[Help] Gardeners Question Time.

[Green Cross Code Man]

Anyone grown 'Sheila's perfume' in a container? It's a floribunda type rose and waaaaay out of my gardening knowledge and comfort zone. Mrs GCCM wants a rose for the verandah and loves the red and yellow/orange type flowers.

 

[A mex eyecan]

I’m after some suggestions please for a perennial to plant along side Lavender Hidcote.
its to go in an area just set back about 15” from lawn edge, so ideally nothing too big and certainly not too droopy. I guess upright to around 15”. Something red i guess would look quite nice.

Planting area is around 9’ long and I’ve currently got 3 lavender plants, my thoughts were to be a tad formal so plant it as ?,lavender, ?, lavender, ?, lavender, ?

Any suggestions please?

 

[bluenitsuj]

Any veg growing experts out there.

Do these carrot seedlings look OK? From the soil to the foliage seem a bit limp/leggy?

 

[jevs]

Anyone grown 'Sheila's perfume' in a container? It's a floribunda type rose and waaaaay out of my gardening knowledge and comfort zone. Mrs GCCM wants a rose for the verandah and loves the red and yellow/orange type flowers.

I grow it in the Rockery but not in a tub. It's a relatively short rose but it has lovely glossy leaves and sweet scented flowers. I'd imagine providing it was a big enough tub, given enough water and feed, it would be perfect.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I grow it in the Rockery but not in a tub. It's a relatively short rose but it has lovely glossy leaves and sweet scented flowers. I'd imagine providing it was a big enough tub, given enough water and feed, it would be perfect.

Thanks, that's perfect!

 

[WATFORD zero]

I was caught by his Feb butchery, didn’t realise they started in winter! You should be fine as meadow wildflowers are inherently slow starters.

Two other things I do are to gently remove Dandelions with their entire tap root as they can smother, also with bare patches I planted small specimens of eg Achillea Terracotta.

Going past your house earlier and admiring your wildflower verge, I realise I have managed to grow a beautifully cultured verge of 2ft high grasses with the VERY occasional poppy, cornflower, daisy etc flower just about peeking above them

I now realise that when you said 'scalp' it, you really meant to get rid of all the grasses and leave bare soil. I'm feeling far more confident about next year though and will get those posts in by the end of Jan

 

[Weststander]

Going past your house earlier and admiring your wildflower verge, I realise I have managed to grow a beautifully cultured verge of 2ft high grasses with the VERY occasional poppy, cornflower, daisy etc flower just about peeking above them

I now realise that when you said 'scalp' it, you really meant to get rid of all the grasses and leave bare soil. I'm feeling far more confident about next year though and will get those posts in by the end of Jan

Buying/using Yellow-Rattle seeds also really helps. I bought too many …. @Jack Straw …. I have them in a kitchen cupboard, would they survive a dormant summer in a house?

My routine. Mow or scythe it to a ‘normal’ height in August, it’ll take several cuts with a mower. Then in say early October scalp it severely so at least half the soil is showing. Neighbours will think you’re a brut, again . Always clear away the cut growth. Then broadcast the native chalk downland and Yellow-Rattle seeds. I split the measurement three ways for better coverage. Lightly tread down. I try to do this before certain rain.

It’ll get better each year.

I do seed again, to keep a wide variety / stop Oxeye daisies dominating.

 

[Jack Straw]

Buying/using Yellow-Rattle seeds also really helps. I bought too many …. @Jack Straw …. I have them in a kitchen cupboard, would they survive a dormant summer in a house?

My routine. Mow or scythe it to a ‘normal’ height in August, it’ll take several cuts with a mower. Then in say early October scalp it severely so at least half the soil is showing. Neighbours will think you’re a brut, again . Always clear away the cut growth. Then broadcast the native chalk downland and Yellow-Rattle seeds. I split the measurement three ways for better coverage. Lightly tread down. I try to do this before certain rain.

