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    #51
    How does your garden grow?

    Built a log store today. All screwed together, not a nail in sight, painted to preserve the wood and felt roofing put on top for added protection. Standing back with a mug of tea and with an air of faint satisfaction when I heard the inevitable "I think it'll look better at the bottom of the garden rather than up here".

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      #52
      How does your garden grow?

      After two weeks of steady rain I managed to get in a couple of hours of tidying/pruning/transplanting yesterday. No serious losses over Winter — I'm particularly relieved to see the roses I moved made it. The rains are due back today, but I'm hoping for a few clear days over the coming week, still lots to do.

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        #53
        How does your garden grow?

        Good greenhouse work VT. It may be in the wrong place but it balances the shed nicely so that's something.

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          #54
          How does your garden grow?

          Tomorrow, apparently, is World Naked Gardening Day.

          I could go and tend to my plums while waving at the neighbours.

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            #55
            How does your garden grow?

            William Blake would have heartily endorsed the idea.

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              #56
              How does your garden grow?

              Took down a couple of dozen or so trees yesterday and about the same number of saplings. Nothing more than thinning to improve the light and accessibility and hopefully reduce the mosquito numbers a bit for later on in the summer. Got rid of the lot with a big bonfire in the evening.

              The snows have finally gone, so put the ploughs, shovels and sledges into storage and got the trampoline out. Raking the grass and turning the soil in the vegetable patch await me for the weekend. Must remember: kit off.

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                #57
                How does your garden grow?

                We inherited a mature rhododendron. It gets leaves, no flowers one year, and flowers no leaves the next. It's been suggested the thing to do is radically prune it — by half — and it'll get it's shit together. Sound good? Anyway it's on it's flowery year at present as you can see:



                Last year I planted a giant black iris, it did pretty much bugger all. But this year it's turned into a monster. About four feet in both diameter and height, it's a cuckoo plant nothing near it flowers because it's eating all the food in sight. I'll have to to do some serious transplanting this autumn. It does look magnificent though:

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                  #58
                  How does your garden grow?

                  At last, after a lengthy and often painful gestation, the super-sized anti-possum/bandicoot frames are finally complete. Don't look too closely; there are bodges. Tomatoes are already in situ (and one eggplant/aubergine). Just visible in the background is last season's pioneering capsicum/pepper frame:


                  Now, bloody well grow.
                  Last edited by Sits; 22-12-2019, 10:11.

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                    #59
                    How does your garden grow?

                    Our garden grows with bindweed which we feared was Japanese Knotweed (it's a variety that looks very similar) and, until I cut it down, 25 foot high bamboo planted by the previous owners. Now I have to get the roots out, which is the Devil's own job.

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                      #60
                      How does your garden grow?

                      I have engaged the services of a lawn care man. I've improved it massively in a year but I'm at the limit of my skills.
                      So for £25/quarter he'll come round and treat it and look after it.
                      His treatments are 100 times better than the crap I bought from the garden centre.
                      In a couple of weeks he's going to come and scarify and aerate it too which should set it up for me to overseed. The thatch is 2 inches deep in places. So hopefully next summer we'll have a green, lush lawn that the cub will be able to really go to town on.

                      Also a gardener is coming round in October to pull out about half the massively overgrown and unpruned shrubs so we can plant some better stuff. Something for the birds and something for the bees too. She was supposed to come last week but the ground is still too hard for her to dig out the roots.

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                        #61
                        How does your garden grow?

                        Eggchaser wrote: Our garden grows with bindweed which we feared was Japanese Knotweed (it's a variety that looks very similar) and, until I cut it down, 25 foot high bamboo planted by the previous owners. Now I have to get the roots out, which is the Devil's own job.
                        I still remember digging out pampas grass roots 25 years ago; I imagine that's a similar task.

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                          #62
                          How does your garden grow?

                          In a couple of weeks he's going to come and scarify and aerate it too which should set it up for me to overseed. The thatch is 2 inches deep in places. So hopefully next summer we'll have a green, lush lawn that the cub will be able to really go to town on.

                          Hobbes you do realise you're essentially putting down a persian rug outside the door of a rugby changing room. You can have a beautiful lawn, or a child. but not both.

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                            #63
                            How does your garden grow?

                            I'm not looking to achieve a lawn like the greens at Augusta.
                            I'd settle for something that has a predominance of grass on it rather than clumps in between the ant hills and 3 inch deep moss.

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                              #64
                              How does your garden grow?

                              haha. The moss is actually the killer. Our back "lawn" was about 80% thick moss. The cats from miles around were using it as some sort of luxury toilet.

                              Once the hobbes cub gets big enough to spend hours running around chasing a football, then you'll mostly be trying to keep the mud out of the house. Which is the way it's supposed to be.

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                                #65
                                How does your garden grow?

