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Hi, can I ask what volume of pot you have used? I'm planning to get a black beauty magnolia but I want to make sure I get the right pot first. Also what brand of soil is best? I'm very new to this gardening business Thanks

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...

Looks a bit old for me.

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.

Last year I had better results than ever before, with some nice plants grown from seed, my favourite was tobacco plant, which was very tall and beautiful flowers. My success was listening to people on here and the importance of harnessing light and making use of best as a tool.I find all this...

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.