A bit late but I've planted the runner beans. I gave them a 3 day soak in water to hurry them up a bit
Does anyone know if strawberry plants need to be in full sun or partial shade??
Bev.

Sun if they can get it, but partial shade if that's all they're offered!

Alpine strawberries grow really well in shade- I'm just trying them out this year.

I've got normal strawberries in a large pot. They will be in shade in the morning and sun in the afternoon.
Bev.

Try and get some runners off them each year to get new plants, they are really only any good for 3 years.

OK. My beans are through

Have made the pots ready for the runner beans and planted the sweet peas in there to grow alongside them.
Am planting some salad leaves in a pot, and tomatoes are coming tonight from a friend.
I assembled my greenhouse today. It went together well. The Old Man was looking longingly at it. Boys like to put things together I think. Stems from all those lego toys.
Bev.

I think I've cooked my seeds.

I put clingfilm over the seedtrays and put them in my plastic 'greenhouses'. They were boiling hot during all this sunshine we've had.

Do you think I've killed them? Should I have opened the zips on the greenhouses? It's been two weeks and nothing has germinated.

Oh I'm hopeless with gardeny things

Were they well watered Lottie??

Yes. I've been watering them every second day and the trays have holes in the bottom so they've not become swamps.

They must have been steamed!

Will they still germinate? How long should it take? It was stuff like aubretia and campanula (sp?)

I think the courgettes may have germinated but those seeds looked like tanks compared to the others. I should stick to potatoes - there's not much you can do wrong to a potato.

I honestly don't know Lottie. I have not grown much from seed. I tend to get seedlings from the garden centre.
Except my beans which are even bigger today
I planted my sweet pea seedlings where the beans are to go, and will help with cross pollination apparently. According to Sharon, the gardener..........the same one from Upper Gornal where they put the pig on the wall to watch the band go by. She gave me 2 courgette plants last night in return for dinner.
Bev.

I tend to start seeds off inside the house, either in the airing cupboard or a windowsill.
I would open the zips on the greenhouse at the moment 'cos it is just getting a bit hot. Just plant more seeds if you think you've cooked them.


I think seedlings from garden centres are extremely expensive, and the plants tend to look a bit weedy. I was shocked this weekend to find someone selling broad bean seedlings for £1 each.

Im not the worlds keenest gardener, but got cracking yesterday, having bought a load of bedding plants on Saturday afternoon. One problem I have a is a large pine tree (on which there is a preservation order) alongside the front of my drive, one of those that drop 'pine straw' stuff all over. But thats not the half of it! A pair of collared doves nest in it, above my newly block paved drive, and of course I end up having to hose the drive down quite regularly.
Well yesterday I was planting underneath said tree, when one of those infernal creatures decided to play at being a WW2 rear gunner. As I stooped forward with a plant I got a good old dollop of 'avine ordure' right in the middle of my back ! I reckon they could hear me swear halfway down the road ! Looked like theyd been eating blackberies or something similar ! Anyway I got changed, and finished the job, then got the hose out and gave the whole lot a good watering. Within half an hour of that it was thundering and lightning and we had a downpour ! Lasted about an hour and cleared up again. I was gong to cut the grass in the evening but it was far too wet !

I LIKE weedy seedlings from run-down garden centres! I make a point of buying last year's stock, because there are often free-loaders in there with my purchase. I recently bought a variegated (striped leaves) lily of the valley out of the discount bin, and was tickled to find a tiny violet seedling parked in there too.

Pine trees...apart from housing antisocial avine elements, pine trees have roots that are very unfriendly towards other plants. You might like to put containers under the pine tree (so that the soil is separate) or hang baskets from the branches.

We often have days of 30 degrees at this time of year, but instead it's been below 15, I'm freezing, and only one poor bean has come up in the container I plonked on top of the drain cover. I suspect the said antisocial avine elements (crows in my case) may have taken more than their share.

Strawberries are gallantly flowering and setting fruit though!

Meanwhile, I'm wondering where to plant the miniature rose that Mr. Ears bought me for Mother's Day (two weeks early so that he didn't have to pay Mother's Day prices ). Can hardly tell him that I've been so inspired this year that I've already filled every corner of our tiny garden too full for his gift to fit in. I wasn't expecting anything, because he's been a bit nervous about giving me flowers ever since he bought me a funeral arrangement by mistake (or that's his story, anyway).

