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Gardening thread 2021

Started by Ferris, April 05, 2021, 02:26:54 AM

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Ferris

Back yard is a complete sty, there's discarded hockey sticks and quite a lot of broken glass and rusty nails (thanks to the previous owners who were quite literally mad - I think they were taking things out there to smash and then leave on the ground? Anyway.)

Gonna tidy it up over summer and it'll be mega. I've planted some veg and herbs and that in little indoor planter things with a view to transferring them outside at some point, and just bought some hop rhizomes that I'll grow along a fence and brew with in later summer/autumn.

What are your #GardenGoals for 2021? Are you growing anything? And how badly do you reckon I'll mess this up, given that I've never done any plant stuff before?

Ferris

(Also, this is the time of year you have to start planning and/or planting so thought it'd be a good thread to start in case anyone was on the fence, saw this, and wanted to oversee their own herbaceous disaster to rival my own.)

bgmnts

Currently have two Basil plants and 6 Rosemary plants growing and they're getting a decent amount of sun for spring in wales but I'll see where it goes.

Ferris

Pretty sure I've got basil on the go as well, it's a handy one to have innit. When did you plant yours, and when is the harvest?

Also are there "staples" you're supposed to have in a herb garden do you reckon?

bgmnts

Oh I have no idea I'm a total neophyte. I think I sowed the basil in early March and planted them in mid March, and the Rosemary two weeks after.


Dex Sawash

My rosemary is all blooming, the dirty old bollockses. Never had that before. Need to figure out how/if to eat the blossoms.

Put in a pair of lilacs 2 years ago and both stayed just a little twig with a tiny leaf or two. Moved to a container over winter and they are thriving now. No hope though, we are at least a zone too hot for those.

Sweet Pea flowers ready to harden off for outdoors.

Pink Gregory

Quote from: bgmnts on April 05, 2021, 02:30:44 AM
Currently have two Basil plants and 6 Rosemary plants growing and they're getting a decent amount of sun for spring in wales but I'll see where it goes.

Our rosemary bush seems to be finally on the way out, might try repotting it; there are green shoots coming, but very slowly.  Not sure how to trim them without removing all the new growth, it's gotten rather leggy.

Buelligan

With basil growing, there's no harvest time as such.  You can use it as soon as it's big enough to withstand having a few leaves pinched off, if you just need a few leaves for a tomato salad or something.  Try to let it grow reasonably first or it may not recover.  Or you can harvest whole plants and use the lot to make stuff like pesto.  If you cut it to the ground, it normally doesn't come back.  With growing basil, it's usually better when it's fairly youthful, if you see flower buds forming, these come at the tips of the leaves, in Europe, normally after midsummer, just pinch those out, just the tips, to keep the plant juvenile.  Basil is something that benefits, once it's reached a reasonable size, from frequent and gentle nipping, so it's great in the summer months for adding a handful of leaves every few days to salads or pasta or whatevs.

With rosemary, like basil, all herbs, if you want you can eat the flowers too.  They can look really lovely in a salad or used as a garnish.  If you don't need them and they're not going to age and coarsen the plants (with herbs, the ones that'll do this are basil, mint and some of the more recherche ones, like dill, mainly soft stemmed herbs rather than woody shrubby ones like thyme or rosemary), anyway on the woody stemmers, like rosemary, leave the flowers for the bees if you aren't going to eat them.  Bees love herb flowers. 

If you grow lavender, be aware, you'll keep your plant far better if you prune it once a year, northern hemisphere, this would be around August/September, after flowering but before any frost.  Cut back each stem to above the last point where you can see leaves or growth.  With lavender, if you cut back, into the wood where there are no leaves, the stem will almost certainly die off.  If you don't prune lavender, it will grow out, getting woody and dying off in the middle.  Pruning keeps the plant younger, extends its life (lavenders usually only live about 10-15 years).

On the preparation of your yard, Ferris, can I suggest the number one thing to do is get your soil right.  You only get one chance to blitz a garden and really prepare it and that's the start.  So learn about weeds - check out perennial weeds, there are weeds out there that, if you leave the smallest bit of root in your soil will come right back and multiply.  So do research. 

Evaluate that soil - do some reading about soil types.  Generally, if land is lying fallow, you can see from the wild plants growing on it, what kind of soil you have - rich fertile and well balanced and drained or something that needs more work, improving drainage, incorporating material that will increase acidity or alkalinity and so on, there is no substitute for reading about this. 

