How does your garden grow?

[Champ]

This bed is south facing. The tree blocks all the light into the house, and has to go.     I'm thinking of planting grasses and dwarf shrubs, like Carex, Hebes, Festuca Glauca, Heuchera Obsidianetc, Lavender Christiana etc but keeping a section for herbs (got three rectangular planters coming in the post). I read that mint is really hardy (and can be prolific if grown out of a pot), and apparently it also repels flies and mosquitoes. I cook a lot of curries, so Coriander is a cert to be planted. Probably Tarragon, again for things like Bernaise sauce. Any suggestions re grasses and shrubs would be very welcome, as I know next to nothing about this stuff. I used to laugh at my dad for being so into gardening, it's a bit of a shock to find myself taking the step into it. Come to think of it, he was a baker, and I've started making bread at home. So much for free will, eh. Champ, you'll be relieved to hear that, after your stern words, operation knotweed has been aborted. Though it remains an option if hostilities with Chelsea open up again...

Mint is very hardy and can become invasive so should definitely be grown in a container of some kind.

 

Herbs can really be divided into those hardy enough to survive our temperate climate and those, like the coriander, that need to be treated as annuals. A word on coriander...my experiences of growing it outdoors is a bit mixed, with it going to seed very quickly, but seem to have cracked it growing it in the greenhouse.

 

As for your choice of shrubs and perennials it's important to know which direction it faces to make sure you're buying things that are suited to your conditions

[lifetime fan]

Strimming the grass earlier and I hit a snail I'd not seen, fucking thing exploded everywhere including over my top and face.

 

Bastard.

[lifetime fan]

Anyone recommend a good lawn weed and feed combination?

[mattyq]

Strimming the grass earlier and I hit a snail I'd not seen, fucking thing exploded everywhere including over my top and face.

 

Bastard.

Go down the Docs... you might have contracted bad Snail Aids

[Champ]

Anyone recommend a good lawn weed and feed combination?

The one that’s on offer.

 

I think they’re all much of a muchness

[stringvest]

Go down the Docs... you might have contracted bad Snail Aids

He’s been sluggaked

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Anyone recommend a good lawn weed and feed combination?

Minced snail is a good feed.

[Champ]

Minced snail is a good feed.

 

For the birds anyway

[Paulie Dangerously]

Minced snail is a good feed.

 

My in-laws would not like this. 

[Paul]

Incessantly. It does my fucking head in.

[neko]

How I feel trimming our 15' cedar hedge once a year....

 

 

 

[Champ]

3 hours ago, neko said:

How I feel trimming our 15' cedar hedge once a year....

 

 

 

I was about to reply with my own example and then I remembered the audience here

[moof]

3 minutes ago, Champ said:

I was about to reply with my own example and then I remembered the audience here

 

[VladimirIlyich]

4 hours ago, Champ said:

I was about to reply with my own example and then I remembered the audience here

You're learning.

[Champ]

But since the thread’s been bumped, what about people’s gardening successes and failures this year?

[neko]

Kind of a lost garden season for me. A ruptured achilles makes it difficult to do much work.

 

Later in the summer I was able to swap out a tonne of irises and planted some echinachea in multiple colours. Bold step for me, as I like a more monochrome garden.

 

Bees loved it.

[TheHowieLama]

Mixed -- my top beds are a shambles. Decent haul of peppers but the rest (tomatoes, eggplant and lettuce) sucked.

 

Bottom beds, success - great lemongrass - enough oregano to last 5 years - lovely thyme and rosemary, ton of flat parsley as well.

 

Apparently I am better at stuff that basically takes care of itself.

[neko]

I've tried lemongrass before without much success - any secrets ?

[TheHowieLama]

Mine?

 

Apparently ignoring it.

 

I did put in a drip system this summer which at least gives me timed watering but I haven't been able to get out there to do much else tbh.  

[neko]

I'm going to try again next summer. I think it died when we had a cold winter.

 

Any plant that dies in my garden is dispatched without dignity, as a warning to the others.

[Rotpeter]

Successes: Banana, Carambola, Okra, Eggplant, Anaheim, Ancho and Wax Peppers, Mustard Greens.

 

Fails: Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, Strawberries, Zucchini. All to disease.  Oh, and the sweet potatoes the dog ate.

 

Too close too call: Watermelon, Seminole Pumpkin (melonworm bastards), Everglades Tomato (seem almost impossible to germinate), sweet Peppers, paprika, Cayenne Guava (should be soon now)

 

On Lemongrass,

I'd always heard about it in a sub & tropical context.  Are you sure it's zone appropriate?

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

On 11/16/2018 at 8:40 AM, Champ said:

But since the thread’s been bumped, what about people’s gardening successes and failures this year?

Abject failure down at the allotment.

 Some stuff never even germinated properly, other stuff went out late, due to the wintry weather in early Spring and then got troubled by the hot dry Summer. The things that did grow (courgettes, cucumbers, onions, beetroot, blackcurrant, kale, little yellow tomatoes and - surprisingly  - aubergines) came through all at once, so I didn't get to do much cooking with them (although I did get a couple of decent beetroot curries).

 

I did get a little bit of joy with my carrots. (Matron!) The soil is really heavy, so I planted them out in kitchen roll tubes filled with a light mix of sand and compost. They still weren't great, but they were a damn sight better than last year's abominations. 

[Champ]

Not just me then.

 

For all that it was a great summer here (we know these things are all relative) I didn’t have any real successes either.

 

Like you, Angry, the long winter delayed me doing very much in the vegetable bed, something I intend to pay more attention to next year, even if just for the Mr Macgregor vibe rather than actual productivity.

 

Instead I focussed my energies on the greenhouse with very poor results. In spite of regular watering and latterly feeding hardly anything grew. The same for the pots I’d planted up around the greenhouse and in the end I put it down to the peat free compost I’d used. It looked fine when I planted stuff in it but they just didn’t really do anything. And if this is the explanation it’s really frustrating because I don’t want to be gardening with peat and the stuff I used seems to be the only peat free brand I can get hold of round here.

 

On a more positive note my re-organising  at the bottom of the garden seems to be taking shape and overall my current theme is about trying to create a better environment for birds by adding more height to the garden. Earlier in the year I planted 2 split stemmed birches which I love and then when I went back for another the place where I’d got them had sold out and I haven’t been able to find any others locally. Do I risk mail order when I can’t actually see what it looks like before I buy? I can’t decide 

[Rotpeter]

In almost all cases, stuff I've bought mail order has been far superior to store bought stuff.

[Champ]

17 minutes ago, Rotpeter said:

In almost all cases, stuff I've bought mail order has been far superior to store bought stuff.

I’d go along with that.

 

My concern about buying a multi stemmed tree mail order is that I wouldn’t  be able to choose the shape of it.

 

Posting about it has though galvanised me into going back round the other local nurseries to fully exhaust that option before taking the mail order route