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Get your garden out

Hi all,
NatalieHurrell said:
We've left "wild" strips down the left and right sides of our lawn and planted bee loving plants and wild seed in the old vegetable patch. Not exactly garden design, but we like it.
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"Wild" is the way forward. No pesticides, no artificial fertilisers etc. and grow the plants that want to grow.

Daisies need a lot less mowing than grass, insects like them and they enjoy being trampled on, all advantages as far as I'm concerned. I'm a fan of Welsh Poppies etc. too, they just get on with it.

This is our garden today. I think gardens are a bit like aquariums, if you can stuff them full of plants (that want to grow) then nearly all the work is a little light judicious thinning.

Front
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Another view
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cheers Darrel
 
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Hi all,
The Miniaturist said:
I just let things all mix together & self seed or spread how they want, you get flowers all through the season & if some weeds appear it doesn't matter!
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It just works. A lot of the plants are "Cottage Garden" flowers (London Pride, Welsh Poppy, Columbine etc.) but all it really means is that they have stood the test of time. They can be your low maintenance back-drop.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,
When I got home I found that the "Dragon Arum" (Dracunculus vulgaris) had come out. It isn't a hard working plant, because it only flowers for a few days every year (and it smells "interesting"), but it is quite spectacular.

Cheers Darrel
 

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dw1305 said:
Wild" is the way forward. No pesticides, no artificial fertilisers etc. and grow the plants that want to grow.
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Definitely. A lot of people run round trying to irradicate everything with weed and insect killers. I refuse to use any and use hard graft and nature if I need to reduce anything in the garden. I spent my lunchbreak fascinated by ants "farming" aphids on one of my foxgloves. Nature is amazing. Not a great picture as it was windy and I couldn't get close enough.
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There was a good example of natural predation on Springwatch the delicate looking lacewing and it's larvae . Voracious eaters of aphids. Bit like Ladybirds the larvae probably wrongly mistaken as a pest
 
Hi all,
foxfish said:
plus a few other interesting plants ….
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I might try Echium pininana again. What does the "Period Clematis Collection" look like? I'm really keen on a lot of the older viticella type clematis.
foxfish said:
Darrel, your garden looks great,
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But only briefly, and it is a small garden. If I owned <"half of Guernsey"> (mentioning no names), rather than a small suburban semi-detached, it would allow me to do a bit more.

cheers Darrel
 
Anyone use EI mix added to watering can to help the grass or something similar, my lawn is a bit patchy and doesnt look the best , i usually add a mix that kills weeds and feeds grass but wondering if i could do something like this to save some pennys 😅

Any advice ? Also wanting a nice acer in a large pot we have, today i seen a few types acer palmatum garnet and shidare and firecracker anyone have any recomendations? Just want a nice looking tree in pot that wont be too much maintenance and look great
 
Hi all,
Deano3 said:
Also wanting a nice acer in a large pot we have, today i seen a few types acer palmatum garnet and shidare and firecracker anyone have any recomendations?
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I really like them.

The ones with very dissected red leaves (like Acer palmatum "Garnet") are slow growers and need to be in the shade to keep the root cooler and avoid scorch damage to the foliage, they also don't like being anywhere too breezy. Ideally you want to water them with soft (rain) water.

If you can fulfil those requirements then slow growth is an advantage and you can keep them in the pot for much longer than a quicker growing cultivar.

cheers Darrel
 
We have a cut leaved, weeping red acer that was in a pot for a couple of decades and it stayed a manageable size. We planted it in the ground and it has grown more vigorously but still not a monster. We have another couple of the same type but with green leaves (emerald lace i think) and although they have always been in the ground, they are by far faster growers and little monsters really.
We have the upright, normal leaved cultivars as well and they are quicker growers especially katsura which has very fast growth. These were shaded by a tree but our neighbour cut it down so they do get leaf scorch sometimes which makes them a little tatty if you really look. We have had problems with our two potted ones (the ones in the ground are fine and we don't water them) where we didn't realise how windy it had been (even in a shady, sheltered spot) and the leaves all died and fell off prematurely in the autumn but they sprung back in spring, so keeping on top of watering in a must and why you need to check the pot has space for the roots to grow yearly.
 
Our climbing hydrangea on the front of our house used to be full of bees that buzzed so loudly you could hear it from a mile away. Unfortunately we had nearly no bees on it this year and i was a little down about that but as soon as our buddleia globosa flowered they all arrived. Its a little annoying that they flower on last years growth and i didn't think it would grow as big in a year as it has, so it takes up half the garden at the moment but the bees adore it more than any other plant i've seen.

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Does anyone know if i can add some EI mix to water can in order to grow my lawn a nicer dark green ?

Like i say i usually add evergreen 4-1 but if i can add something i have to hand would be even easier as a bot patchy currently with some parts dark green and other lighter
 
You can certainly green up a lawn with water change water and it's even better if you clean the filters in the bucket and add lots of nitrate. I've dosed clown loach poo onto our plants for a couple of decades and it works great. I don't use EI in that tank but I have poured water from EI tanks on the grass and its been noticebly greener. There was a thread were someone used a hose to direct their water change water on to their grass but I can't remember where it was.
 
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