Look at aspect, is the site shady, windy, wet?  Plan to do something about those issues if you need to (plant windbreaks or increase drainage).

Clear out rubbish and weeds (once you've identified them as weeds), diligently, you'll only do it once, so do it right. 

And then dig that land, go through it by hand.  Try doing a small area at a time or you may get down hearted.  Invest in a rotovator if it a huge patch.  Don't walk on your soil once you've dug. 

Onward and upward, learn, read, handle the soil.  There is so much more.  Enjoy this time.  :)

Emma Raducanu

Quote from: Buelligan on April 05, 2021, 06:36:01 AM
learn about weeds - check out perennial weeds, there are weeds out there that, if you leave the smallest bit of root in your soil will come right back and multiply.  So do research.

I'm afraid I have done this and discovered after wondering what it was last year that we have houttuynia cordata growing in our front and in the shady border at the back. It has literally ruined my past week just thinking about it. Everything I have read about it sounds absolutely awful. Obviously the previous owner saw it as ground cover for the side of garden that gets no direct sun light. Yet I wish garden centres would put massive warning signs on the thing.

I was thinking of contacting one of these Japanese Knotweed companies that will cost £1000s to get rid of. I know if you attempt to dig it out, it basically just multiplies by rhizomes. Eventually, I found a few places saying to keep cutting it down to the ground each time you see a shoot emerge, then you weaken it by not allowing it to photosynthasize. I'm going with this method this year and hopefully next year I'll be able to tell if it has spread further. If not, then I'll just keep snipping at the first shoots and binning the fucker. If this way keeps it in check, I guess I could just make it part of my new spring/summer routine. Twat.

Buelligan

I'm no expert on it but isn't it a plant that basically needs a moist shady environment?  You could consider, along with the hard cutting back, which is a great idea - clearing patches, bit by bit, really thoroughly and digging in gravel or encouraging temporary drainage in some way to make the cleared areas less inviting.  Only consideration would be, as you say, it's a ground cover plant (normally), if you create large areas of dry shade, you'll be left with a bigger issue of what to plant.  Dry shade is possibly the most difficult of all areas to find plants for.  At least it's not ugly and can be used! 

Emma Raducanu

If I can prevent it from spreading any further, it wouldn't be the end of the world. If it is able to spread through the lawn to the border on the other side, which I absolutely love it'd be awful and I'd literally just have to contact someone and pay them what it takes to get rid of. I'm hoping the snip method will help it stop spreading. And I probably have to tell the neighbours they might get an invasive species appear in their garden, which I'm sure they'll be happy about!


Buelligan

One way I've seen work with things like bamboo, to stop spreading is to dig a slit trench, deep as you can/like, at least another 50% deeper than the roots of the thing you're containing are and slide in, beneath the soil, something impermeable vertically, roofing slates, for instance.  You could do that all round the edges of the bit you're happy with/can live with and then keep up the clipping outside your contained area - maybe consider laying more slates or another barrier, this time light-proof, over the top of the bit you want gone to really starve those plants of light.  Lift it every so often to attack any growth.

BTW, Ferris, this light-starving method can be an amazing organic way of clearing weeds as long as you can put up with an unsightly (depending on what you use to block the light) looking piece of ground.  You'd have to keep it up for a growing season or more, if you want to kill everything beneath and you'll need to be sure it's completely light-proof.  But, if you have time and can bear the look, something like layers of old carpets and builder's plastic weighted with stones can work very well.

Ferris

It's not in that bad shape, it's just very unloved and it's not massive so we want to make the most of what we have. The land needs to be re-leveled and a fence put in and a few tons of rubble carted away. I've spoken to an enterprising young man who owns a mini-digger thing and I'm waiting for him to give me a quote for the larger landscaping type stuff. If it's too much, I'll get a shovel and a wheelbarrow and ruin my back for a few weeks.

The soil here is (I'm told) fairly shit. It's loamy and very dark due to centuries of people burning coal here. Bastards. I'll have to add grass seed for the bits of it that are fucked (maybe 50sq feet?) but the rest is alright. The borders want razing and starting again. Think I'll need to put compost in a lot of places to enrich the soil (if that's the right term?) but we get sun all day so I think once stuff starts growing it'll be alright.

