General Gardening Discussion

Bark chippings form an effective mulch and naturally decompose with the aid of insects, fungi and bacteria. These creatures are all part of the decomposing process. Gradually, they will allow the bark to turn into crumbly humus. You need these creatures to work the magic for you :D

Hi Init sister, it was yellow inside as I remember, and very sweet, mine wasn't very big.

Not a bad size garden, only 3.5 times the length of mine!!!! Loads of trees to choose from Fancy, I have gone for deep rooted ones becasue of their proximity to the house so I would think this would be a sensible approach when planting near ponds. Would be a good idea to go with a tree with...

The Palace State Rooms are open to the public from today for 8 weeks and tickets can be booked on line. There is a special exhibition of 80 of HM's dresses and some of her jewellery (diamonds, saphires, emeralds etc) in celebration of her 80th birthday. I couldn't get Mrs shiney away from...

Hi Gogs, I grow all my Crasulaea in the green house, but do put them out in the summer. This is a very good link about yours... http://www.plantoftheweek.org/week141.shtml They are nice plants & take neglect. I have sevaral different kinds now...

Like Waco I use Dahlias and Canna lilies but also have a couple of Monardas which flower alongside the Heliantheum? and Penstemmons which are having a difficult time without water. Other late flowering plants often seem to be in the Yellow/Red spectrum although my Anchusa looks good when it flowers.

Hi folks,Thanks to everyone for the replies to my queries !Next question - one of my broom plants has got little seed pods on. Can I pick them and save the seeds - any point or would I never achieve anything from seed anyway ? Any ideas ?Thanks again

had some major cloud bursts over Milton Keynes yesterday and my lawn was very happy for it. Had to clean my front porch because it was well flooded. Oh well....it will teach me to not keep sweeping and tidying up every day. I had to do it all again, and guess what, my water butts are full.Yipeeeee

Hi wildflowerNo we don't freeze them anymore. We eat lots of them, give some to friends and sell the rest. Each year we pick a local charity and open our garden in May to raise money for it. We don't charge an entry fee but ask for donations and Mrs shiney does loads of cuttings and grows...

On reading some of the answers that where given regarding this awful weed I tried the following suggestion I put some weed killer in a plastic bag put the end of the weed that was in my garden coming in from next door and tied it off and just left it tucked it away where it couldn't be seen and...

I agree Pete. An awful lot of very familiar garden plants come from places like South Africa, North America and the Med. Very many more come from China and the Himalayas. Two fascinating books are "The Origins of Plants" by Maggie Campbell-Culver and "The Gardener's Atlas" by Johh Grimshaw...

Is there anybody there ?

Just for a laugh - I treate myself to one of those green plastic garden tool racks out of B&Q and proudly assembled it and placed it in the shed.There are holes in it for rakes and hoes to be placed in end up but the shed roof's too low to let me get them in!!So I then found a little shelf...

frogsque...i think i have the same dwarf variety as yours ..i threw a packet of bird wildlife seeds on my patch and they must have been included in it..as they have appeared..

Thanks Shiney, This is my first attempt at 'real' gardening does it show? :D Been given some duff info from garden centres so I'd much rather ask the more knowledgable members of GC! Thanks again

I agree, as I had the same thoughts ... it's like Chinese whispers! :D

Thanks Liz, I'm glad I asked, will do what you suggest (once it stops raining!)

Thanks ML, Love the bottle of wine, wish I had one like that that keeps refilling itself! :D

like the motto marley farley!!Mine is gardening and dogs forever, housework whenever!