Maverick gardening!

What have you done recently that would give a strict "by the book" gardener nightmares?

I'm sure we all do it - something that we know isn't right, and is risky or whatever, but our curiosity or pressing needs or something else just compels us to give it a go and see if it works!

I know someone on here recently moved perennials in full flower, and I had a friend who deliberately grew bindweed in pots for the admittedly attractive flowers a few years ago.

Me: I moved onions whose bulbs were just swelling nicely. They're still alive and healthy.
Moved a stack of flowering annuals today, and annual poppies a while ago - they seem OK too!
Found some sweet pea seed pods that I nicked from Wisley last year - have sown them in pots and they have come through - will I get flowers from a June sowing?!
Sowed a lot of my Tom seeds in January - they're flowering up nicely!

I'm sure some of you can think of more exciting stuff than that. And most importantly, let us know the result!

 

I have a Hydrangea growing in what I guess is acidic soil and it's about to bloom.

 

I think there is a chance you may get one or two flowering from the sweetpeas, are you down south?-you are more likely to down there than near me-it's a short season in comparison. On the plus side hydrangeas are all going bonkers.


I haven't done anything bad this year, although that is a first, normally I am moving plants around like musical chairs, all the hard work in the past few years is paying off this year as I am about 75% happy with the position of plants.

 

I'm already planning to extent a border this autumn, ear marking which plants are being swamped and need to moved into it...and what new perennials I can buy

 

Haha me too Aaron! I've even gone as far as checking out skips and the tip for bricks that I can use for my planned raised bed (bricks for a raised bed - that's another no-no I think)

Claire - unfortunately, I am down south. Exiled from up your way.

 

My small raised herb bed is built in brick and it's doing great. I didn't use mortar to hold the bricks together, just stacked them together, perhaps that's why it is doing well?

 

I once dug the contents of my compost bin into the patch that was going to be a flowerbed, even though there were still very recognisable items in it. Some potatoes grew, so I dug them up and the wife and I ate them.

 

Lots of thing, mostly moving shrubs and roses during the summer months also replanting new roses were old have been...... mycroriza sprinkled on the rootballs seems to prevent roses sickness.

Neither a particularly good things to do but if the customer wants it done and wont wait then it gets done!!!

 

Spraying lawns with selective the same day as mowing. Dont try this as this as I only know I can get away with it with one particular chemical.

 

I am quite happy to dig in only partially rotted material into the border, or even put it at the bottom of big pots. I think the benefit of getting organic material in there is greater than the disadvantage of it not being fully rotted. Although this goes against convention, I have found support for this from gardeners at the RHS.

There is also support from Patricia Lanza, the American woman who popularised "lasagna gardening". This is the principle of making a compost heap with all the normal things, but in layers. Typically you can make a raised bed by enclosing an area with boards. Then you put in a layer of vegitation, such as material from perennials that have been cut down. Then a layer of cardboard, then a layer of grass cuttings, hedge clippings, newspapers, some soil and anything else that you have to hand. You have as many layers as you like of any materials you like, but alternating nitrogen and carbon rich materials and trying to keep a good balance between them. If you do this in the autumn, she says you can leave it to rot down over winter and plant it up in spring, or even plant it up within days of making the bed. It has been quite a craze in America.

 

I don't agree with this Peter the main principle of composting is to raise the temperature of the heap anywhere between 135-160 f to kill off any pathogenic organisms,cysts, eggs of parasites and some flies can survive below these temperatures you also have the problem of weed seeds.:skp:

 

Walnut, I do agree with you about the benefits of a hot heap. But it needs to be very big to get real heat in there. Councils can do it using tractors, and you can really see the steam rising and it only takes about three weeks to compost. The moon gardener in his book suggests that anything less than about a 10 foot cube doesn't properly heat up. So I think for most of us, even though our garden compost heaps warm up somewhat they are not getting to the temperatures that kill pathogens and seeds.

 

Agreed 1cu mtr minimum in my opinnion and made all at once not put on in dribs and drabs most people are under the illusion they are doing it right what in fact they are producing is material partly decomposed and then it is worked on by worms it does produce a reasonable compost but transfers a lot of weed seeds.I have not got the amount of material to make compost correctly so settle for making Vermicompost this you can make in smaller quantities.

 

I had to Google Vermicompost - most interesting - but it sounds like quite a palaver. I just put all my material in bin bags (with water and holes) and pile them up behind a shed. Its not a hot pile but eventually it does compost.