                                Artificial grass is all the rage here. The guy next door has been renovating for two years. He's done a brilliant job, from re-grading to re-roofing. Spectacular. Then he lays down carpet front and back. I don't get it. Everything he's done is top class. Then this...?

                                Oh and he's got a massive fuck off maple in the front yard, so he'll have to be getting the lawn vacuumers in soon.

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                                  #66
                                  How does your garden grow?

                                  It's quite popular here. I can see the attraction of a no-maintenance option, but it doesn't do you much good drainage-wise. And to be fair as good as astro can be, it you'd still have a garden that looks like a greengrocer's table.
                                  Our back "lawn" was about 80% thick moss. The cats from miles around were using it as some sort of luxury toilet.
                                  The cub and I were chipping golf balls the other week and one rolled into a hole in the moss and completely disappeared. It was as deep as a real golf hole. He thought it was brilliant.

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                                    #67
                                    How does your garden grow?

                                    Our problem with moss is as a result of poor drainage. The land here was terrible to begin with, but there's a load of building rubble under our back garden to flatten it. Also the slopes all direct the water into it. If you're not a Landscaping bod (I mean you might well be) it might be worth having someone you know or trust have a look at it, otherwise you'll just spend your time killing moss, and it will look like you spilled a load of agent orange.

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                                      #68
                                      How does your garden grow?

                                      The problem with ours is that the previous owners never went out in the garden and mowed the grass perhaps once a year. When we moved in, it was about waist deep. There's a big tree in the garden behind ours too, so if you don't rake the leaves quite often the lawn gets suffocated.
                                      So the ants and Moss ran wild.
                                      In fact apparently they had it all re-turfed about 5 or 6 years ago and then basically ignored it after that. Which seems profligate.
                                      Anyway I've spent the last year since we moved in weed and feeding it and cutting it and raking it and digging out ant-mountains. But it'd take a complete returf or 5 years of intensive care from me to knock it into shape.
                                      Hence my engagement of a man with access to better treatments and major power tools for scarifying and aerating. Hopefully it'll get it healthy much quicker as using a hand rake and a fork to aerate seems like a lot of back breaking work.

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                                        #69
                                        How does your garden grow?

                                        This is a dirty, dirty thread and you should all be ashamed.

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                                          #70
                                          How does your garden grow?

                                          We get the lawn properly aerated in the Spring and it makes a huge difference. The only problem is the turd-like soil plugs it leaves behind. If I was a serious lawn man I'd rake them up but I can't be arsed.

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                                            #71
                                            How does your garden grow?

                                            Sits wrote: At last, after a lengthy and often painful gestation, the super-sized anti-possum/bandicoot frames are finally complete. Don't look too closely; there are bodges. Tomatoes are already in situ (and one eggplant/aubergine). Just visible in the background is last season's pioneering capsicum/pepper frame:


                                            Now, bloody well grow.
                                            So our first crop. From little acorns, or rather tomatoes, and all that. Hand model: Mrs. S:

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                                              #72
                                              How does your garden grow?

                                              When the kids were young and my bottom lawn functioned as a regular venue for football, cricket and golf, the grass remained thick, luxuriant and relatively untroubled by weeds. It last saw any kind of sporting activity over a dozen years ago, and since then I've reclaimed much of that area for my own purposes (vegetables and fruit mainly, as described upthread). Unfortunately the sections of lawn that remain are now infested with moss, buttercups, dandelions and the like that I wage a constant battle with.

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                                                #73
                                                How does your garden grow?

                                                We're promised a day without rain so, unless they're lying again, I'm into Autumn clear-up. It's always interesting to anticipate what'll survive. I managed to overwinter the fuschias a couple of years ago, but not since, and we've a planter full of pansies that are apparently immortal. It's been very mild — a couple of light frosts back in mid October is all — and there's still lots of greenery on everything, so we'll see. Today I've got to get the front garden tidy. Mostly that means being brutal with a garage sized California Lilac that's threatening to escape and being firm, but gentle, with three large Rock Rose bushes. I also have to mow the lawn again, which feels weird in mid-November but it needs it.

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                                                  #74
                                                  How does your garden grow?

                                                  I left it too late again. I was going to do ththat final take this weekend but then it got really windy and snowed. May be able to do it later this week if it warms up.

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                                                    #75
                                                    How does your garden grow?

                                                    In the garden (down in the Garden of England) I've got plenty of tidying up to do, but middle-age bad back niggles and windy wet weather are seeing me put the chores off. Need to clear the scruffy dying flowers like dahlias, cut back the fruit tree spurs, dig out invasive spreaders such as hardy geraniums, plant the spring bulbs and aliums, and tackle the the worst of those irritating patches of ground elder that pop up every year. Bloody Romans coming over here with their exotic salad leafs.

                                                    Over on the allotment we're into picking the winter veg, like kale, sprouts and parsnip - plus have plenty of beetroot, autumn greens and lettuce under cover still to use up. But otherwise we're all set for next year already, and can start perusing the seed catalogues at leisure.

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