It’ll get better each year.

I do seed again, to keep a wide variety / stop Oxeye daisies dominating.

All you need to know re Yellow Rattle;

Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus minor) Seed

Yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor) seed for sale online. Sourced from sites in England. Carefully cleaned. Germination tested, free shipping, immediate delivery. 2023 harvest.

www.habitataid.co.uk

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

This is growing on one our rockeries. Anyone know what it is?

 

[Coldeanseagull]

This is growing on one our rockeries. Anyone know what it is?

Arum maculatum

 

[vegster]

Any veg growing experts out there.

Do these carrot seedlings look OK? From the soil to the foliage seem a bit limp/leggy?
View attachment 183006

They look ok to me, give them time and they should look better.

 

[bluenitsuj]

They look ok to me, give them time and they should look better.

Thank you

 

[Zeberdi]

Can anyone recommend a barrier product I could get off Amazon that works for slugs please? Usually my copper rings and sharp gravel works but this year because of the really warm and wet weather combination, my Delphiniums and Lupins are being slowly decimated

 

[Coldeanseagull]

I'm having to go round every evening with a bucket of salty, soapy water and hand pick the molluscs, just to try and reduce the numbers.
I was getting over two hundred a night....two weeks later I'm down to a quarter of that....still too many

 

[Weststander]

At the Chelsea Flower Show on TV, they mentioned using copper containers. Very successful.

Obviously a big ask to start again.

 

[Zeberdi]

I'm having to go round every evening with a bucket of salty, soapy water and hand pick the molluscs, just to try and reduce the numbers.
I was getting over two hundred a night....two weeks later I'm down to a quarter of that....still too many

Thanks

I really fcucking hate touching slugs and its hard to do it with gardening gloves.

I planted a new Delphinium today -I’ll go out tonight armed with a torch and pick the bastards off when it gets dark - Honestly, I have hedgehogs, toads, frogs and loads of birds all apparently on the Atkins diet.

Blackfly have decimated my ornamental Hibiscus tree too - keep spraying it with soapy water but the leaves have completely all dropped off and no flowers

 

[Zeberdi]

At the Chelsea Flower Show on TV, they mentioned using copper containers. Very successful.

Obviously a big ask to start again.

Copper works well for me usually - I made plastic spiky rings from old plastic flower pots a few years ago and covered them in sticky copper tape, then planted the rings around the base of the plants - a very expensive option which I may have to do again. It’s just sad to see my plants stripped of all leaves

 

[Coldeanseagull]

I grow a lot of juicy plants, this year has been the worst for the snotty bastards. Hand removal to try and control them because as you say, the multitude of predators of the slimy and crunchy ones just isn't cutting it this year.
I picked sixty snails off of the leaf joints of two yucca gloriosas....these are big snails, not littluns...lost about a pint of blood in doing so!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Can anyone ID this for me? Popped up spontaneously in the garden

 

[A mex eyecan]

Argh. Can anyone help me, please?
my lawn has a brick edging but inevitably the grass still gradually creeps over this and looks scruffy.
ive tried edging shears, tried getting on hands and knees and using hand shears, i even desperately have tried an old bread knife, how sad is that.

over the years i’ve had nothing but grief with strummers, make after bloody make. All promising ‘tangle free’ cutting lines. Bump feed, auto feed, just about any feed. All have been a pain in the arris, sometimes they learn to fly and travel swiftly across the lawn whilst i stand the other side uttering more than a few expletives.

This week i bit the bullet and tried yet another brand, cordless wonder tool. Roybi, auto feed, one plus. Just about every review spouting its great attributes.

I should have guessed, auto feed read tangle line, snapping off after trimming less that a few inches of lawn. I’ve taken it back and got a refund.

Can i ask the wisdom of NSC gardening fraternity, does ANYONE know if a make/model that dies actually work well, dispense the line without keep need to keep taking the head off and re feeding it back.