Oh dear All Ears.......a funeral arrangement. You had me in gales of laughter.
F#Minor, I can just imagine the doves on The Wirral now. In their helmets and leather flying jackets, whispering, " I have F# in my sights , get in closer, on my command, wait for it........FIRE
Damn fine shooting boys.
Bev.

I LIKE weedy seedlings from run-down garden centres! ... I recently bought a variegated (striped leaves) lily of the valley out of the discount bin, and was tickled to find a tiny violet seedling parked in there too.

Rewards for sharp eyes! I like rescuing stragglers too. I bought a sick looking *weigela about 6 inches high from a forgotten corner of a shelf in Woolworth's about 3 or 4 years ago. We had gardeners in at the time and the guy in charge said dismissively 'oh I don't bother with plants that need rescuing - waste of time'.

It's now a fine shrub about 4 feet high and is about to burst into a shower of white blossom. All it needed was a bit of attention and t l c.

For the same reason I'd rather hand weed or risk the consequences of not weeding - good chance to transplant your own seedlings into gaps.

(ed * - no, it's not - it's a deutzia)

I bought a couple of weedy stick (tayberry cane, and a japanese maple) at knock down prices from Woolworths- unfortunateyl they have stayed as weedy sticks.

We had our first useable chillis on monday- hopefully we'll have some sign of tomatoes soon, the plants are starting to flower.

Pumpkins have just germinated- hopefuly will have some huge plants in a week or so.

As well as being expensive, they seem to succumb to slug and snail damage more easily. I like the little marigolds, and usually grow them from seed in our unheated greenhouse. They take longer and appear later in the season, but boy are they hardy and I rarely lose any to the molluscs. But one year I was too busy and bought some plants and within a few days the show was decimated by the pesky slugs and snails.

Him Indoors and I went out for a drive on Bank Holiday Monday and happened upon a small, independent nursery.

Half an hour later we were the proud owners of some broom, a blue plant that I thought was forget-me-not but isn't, and a WISTERIA (mind you, by the time it's big enough to have flowers I shall be in a bathchair ).

When I told Bagpuss that I'd bought a broom, she said, 'Oh, yeah, and who's going to use that then, you or HI?' *sarcastic*. It was some minutes later that I'd managed to get her to understand that I'd bought a broom, not a BROOM !

haha.

But ooh - ooh ! a real nursery! few and far between. I'd be like a kid in a candy shop.

I can't remember exactly where this was, Maggie - but HI will probably remember. I'll let you know.

We also stumbled upon a flower festival in a lovely village church soon after...*cups runneth over*

I hope you all protected your plants last night from the (May) frost.
Hopefully all my plants have survived.

No frost here Ian, but it was very cold. The lady across the road had put out all her bedding plants in the front garden. They look OK.
We are having the garden relandscaped in June. Have chosen the slabs and bricks. It's more a case of replacing the old stuff. It is yonks old though and all uneven.
Bev.

Looks like all my plants have survived, though my tumbling toms look a little droopy (but then again they always look a bit like that)
Anyone know when I can plant out my Cosmos ? The plants are about 18 inches tall yet.

Anybody got flowering sweet peas yet ? Mine are just on the verge of flowering.

Is this thread like a Gardeners Question Time .... I'll try a question and see what happens


I've got a lilac tree in my garden which is about 6 years old. It's never been a profilic flowerer, and last year it didn't flower at all. This year it's got a few scrappy flower heads but they're hardly noticeable

I'm wondering if it's the soil or the position that's the problem. I didn't know it at the time of planting, but it's directly in the line of the prevailing wind. It's had to be staked up to stop it being blown over and it's grown lopsided, with less foliage/branches on the side facing the wind. It's too big to replant, so if it's the position rather than the soil that's the problem, it will probably never flower very well

Or could it be the soil? I don't know what the soil type is and the lilac tree doesn't get fed. I must admit other lilacs in the area are flowering well, but maybe they get fed in other gardens.

I wasn't successful with the lilac tree at my last house either, and I love lilac

Any thoughts anyone?

Sounds like it's too windy and you've got root rock Skylark.
We never fed our lilac at my old home and it flowered well.
Bev.

We inherited a lilac tree when we moved into this house. During some gales it fell over and ended up being kind of chopped in half and then propped up. I've had to take off some branches to make it look ok and not be too top heavy and fall over again, but it is flowering really well this year, after a few years of not doing so well. So maybe you need to prune it back a bit to shock it into flowering.

