dead growth. I wonder if it could be a red currant rather than a black currant.

Thank you for the replies, really appreciate the insights and advice

I use pencil, then at the end of season I collect all the labels. The ones that didn't break from the light get washed (using sponge and soap), then I use eraser to clean whatever written.

The last one for now, was on the Thorny olive tree that the bird table and hanging feeder are on. It's another variegated leaf plant. It's quite early in the year to be trying this, but I've got nothing to loose.As you have probably noticed from all the bird photos recently, they have become...

I’d be surprised if Beth Chatto’s gardeners use slug pellets or insecticides . Birds tend to be vocal here in the morning and out looking for worms mainly early morning and at dusk. Sound for me also includes wind through the trees and swishing through dried grasses in winter.

Thank you Ricky that's what i like the know, i haven't seen that page