General Gardening Discussion

@JWK I always think of Chelsea a bit like I think of a fashion show. The problem isn't the show, it's people copying it without using their imagination and putting their own twist on it, being a tad more subtle in their own style and understanding that the show and the high street are two very...

To be brutally honest even the good one looks like its not happy. Is it a sunny aspect? As said earlier a repot would help.

@Jack Sparrow I have ringed a couple that I'm fairly sure are hollyhocks, there are several more I think, but use those two as a template. I was looking at a seedling about 30 minutes ago and thinking it needs to go in the ground.

I would temporally connect it to a mains tap at the top end, with another hose, so the extra pressure will dislodge any blockages or air locks.

I don't know what your conifer is.We often prune the top of our small bright green conifer (Cupressus i think) and then the tree happily grows back over the cut area and looks good again. Cutting of the dead growth 'may' work for you too.

I'd cut back the stems with the the dead leaves still on them.

I'd be inclined, sorry about the pun, to keep the slope dig it over incorporating some of the gravel and plant it up with drought tolerant plants, mostly low growing and spreading to hold the soil in place.

I'm not too sure on the building regs. We want some greenery to soften the look of the house up a little bit.

Hmmmm....all this dosing the soil with detergent/vinegar/salt/bleach! I use the proprietary little round traps that you squeeze a few drops of anticide into. Other creatures can't access it, it gets taken straight back to the nest and destroys it. It works extremely well without polluting the...

Thank you very much everyone for all your help and advises, options!

Many thanks.

The most useful plant in my garden is the one I can look at lovingly and think ........ I grew that from a seed

Guess this means slug-food is pretty rare in your garden. My slugs wouldn't touch the rhubarb until it was the last available food source.Edit: if you are lucky this problem will go away after one season since plants aren't eager to be eaten themselves. So in the upcoming months or year...

@Sirius My fargesia nitidia flowered about 5 years ago and I took it out the following year, found a few seedlings, but many.

I don't know what minimum temperature they need but we overwintered a plant in our car port. It was unintentional. It was left there amongst the hundreds of pot plants we have in the car port and flowered the following year. This year is year three and it had again survived the winter but we...

For the first few years in this garden we had loads of Moss in the lawn. then we planted a mini orchard in it. I let the hedge grow taller and it shaded the grass more, then we'd cut the grass and leaving clippings on top, and even just mow the fallen beach hedge leaves into a mulch in situ -...

I leave mine to go tatty and allow seeds to form - then shake the dried seeds around the garden for get more.

It's always nice to collect seed from the garden and then brilliant to see a result the following year. These Penstemon's I grew from last years seed collecting look lovely. Anyone else had nice results? edit: well it's a double whoops!! Firstly Pete tells me they are Godetia. And secondly my...

I had burns from Giant Hogweed many years ago, and being burns I reacted by running cold water on them - the worst thing I could have done, as the burns blistered. If any treatment is used then a recommended ointment is best.