Thanks for the advice both of you. Yes it might well have root rock, I never thought of that. I could try staking it at the other side as well perhaps, or maybe building up the soil into a mound around its base?

It's never been pruned, but it couldn't make it any worse so I don't mind trying. What time of year would it be best to do it

Pruning is usually best performed in the Autumn when the plant will not be actively flowering.
Don't be too drastic- just take out dead and dying wood and shape it a bit.


I have a small tree in my garden that the leaves are getting massacred by caterpillars, I suspect it may be winter moth larvae but I'm not sure- anyone any idea of how to get rid of them without using masses of nasty chemicals ? Web sites mention using sticky bands on the tree trunk in autumn but its a bit late for that now.



My sweet peas flowered yesterday !

Thanks for the advice Ian, I'll try that then.


My pyracantha is just coming into flower - the variety is Mozart It has tiny white flowers in the Spring and orange berries in the Autumn.

I put the pumpkins and Cosmos out on Saturday.

Did anyone see Gardeners world ? They planted out there Cosmos which were about 6 inches tall, mine were more like 2 foot !

My courgettes died in the pot The beans have had it too.
Bev.

Sob! Yesterday was "clean day", when neighbourhood associations go round in loudspeaker trucks exhorting people to clean up drains and street edges etc. I decided I'd do my bit today as yesterday was the only fine day predicted for last week and this.

Meanwhile, sob, my neighbor, sob sob, kindly swept along one border of my house, and PULLED OUT ALL THE PLANTS I'd painstakingly nurtured into growing in all the little cracks of our decrepit garden wall.

Goodbye nutmeg geranium, cranesbill, forget-me-not, thyme, sempervivum, portulaca!

I can't complain though, as it was meant kindly...though I would rather she pulled out all the jasmine that creeps through from her back fence, as long as she's in the mood!

My cat has decided to adopt flower pots for toileting - empty ones. Only the one she chose wasn't empty, it had borlotti beans in it. And it was my second attempt, as the first were planted just before LOTS of rain and simply rotted. Nevermind, she's a sweetheart really - I'll try again with some clean soil, new beans, and a bit of netting over the top

More annoyingly, I was lucky enough to be one of the chosen few to do a sunflower seed trial for Gardener's World Magazine (not the TV, the magazine!) I got sent sunflower seed, I had to sow five seeds. Two germinated. One produced its seed leaves but went no further. And then there was one little successful plant. Following the intstructions I was given, once it had three pairs of true leaves, out it went in to the garden. And the next morning, the snails had had it. *grrr*

The others may germinate yet....
I've had real trouble getting sunflowers to germinate this year, they've taken about 2 months to show themselves.

If you want to keep slugs and smails out of pots- rub vaseline on the outside of the pot, it stops them climbing it. For plants in the soil, surround the plant with sharp sand or coffee grounds (Star***** are giving away their used coffee grounds for garden purposes). For among vegetables I've been using the new Organic approved pellets which are far less toxic than the traditional ones.

Are your Borlotti beans dwarf or climbers ? I put in dwarf Borlotti beans in late August last year, and they still cropped well so you have plenty of time yet.

Plenty of time to replant Courgettes too- Curcurbits do tend to grow amazingly quickly

We've been using nematodes on the veg patches to kill off the slugs, it's working a treat but doesn't do so much against the snails (but we have far far far far fewer snails than slugs). There was lots of it, so I treated the flower beds as well So of course, I'm now seeing so few slugs and snails in the garden, that I forgot the bit where I planted my little sunflower wasn't a treated area. I'll keep glaring at my remaining sunflower seeds, maybe they'll come back.

The Borlottis are climbers - I'll get some new ones in at the weekend Last year I planted in July and did OK, so I'm still ahead of last year (I just wanted to be really ahead!!)

We can't use nematodes as they are not recommended for heavy clay.
Though after yesterday I am considering growing rice !
What we really need for slug/snail control is a really cold harsh winter to kill most of them off- the winters over the last few years have been far too mild (cold winters also control foot and mouth).
My second batch of sunflowers popped their noses out of the soil yesterday, everything else in the garden seems to have fallen over because of the amount of rain we've had.

Its very quiet in here !
Maybe everyone is outside watching their garden grow in the very hot weather !

(we have far far far far fewer snails than slugs).

I seem to be the opposite - lots of snails. The little baby ones are really cute though- tiny with outsize horns. We are relatively lucky in that there is a little pond opposite, so I collect up the snails every so often and carry them across the road and pop them through the fence into the pond (area, she adds hastily).