I'll check what seeds we planted and post a few photos once they get going - I just picked ones that were cheap, I definitely got habaneros and basil though. I bought rhizomes for the hop plants on the basis that they grow faster and are more reliable, but I have no idea.

This is all just stuff I'm thinking about and planning and will be my main project for a few months, and I basically wanted a companion thread for the nice wildlife one.

IsavedLatin

I've been in my current place 18 months, and spent last year mostly observing the lay of the land before meddling.

To the back I inherited a small north-facing courtyard garden that had clearly once been someone's pride and joy, and so there were great bones to it, but had been neglected in recent years. I gave everything a decent haircut in the winter and it's amazing how much more spacious it feels. In a garden roughly 8 square metres, we have an olive tree, a camellia, some bamboo and (I think?) a mock orange, as well as another couple I've struggled to name. Also a very woody St John's Wort shrub that I gave a thrashing to over winter and seems to be springing back into life. I'm hoping to plant a couple of fairly big hydrangeas in the few bare spots, to introduce a bit more colour at eye level. The back garden attracts a lot of small birds throughout the year, which is delightful.

My main concern to the back is what colour to paint the fence; I'm very drawn to the current fashion for dark grey or black fences, the thinking being that the dark background makes the foliage pop. However even in the belting summer sun the back garden is shaded and I don't want to make it gloomy. I expect I may very well still be dithering about this in another two months' time.

To the front we have a couple of beds that get full sun; this patch was even more neglected when we moved in, so the last few months have been spent removing madly overgrown and/or basically dead plants.  Still, somehow the neglect of the last lot didn't seem to dent the outrageous blowsy bright-pink rose that we have in one corner, so doing my best not to fuck that up. I also put in what I hoped would become a luscious bed of lavender under the living room window, thinking it would waft the smell in through the open window on summer evenings (laughably grandiose ambition, at least thus far). I have been keeping a beady eye on other people's gardens in the surrounding area and very much want to copy a cheerful display of euphorbia and agapanthus that seems to do well in the soil round here, but it's proving an absolute bitch to find euphorbia in stock anywhere.  (If anyone has ideas for a quickly-establishing shrub that will give a bit of structure to a sunny spot, and work well with agapanthus, I'm all ears.)

Very much a beginner at all this, haven't done much in the way of seed-sowing, have just bought 9cm or 2l established plants when I have planted anything (which I imagine makes me a mug, but heigh-ho). Also we seem to provide the neighbourhood cat toilet, so I'm content to just grow pretty rather than edible things.

Have started watching Gardeners' World and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Emma Raducanu

On the plus side, I went all supermarket sweep at the garden centre last week and bought a ridiculous number of plants. The lady who owned our house previously created a blousy cottage garden, which was one of the main selling points for us when we were buying. Not being gardners, we've left it to its own devices and each spring, it starts looking lovely again but I can tell, from photos, in diminishing returns.

The past couple of years, I've tried doing what Buelligan suggest, adding organic matter to the soil, tending the lawn and dealing with any weeds. This will be the first year I've been brave enough to add something to the border for fear of spoiling what we already have. Although have in read a bit about 'dividing' perennials, it gave me a bit of confidence that things would still grow back even if I disturbed a few bulbs or roots that are already in the ground.

I'm full beginner and will hopefully learn by what succeeds and what fails but I've gone for foxgloves, lupins, oriental poppies, verbena, alliums, delphiniums, hosta, miscanthus, salvia etc. Basically anything with a bit of height to plant at the back and middle of a large border. I was going to buy a few climbers but then shit myself at the idea of creating a monster, so I'll save that for next year if I'm happy with how things turn out.

Emma Raducanu

Quote from: IsavedLatin on April 05, 2021, 12:45:55 PM
I have been keeping a beady eye on other people's gardens in the surrounding area and very much want to copy a cheerful display of euphorbia and agapanthus that seems to do well in the soil round here, but it's proving an absolute bitch to find euphorbia in stock anywhere.  (If anyone has ideas for a quickly-establishing shrub that will give a bit of structure to a sunny spot, and work well with agapanthus, I'm all ears.)

The nursery I go to grows a lot of their own things. The gardener there said, because the weather has been colder this year than last, everything is it bit delayed. You might be surprised by how much more is available week by week. I got a euphorbia the other day.

