Is there a lockdown gardening thread?

[CurlyhairedAssassin]

It can’t be just me who is not a regular gardener and who is wondering how on earth to get the garden into shape now I have spare time to do it, but nowhere to put bits of pruned bushes, mown grass and weeds. Not to mention no trips to the garden centre for anything, including compost and plants. My garden is too small for a compost bin. I already have to have the lawn mower in a plastic shed thing so dont want to add another unsightly thing like a compost bin into the mix.

I live in a a suburban semi with small front and back garden but LOTS to cut back. Our green bin collection is on hold. All my green garden bags are full and the local waste centre is closed. (I really thought it might stay open as I thought people mainly just sit in their cars in a queue, then get out and dump their waste without really getting close to anyone else.

I think, apart from anything, I’m just wondering what everyone is doing differently to normal than what they would normally do on an Easter bank holiday weekend. Which I’m guessing is visit the garden centre!

I would love such a thread!

I have a small, wild garden out the front, lots of daffodils (and this year, spanish bluebells) have come up, which is lovely but having to wait for the daffodils to die back before I can do anything else is a huge pain in the arse!

I'm still filling up the bin and pushing it down.

I have half a bag of compost and prioritised planting old veg seeds. Some went out if date in 2018 but beans, peas, courgette, pumpkin, spinach and sunflowers so far appeared. I'm going to plant these in gaps in flower beds.

Still weeding. Dug up things I didn't like.

The brown bin is full now. Think this year I'll just have to have a heap somewhere down the side of the house.

Debating whether it is ok to buy buxus and compost from local garden centre that is family run. They deliver if you call.

Ohh lovely thread!!!

I ordered 3 HUGE 120L strong garden bags from Amazon (around £13) and a new hand pruner which came last week and I've spent the last 2 days pruning into little pieces a HUGE pile of dead branches and brambles from last year (pile was at least 5ft by 5ft) and gods knows what into 2 of them.

Filled 2 bin bags with rubbish I can't recycle or reuse. Tidied SO much away. Moved my rickety potting table to somewhere I will use it and dumped the soil from loads of pots into old green recycling bins (we have a wheely bin now) as things died last year as was too ill to do much.

Work up at ruddy 6.30 as brain wants to get things finished in the front of the back garden (another huge pile in other half) but it's too early and nippy out!

Today will be finishing off tidying, sweeping, and dragging things to end of garden and sorting all my pots by size then I'm going to sort out my tall cold frames and my little neglected plastic greenhouse and my tomato grower as I haven't looked in them for over a year and no idea whats lurking in them and plan to sow some veg seeds I got for christmas 2 years ago which are still in date!

Super excited. Still waiting for an order of more vegs seeds and some strawberry plants to arrive... week 3 of waiting...

On the plus side, doing a mad tidy has made me realise I don't need any new pots or seed trays.. or watering cans (I found 3!) or compost....

Also I want brambles to be renamed "overly attached to your clothes thorny git" and Hawthorns to be renamed "Utter bastard spike bush".

I hate them.. I truly do....

I'm chopping rose prunings into small bits and stashing them at the back under a bush. They will break down eventually, meanwhile they're a "habitat pile". Meanwhile I'm mulching like fury to get the compost bins empty enough to take more compost.

At my father's house I propose in a couple of months time to empty out the garden recycling bin, by which time some of the bottom stuff will have composted enough to use as a mulch, then put the rest back in, so that there will now be a bit of space on top to add some more.

You could decide not to mow for a couple of months, and see what comes up in the way of flowers. If you mow a narrow strip around the edges and a path through the middle, it'll look deliberate, and you'll have a lot fewer cuttings to get rid of. The grasses will look great as they come into flower, and by the time you need to cut them, hopefully the tip will have reopened.

Well what I thought was just a little haircut on a spirea inthe front garden turned into a mountain of pruning. Hasn’t realised it was quite so overgrown. I’ve just dumped it all behind the bush in front of our windows .

I think making piles of pruned bits behind things might be the answer, temporarily. I really want to cut the laurel hedge In our back garden but I know from experience that the pile would fill half our back lawn so I think that will have to wait.

What’s everyone doing for seeds and potting compost if you don’t already have them? Anyone buying online? I’ve always just gone to the garden centre so not sure what to do about itz

Don’t think leaving the lawns js an option. It’s fill of weeds (not just pretty daisies) and meadow grass.

You can order compost to be delivered? Thats what I'm going to do tonight... im squashing stuff down in my brown bin, but grass clippings will alternate between being left on ths lawn (apparently very good for it) and beimg chucked into a wild area behind the house. It's next to a footpath so dont want to do it too often...

Hi I'd like to join in. I've struggled with an embankment garden for years that has had knotweed, full of crabgrass, nettles, brambles etc and is too steep to use shale or stones.

My mission is to get on top of one part of it by planting in some "desirable" plants that could take a hold and need less maintenance in the future. Everyone who comes round and sees it says "great piece of land but what a nightmare!!"