The few that I miss do eat a plant now and then, but I just put up with that. Don't see many slugs, although I'm sure they are around. Ants are everywhere and no doubt disturb root systems, as there are just so many of them - anywhere you happen to dig.

The geraniums (cranesbills, not pelargoniums) are out now and looking good. I do love them.

We have lots of ants and my husband is always up for killing them, but I see it as completely pointless because there are so many, more will just move in to the cleared area. He thinks it keeps the population down. I always think that clearing them away from e.g. the far end of the garden will just make them move towards the house as that's the currently un-defended area!

I did get some ant-killing nematodes, but that was because they had built a nest in my apple tree's pot (it's the sort that is meant to live in a pot). It's taken a couple of weeks, but now there are no ants in there Apparently the nematodes eat the larvae, so the grown-ups have died off and no little'uns are growing up. I'm making sure the saucer and soil stay nice and damp, too, as a barrier to re-invasion. Come the winter, I will probably take it out of the pot, get rid of the soil and any make sure no eggs are left, and give it some new soil. Fingers crossed next year, no ants

My husband enjoys collecting snails and then chucking them over our back fence (which is the shrubby edge of a park/open space). In fact, he wants a tennis racket and some markers so he can track his distance

Ants can be a bit of a pain, especially with broad beans- they place blackfly on the beans and then use the blackfly to harvest the plant sap. You'll clear the beans of blackfly and then you can watch the ants put them back on again !

I've had to start off my french beans and Kale again, they were in modules in one of those zip up greenhouse things- one day lots of healthy plants, the next day completely massacred by slugs.

Shall we have a new club?? The
I HATE SLUGS AND SNAILS CLUB
THey ate my beans. So I zapped them with pellets. Then planted some more which I am sorry to say I bought from the garden centre last Saturday. They are OK presently.
Bev.

I like slugs......especially the gorgeous ones in my garden - they've got really pretty markings.......

Top tip if you're planning a greenhouse - try to place it where it will get some shade.....We put ours behind the apple tree which means it gets the early morning sun which is not too hot, then during the hottest part of the day (that's a joke here at the moment - 12degrees!!!) it gets dappled shade from the tree.....which means nothing gets scorched in the greenhouse, and as the bottom part of the wall is brick, it absorbs the heat during the day and gently lets it out again at night.......

had our first raspberry !

Raspberries are a bit of a struggle in our moist, warm weather, but blackberries have become remarkably popular (must be because they are kept safely in pots).

I totally share the anti slug and snail feelings. I replanted my beans twice, and then put coffee grounds around them and also around a small phsyalis. Slaters came and CLIMBED OVER THE HANDILY MOUNDED UP COFFEE GROUNDS...and ate the lot!

I've given up on healthy stuff and planted a passionfruit vine there instead, and hope that no slater can open its jaws wide enough to swallow a metre-high vine.

We've had cool and wet or cloudy weather since Noah was in short pants around here, and my greens are all an inch high and making no growth at all (not a very sunny spot to start with). The only thing that survives the snails is the famously hardy New Zealand spinach.

Meanwhile, my tiny "moss garden" is unwisely located in the only place that gets no rain, and is looking curiously dried out!

Whats a slater ?
Maybe I should just call my lawn a moss garden....

slater = wood louse = pill bug

They are no doubt good beasts in small numbers, but for some reason there are huge crowds of them in that particular patch of garden

I had the living daylights scared out of my by a rat in our garden yesterday. I just didn't expect one to run past me in broad daylight, and hadn't realised they were quite so big. It/they appear to be living under the garden shed (it disappeared down a hole in the concrete underneath it).

I emailed the environmental protection people at the coucil, to check whether I should be concerned about this (back in non-student house we live next to a farm, and rats are something of a fact of life... but they aren't close to the back door or anything!) and they've offered to send round someone to bait the garden, but...

I'm not really that worried. Its not like they're in the house *shudder*. Should I be running around with poison waging war on the b-, I mean, little pests? Anyone had rat-experiences?

Why not ask the council person for advice when s/he comes round to deal with the rat?

I'm debating calling our council about a good-sized snake spotted in among the slaters - it's an isolated area boxed in by concrete retaining walls, so I can't help feeling my luvverly local schoolkids popped it in there. The same ones that place toy guns on the boundary pointing at our house, etc. There has been a rash of dumped pet snakes (poisonous ones) so I'm feeling a little wary about leaving it where it is...

Just let the 'gators get it.