Originally posted by slackster
View Post
Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
How does your garden grow?
Collapse
X
-
Ha ha. The ATCO brand has been around yonks. There’s YouTube videos of people trying to spark up ancient models...
Meanwhile, in actual plant news, I came across a patch of these in boggy ground near a sloping ditch:
Quite attractive, I thought. Bit like a lily, I thought. Then I looked it up and saw that it’s Skunk Cabbage (thanks, America), a highly invasive and unwanted super-spreader that crowds out native bog plants and, er, stinks.
It can stay there for now as I’ve loads to be getting on with, but now I’ve clocked it, its days are numbered.
Keeping an eye out for other problem plants, too. No sign of knotweed or marestail yet, but a patch of young hogweed has emerged on a path, so that’ll have to be carefully blitzed before it gets to highly toxic giant-size . No doubt the usual ground elder and bindweed will be out soon and need sorting, and the type of bamboo that spreads by runners will require a good seeing to along with most of the brambles (leaving some patches for wildlife and berries).
Also did a closer recce of the woodland trees. Only a couple look dead/diseases, but there’s lot’s of Ash in there, which might be a (costly) worry if the dieback fungus rips through (The Council are currently felling all affected Ash trees on the A40 verges round here - it’s a huge and expensive operation).
Comment
-
Spent a few hours hoeing off the hundreds of giant hogweed menace youngsters (that had grown from baby gem lettuce to oversized Savoy cabbage size in just a few days), and was just about to put this to the sword, when I realised it was emerging Gunnera:
- Likes 1
Comment
-
I real rotten job today: clearing grass clumps and assorted weeds, that have taken root over the last 5 (unoccupied) years, from the driveway, which is composed of small (10mm) black granite/basalt stones. Hunched over and down on the knees for hours, prising the obstinate little blighters out. At least another day’s worth of this to go...but I’m not sure my back or mental health can face it tomorrow.
Comment
-
Four years back I planted a few Miniature Pansies under our (now deceased Japanese Maple) in a front bed. One or two have come up every year since, but this years the little buggers are out in force. Scores of them. At the rate they're going they'll fill almost the entire 10' diameter area. I've done nothing to encourage this florescence, aside from replacing the Maple with a Persian Ironwood sapling. There's a bit more light I guess so maybe that's it, but the bed has South and East exposure so never lacked sun. I don't understand plants at all, we're just not on the same wavelength.
Comment
-
Having completed the first fix clearance of paths, removing the brambles and clearing up the larger items of debris, now turned my attention to deweeding the borders surfaces. Lots of ivy runners and the usual array of unwanted weeds and nettles that are motoring away again. Won’t be giving the soil a proper digging over just yet, cos I want to see what other perennials might pop their heads up over summer - though I suspect the answer will be not many. Too many invasive undesirables will have crowded them out, especially the thuggish pendulous sedge that’s seeded itself all over the place.
Comment
-
Delayed a few weeks due to incessant rain, but we've finally finished our tidy up of the right-side of the garden, from open patch of ground to raised veg beds with weed control around them.
Still to do: cut back the bloody great shrub that's threatening to invade the patio; and move the orange flowers that are creeping across the path.
- Likes 3
Comment
Comment