Hi All

I have a friend looking to order some plants online (definitely a friend, I don't have a garden 😢 why she asked me I don't know, but I'm info central 🤷🏻‍♀️)

Can you recommend any online places that are genuine & will actually deliver? The one I said looked good turned out to have dreadful reviews 😖

Please 🌷

@CurlyhairedAssassin

A different friend just got compost from a local hardware/timber shop (local one, not chain) that are doing click & collect. She collected it on the way home from the supermarket.

As luck would have it I found some compost in the garage! So I can sort my pots out. I also found some old bulbs that I never got round to planting. Will they be useless now? They’re a few years old. Now would be the time of year to plant them.

It's not really a lockdown thread but thus one was started by an experienced gardener to help newbies
[https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/3864718-2020-new-Gardeners-thread]

Sorry, click link didn't work...

Check out local nurseries. A lot have started delivery services. I’ve managed to get compost, baskets and bedding plants from one with free delivery that I found on Facebook.

@Magicshoppingtrolley. We have tried everywhere local. My friend even offered to do free deliveries for them in his van (self employed, but can't work & bored witless). But it appears they'd rather whinge about how much wirk it is looking after the plants & how many/mist/all will do if they can't open soon 🤷🏻‍♀️

It’s fill of weeds (not just pretty daisies) and meadow grass. What do you mean by weeds? Apart from the early flush of dandelions (which are good for bees) I can't think of much that grows in lawns which isn't pretty. The lawn itself will be a mixture of grass species, with a variety of flowers.

If you are going to mow it, your two alternatives are to add the cuttings to the heaps of twigs - less chance of a slimy mess, and it will help the twigs start rotting - or to mow it more frequently and leave the mowings to lie and return their nutrient to the lawn. I wouldn't go for this option if you have people sitting or lying on the lawn.

and being chucked into a wild area behind the house No, please don't do that. They will add nutrient to the wild area, and even if it devoid of wildflower interest, the higher nutrient level will favour nettles and brambles.

Hello semi newbie here, I want an amazing garden but we've been focused on renovating actual house until this year. We have some fruit trees and have grown vegetables before but would like things like blueberry and gooseberry are they attainable/easy?
Also want to create a cottage garden feel, I love hydrengeas but not sure what else....

blueberry and gooseberry are they attainable/easy Gooseberry - straightforward but you need to prune. Plenty of instructions available on internet. Blueberry need an acid soil. If your neighbours gardens are full of rhododendrons you're probably OK, otherwise they may be better in a pot with ericaceous compost. May crop better with more than one plant.

In general, fruit is more forgiving than vegetables. Vegetables depend on you doing the right thing at the right time - sowing seed, transplanting, potting on/planting out, watering... Fruit just needs pruning, and you can generally do this any time during the dormant season.

@MereDintofPandiculation by “full of weeds” I mean proper weeds not lawn weeds like daisies, buttercups, clover and and dandelions. The lawn is in terrible condition, with the kids having played on it over the years. Very uneven with dips and humps, moss in the shady parts, very packed down soil. Different colours. It had lots of dead bare patches that filled with “the wrong kind of grass” (wild type grass) not proper decent fine lawn grass, and lots of proper weeds (giant kind, not sure what,if not pulled up) that started growing in bare patches. It needs a good overhaul including de-thatching, spiking, weed& feed then seeding. But of course with kids on it every day and me gardening every few days it’s difficult.

I mean proper weeds What makes a "proper weed"?

Most of the "proper decent fine lawn grasses" are wild grasses, fescues, bents and so on. But if you have coarse grasses you're probably getting things like cocksfoot and Yorkshire Fog.

If it's uneven, you probably need to dig over the whole thing and level it.

Just adding, that I ordered 2x 'hippo skip bags' from BnQ, around £9 each, and they are ideal for my garden at the minute.

You can pay to get them collected by hippo, I think it's around £100, so a lot cheaper than a skip but I'm just using them for storage so that atleast waste (I have loads of garden waste, plus other things like wood from an old shed, old slabs etc) is stored somewhere out of the way, instead of random piles around the garden.

If I can keep one empty, or atleast light enough to lift, it will be ideal for sticking in the boot and loading up for trips to the tip once this is all over.

I am a complete novice to gardening, so no other advice as I'm also just starting out. But will keep an eye on this thread, for more tips.

One of my 'projects' for this year is to get a rock garden (?) going. The previous owners left loads of rocks, just randomly placed everywhere so I am planning to make good use of them.

We have an allotment - very exciting right now - and it's brilliant.

Fresh air, no noise, easy to stay away from people.

We are very lucky this year.

Pretty much beginners and starting with the basics, but loving it.

Have you seen those wooden type 'beehive' style compost bins? Not huge, but would work well to compost general grass cuttings, leaves, fruit and veg peelings etc. and can look quite nice. Can be painted also.

For easy plants that grow each year strawberries, redcurrant bush, blueberry or blackcurrants are worth looking at. they survive most climates and dont need replanting each year.

Salad, spinach, radish, beetroot all grow well in small pots or containers. grow fairly quickly, and easy to keep replanting seeds throughout the summer as you pick to continue having crops. I plant a small row of each every 2 weeks, so some are then ready to pick, some growing, and some new. don't get overloaded at once then