IsavedLatin

Quote from: DolphinFace on April 05, 2021, 01:00:18 PM
The nursery I go to grows a lot of their own things. The gardener there said, because the weather has been colder this year than last, everything is it bit delayed. You might be surprised by how much more is available week by week. I got a euphorbia the other day.

Thank you, that is a good tip! I also think that knowing the right people / places seems to be key -- a local gardener, during the first lockdown last year (i.e. when even getting into a garden centre was difficult for the average punter), took to selling individual plants to locals from her front garden, at or a little under garden centre rates. I got some cosmos and foxgloves off her then, and I think it must have been a good earner, as she's continued with it since. I was on to her about sourcing the hydrangeas I want and today, since writing my last post, she texted me to say she's found a big euphorbia at the same nursery: so, hurrah!

Ferris

Right, just checked our stash of seedlings.

Chives, mint, cilantro, lemon coriander, tomatoes, garlic (well... planted some cloves so let's see what happens there), carrots, fava beans, and chocolate habanero peppers. Found empty lavender and thyme seed packets on the windowsill as well but can't find any pots labeled with them so... they're in there somewhere.

Day 2 update - nothing has happened to any of the pots.

Buelligan

On your shrub for agapanthus ISLatin, I'm thinking you've got a hot, sunny, well drained spot if the agapanthus is doing well there, I'd think about something that'll give structure in winter, even when the agapanthus is doing nowt, so you could consider a rosemary - very boring but it continues the herb thing with the lavender, will like those same conditions, won't go out of control, will have leaves in winter, is bomb proof (almost), easy to obtain and blueish, so will sit easily alongside pink roses and your other blue plants. 

Or you could think about Ceratostigma willmottianum, nice easy small shrub, rich green leaves turn bright red in autumn, late summer lots of really vivid cobalt blue flowers.  Or how about some globe artichokes (Cynara scolymus), heroic tall silver green grey foliage and stems topped with those edible thistle heads - if you leave them, rather than eating them, they'll open to amazing vibrant velvety purple-blue tassels, easy as pie.  Or if you like the idea of thistles, try Onopordum acanthium very tall with furry white leaves and purple flowers, plant some Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum, fabulous thisly things with dark plummish flowers, mix with some opium poppies (easy and quick from seed if you start this month) - Papaver somniferum, Lauren's Grape - would go beautifully with those and agapanthus, maybe some Verbena bonariensis and a few grasses.  Beautiful.

Emma Raducanu

How freely does Verbena bonariensis self seed? I've been quite keen on self seeders because I like the idea of the odd flower popping up here and there like nature intended but can it be invasive in your experience?

gib

i've not found it invasive at all but there are always one or 2 seedlings that make it through to next year. basically free plants for the last 20 years

IsavedLatin

Quote from: Buelligan on April 05, 2021, 04:57:11 PM
On your shrub for agapanthus ISLatin, I'm thinking you've got a hot, sunny, well drained spot if the agapanthus is doing well there, I'd think about something that'll give structure in winter, even when the agapanthus is doing nowt, so you could consider a rosemary - very boring but it continues the herb thing with the lavender, will like those same conditions, won't go out of control, will have leaves in winter, is bomb proof (almost), easy to obtain and blueish, so will sit easily alongside pink roses and your other blue plants. 

Or you could think about Ceratostigma willmottianum, nice easy small shrub, rich green leaves turn bright red in autumn, late summer lots of really vivid cobalt blue flowers.  Or how about some globe artichokes (Cynara scolymus), heroic tall silver green grey foliage and stems topped with those edible thistle heads - if you leave them, rather than eating them, they'll open to amazing vibrant velvety purple-blue tassels, easy as pie.  Or if you like the idea of thistles, try Onopordum acanthium very tall with furry white leaves and purple flowers, plant some Cirsium rivulare atropurpureum, fabulous thisly things with dark plummish flowers, mix with some opium poppies (easy and quick from seed if you start this month) - Papaver somniferum, Lauren's Grape - would go beautifully with those and agapanthus, maybe some Verbena bonariensis and a few grasses.  Beautiful.

You're being extremely generous with your advice and time, here, Buelligan, thank you very much!  All of your shrub ideas sound brilliant. The rosemary is a great shout, I love the stuff personally, and from a quick Google the artichokes look pretty other-worldly. The thistles are totally new to me and look gorgeous.

