Show us your gardening purchases 2026

You've got me actively thinking now @Michael Hewett . I'd be interested to know what you did. My plan at the moment is to lose about half the lawn by reshaping it and making the borders wider to plant more grasses and perennials. I don't like gravel and there's enough hard landscaping here at the moment. The blackbirds also like the lawn for the worms!

 

Thank you @CostasK. Sorry to hear that your crab apple didn't fare well. I know that they prefer a sheltered site so I'm hoping that these high winds here at the moment don't become the norm! I can see why that angled staking method is recommended .

 

Thanks @Plantminded

Just to clarify, the issue was that the wind kept snapping the leader (mine had a single branch going upwards and the rest were almost horizontal, leaving it alone to deal with the full force of the wind at the top). I had staked it and actually it's not that it died, but the shape ended up being very bad and in the end I decided to replace it. Keep in mind that I live in a seaside town, and the winds can get pretty brutal here.

 

That's helpful @CostasK, thanks for clarifying. I decided to keep the original bamboo canes on the two trees that I have recently planted, as well as staking them, to support the leader. The bamboo in my garden has been reminding me about the wind for several days, loudly scraping the fence and damaging the paint .

 

I didn't have a plan, but the garden developed to what it is now bit by bit. It's not a wide garden, and I've got two paths with shrubs and perennials in between them, and down the sides of the garden.
There's a patio at the top outside the house and another at the bottom. It's quite a simple layout really.

 

Thank you @Michael Hewett, your garden sounds very much like my previous garden. I think the best gardens develop over time and with the gardener, without a strict plan .

 

If you are ever down in Cornwall they have bladdernut in Burncoose Gardens. Always a lovely place to visit with mature shrubs and trees - free entry - and a very good shrub nursery.

 

Anyway someone who doesn’t own a greenhouse and have to make do with a south facing spare room, with previous problems growing seeds it was pointed out the problem to me, that I wasn’t producing strong enough seedlings. There was both a mixture of planting too early and poor light conditions.

As James Wang said of GQT that every metre moved away from the window, half the light is lost.
So ordered one of these off Amazon.



So this hopefully will improve my strike rate, as I can put my trays on here and rotate when I water. So now it is a wait for another 5/6 weeks then it will be boom time.

Time will tell.

 

@GreenFingeredPete if you order the strip grow lights, you could attach them at each layer and increase the light that way. I use them even for plants on window sills because at this time of the year the levels are pretty poor.

 

@GreenFingeredPete , I agree with @CarolineL , grow lights are brilliant. I have some cheapy Chinese ones from Amazon, they have lasted well over 5 years now.

The lights extend useable surfaces to hold your seedlings and are so effective that I often notice plantlets turning towards the light rather than towards the South facing window.

LEDs don't consume much energy and don't heat up so can be placed very close to the plants. A simple timer ensures 12 hours of bright light also when you sleep in

 

I bought some cheapish grow lights off Ebay, chinese stuff.
TBH I've stopped using them as I'm not convinced they are safe, they have strange three pin plugs with no fuse.

 

Bought a couple of things at the Snowdrop Festival yesterday.
G "Maidwell"


G "Melanie Broughton"


and a jonquil type Narcissus "Twinkling Yellow"

 

Do they interbreed in your garden, @NigelJ? Could you end up with a Melanie Maidwell, for example?

 

Impulse bought some beauties from JParkers. This summer I'm going to plant my raised bed not just with edibles, but flowers for cutting. I like to have some in the house. I also pretend that having a mix of edibles and flowers will confuse pests. Geoff Hamilton says so!

Anemones will go here and there in hope they will naturalise, and I'm not quite sure what will happen to Eucomis but they look fun.

 

In theory, but in over 25 years of growing snowdrops I've yet to spot one that looks different to it's neighbours; this you can put down to my observation skills, lack of pollinators as the snowdrops flowering season moves steadily earlier.