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Great news. I lived in East Lothian and moved to the South Coast and the advice I get here is completely different from when I lived in Scotland.

Idk for mature plants but the coir plugs in those teabags are very consistent and cheap for producing stuff from seed or tiny cuttings and it has holes for small roots so you can uplant it easily, the issue is that material degrades way too slowly.There is big demand for things that biodegrade...

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...

No, thats factory formed. Proper gates are hand forged but totally unaffordable.....

Looks a bit old for me.

I repurposed surplus concrete patio tiles as stepping stones, using an angle grinder to soften the shape into something less square. Picture below shows the shape - the wonkiness comes from not being level-headed. On places like gumtree you may find tiles that you can recycle. I don't mind that...

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.

This is how the other lives, the ones that don’t have a greenhouse.So here is my 2026 set up, which I have just rigged up.So my options are limited, in that.So this is the only south facing window I have. I bought the shelving off Amazon, to give me an upper and lower option for seeds....

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.

I think you need to thin it out a bit to allow air to flow and sunlight to penetrate.Use a clean, sharp pair of secateurs to remove any broken or crossing stems and any you can see are dead or diseased. Stand back and look again and see where you can reduce congestion then give it a good...

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...