General Gardening Discussion

They're welcome to, save me vaccing up dead flies off the windowsills.. !! :D

Hi Mims & All Thanks for comments. These plants need lots of water, lots of food and patience!! The small one you have probably won't flower this year but should grow to about 3' tall. overwinter them in a conservatory or greenhouse, a temp above 10-15 degrees is ideal. Water occasionally so...

Bulbs sound good - like the suggestion...

Dont think its flowers, they form on a small, usually downward facing, stem. Cant think what it can be though. :confused:

Any one care to identify them for me?

Dave at the bottom of everones posts is where they live, I see yours says South Devon, Basil Fawlty country I believe. I'm in mid Kent, we catch the east winds in winter and early spring, but we do tend to get pretty hot at times in the summer if there's any heat about that is and it can get dry.

I didn't

This is an excellent on-line guide to organic gardening month by month: http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/todo_now/ornamental_now.phpSee further links from that page to organic vegetable growing, herbs etc etc.. All your questions answered :D

It seems to be fairly easy to come by in most shrub nurseries in Britain.

looks hopeful to me Sue. I'll give it a gander later. Off to mow some lawns!

I guess I have only had it a year, it was about 5 feet tall when I got it and is now at least 9 feet tall. My friend and I were looking at it today and she said about supporting it as it is full of fruit and as they get bigger it will drop and probably drag on the floor. I was made aware of this...

Brilliant photos!

Fair enough all, I wasn't suggesting anyone scour out their ponds on my say-so, but I do think it irresponsible of the BBC to promote these plants to new gardeners. Bananaman, I know nothing about keeping fish, so why is Elodea etc. suitable for your purposes and the natives listed aren't?

no none of them flowered but the ones with the brown leaves are the runty ones and it started off with blotchs on the leaves, I thought I had maybe sprayed them with bug killer or something, it was the top leaves went brown but I can see the beginning of new green leaves. It said on the packet...

use the info from RHS re plants that are less likely to get honey fungus - but they don't make any promises :( http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles1100/honey_fungus.asp

Erm, I plant out my leeks in July ! But have overwintering varietiy (Yates Empire) for the hungry gap (they last til end April), so maybe that's why I get away with planting out later? [ 17. June 2006, 07:46 AM: Message edited by: supersprout ]

Yep it's the flower spikes that are begining to show colour. Probably about 5" tall just now. When I planted them in spring last year they took forever to show and it was late autumn before they showed their true worth. This year they're much further forward so maybe they don't like disturbance.

chkm8, you just got to have a gunnera! :D

Thanks frogesque, I'll take your advice and take cuttings. Don't want to have to climb over twice :D

Aww thank you bananaman, wish I had a superhero avatar too but the nearest I can get is Poison Ivy :rolleyes: :D