I actually got given a few poppy seeds from a pal last year, though I'm not certain of the colour, and I'm awaiting some verbena plug plants (I availed myself of a special offer in a mag, where they've taken my money and I'm now waiting impatiently for the stuff to materialise). So between the greenery ideas you've given me and those, I think I'm set!

Consignia

Went into Lockdown last year without any equipment for my first in spring in my new garden, so it was an utter shit tip until easing last year. Taking the bull by the horns now giving the Lawn loads of TLC. Probably going to treat the fence, decking and pergola this year, but everyone seems to have the same idea right now and all the good shit is out of stock.

Got some ace garden furniture coming in a few weeks. Garden is going to be totally on fleek in June.

When is the best time to plant pumpkins and squash?  I'm using raised beds and plant pots on the outskirts of a south facing garden, and hoping to get a fair bit of veg growing.

Buelligan

You could plant seeds into small pots in the next couple of weeks (depending on where you are), for planting out late May (most UK areas) when the nights are frost free and a bit milder.  If you're growing stuff like that make sure you prepare their beds really well with as much well-rotted material/compost as possible dug well in and keep them fed (tomato food) and watered.  These types are greedy as fuck and need plenty of sunlight, if they get it, you'll be laughing.

Ferris

Lads; one of the fava beans has sprouted.

It's all happening!

Attila

Mr Attila has a big allotment, so he's going to be working down there in a week or so (once this last cold snap is passed). He was hoping, when I moved over here, that I would be down there digging away enthusiastically with him.

I used to have a dye garden when I had my own house, and roses and stuff. I had all sorts of mad things in my dye garden (in central Virginia, so I had fairly long summers -- but sadly not long enough for indigo -- my indigo survived a mauling from my sheep, but I left it exactly one day too late to harvest, and frost got it). I had a whole section of woad and weld, plus assorted weirdness like wormwood and tansy. Lots of different types of mint (orange and chocolate were my favourites). Pennyroyal. I grew a small patch of flax every year.

Anyway, I asked if I could have a small patch of the allotment this year, because every year he's asked me to take over a bit to help him with time and to keep it under cultivation. So now that I've asked for a spot he's all grumbly and relunctant about giving it up.

Anyway, I have three madder plants that I want to/need to transfer down there into a raised/side-boarded bed (cos it's the roots I'll be wanting). I would like to put in 1/2 woad plants, and then a section of something for yellow, haven't decided yet.

If he doesn't stop bugging me about it, though, I will put in a lot of wormwood which causes anxiety in men (and dogs) apparently.

Ferris

This sounds amazing.

It had never occurred to me that woad is a thing you grow (always assumed it was like ochre ie something you find in the ground[nb]which I suppose in a way it is[/nb]). A whole garden of dye plants is a new one on me.

For things like tansy and wormwood, is there any danger for small kids? I remember being told not to touch the foxgloves (?) at the of the garden because they were poisonous (?), but that may have been my mum just wanting some plants to survive a load of kids running around.

Ferris

(It had also never occurred to me that indigo was a plant/flower. Ashamed of my plant knowledge.)

(Also did you use your dye garden to dye things? Can you process the plants into dyes or is that a pain in the arse?)

Buelligan

Foxgloves are dodge because they contain digoxin, I think it's digoxin, which can bugger you all up heart-wise.  People do die from it but mostly small kids, so you have to be reasonably careful with them but they're nowhere near as dodge as something like Aconitum (monk's bane, wolf's bane, devil's bane, woman's bane, mouse bane, devil's helmet, queen of poisons and other intriguing names), I've heard of that killing a dog that dug near its roots but it's a beautiful thing.

If you're interested, I recommend A Modern Herbal by Mrs M Grieve.  I believe she gave advice to the UK government during WW1 on useful plants that could be collected in the wild and used to treat the wounded (although she's written out of the history I link below).  Sphagnum moss, was collected by the sack full and used for its antiseptic antibacterial and absorbent properties, on her recommendation, I understand.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-humble-moss-helped-heal-wounds-thousands-WWI-180963081/

Good luck with your dye garden Attila, pictures, I demand some pictures when you have them.  Safflower, for your yellow needs planting now (from seed) if you're thinking of safflowers.