Gardeners' Chat

[MmePoppySeedDefage]

Chat. For gardeners. About gardening, but we can go off piste and chat about things like non-gardening clothes, or food or whatever, without being told off

That doesn't surprise me - I know oregano wins against lemon balm.

A mint lawn would be lovely - corsican mint only grows about an inch high, doesn't mind a bit of walking on, and has tiny purple flowers. I've started using it as a living mulch on pots.

You'd have to hand weed it, though.

Roundup is now illegal to use in Portland though ok in the rest of the state (local laws...). This is a bugger as we have some shrubs on a rental property with a baby maple, too big to just pull up, growing in the middle and DH is trying to figure out how best to deal with it. Current thought is to try and cut through the main root, or to cut down to a stub and then cover with heavy black plastic.

I've just planted some oregano in a pot. If I put the pot over some horsetail it'll grow up through the drainage holes, then....let battle commence!

If you're willing to use poison then Kurtail or SBK Brushwood Killer are options. One thing you can do is to mix with wallpaper paste and then, wearing washing up gloves, smear it on the plants. That way it doesn't get washed off and is less likely to splash other plants. With horsetail, repeated applications will no doubt be needed.

Thanks @Tricyrtis2022 - looks as if I can get SBK from Walmart.

I've just sent an email to our local church about horsetail in the churchyard, inspired by this thread. It's a lovely place to walk, and they've let it grow fairly wild and sometimes very beautiful. However, they do have quite a lot of horse tail. I don't want it to take over the whole town!

The RHS has a useful page on it:

www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/horsetail

Does anyone have a hibiscus? Seen them today and would love one. But would have to be in a pot as I have no more room left anywhere 😂

Is there something you want to know about them?

Is it one like Bluebird, which are hardy or the pot plant type, that you want to know more about?

I would love a hibiscus, but I’d have to grow it in the greenhouse for it to survive. Has any one grown it outside in mid Wales ?

I've grown hibiscus in Derbyshire, outside in a garden.

My Dad has a happy hibiscus in his Hertfordshire garden, which I think is chalk on clay. I just assume something so beautiful as a hibiscus wouldn’t survive my Devon frost pocket, so haven’t tried.

Hibiscus does fine in a rural west Oxfordshire frost pocket I work in and even came through that cold spell when other shrubs died. If they've got their roots down well it's surprising what will come through cold winters.

My brother had a beautiful one in his garden in South Wales @Cuppa2sugars but he wasn’t far from the coast so might have been milder. He wasn’t a gardener so did nothing to take care of it but it looked great.

My mother had one in a shady orchard 400ft up on the Worcs/Herefs border. Warmer than mid Wales, but winters have got milder since then

I have a large hibiscus-lady stanley. Thrives on neglect in poor sandy soil in south facing lawn. Flowers late summer but prolific! when I planted it I’d have cleared space around it and planted in compost that must have run out a long time ago and it has grass right up to it now-never water it. Not sure if ive been lucky! Flowers are about carnation size.

Thanks everyone, maybe if I planted it in a warm sunny corner it’ll do ok !

Sorry. Forgot I posted about the hibiscus. I really want one. Just need to know if they grow in a pot okay?

It should be fine in a container, Paranoidandroidmarvin, but a ceramic one would probably be a good idea in case of high winds.

I’ve taken to planting container plants in a plastic pot that fits inside the ceramic etc. pot. This means that they are easier to move, don’t dry out as much and have a double layer to protect from frost.

The only way to protect some of my plants from slugs is to put them in a pot with copper rings/copper tape around them, and they all do fine, even the large kirengeshoma palmata which usually likes wet conditions. People even put trees in pots. You can also move things around when they’re in pots!

That copper tape is handy but it's evil stuff and I've cut my fingers on it several times. Don't know if it's just me, I can cut myself on cotton wool, but I always wear gloves if using it these days.

I like that it looks good around pots, at least when it’s new and shiny. It’s not guaranteed to deter slugs, but it’s better than any other non-poisoning method. I had 3 kirengeshomas in big pots and the one without copper protection was destroyed. The other two, with copper protection, always get a few holes in the leaves but survive to flower.

A colleague told me she snips off slugs’ heads with a sharp pair of secateurs on her evening strolls around the garden, and I thought it the most repulsive things I’d heard. It is pretty repulsive, but it’s also the fastest and most humane way to kill them.

That said, it’s been so hot and dry, I’ve barely seen a slug all year.

Never been able to bring myself to cut slugs in half and usually throw them as far as possible, in the style of a fast bowler. I got quite good at throwing snails at the last place we lived - there was woodland over the road and I enjoyed hurling them as far into the trees as I could.

If you have plenty of lawn space and no one in the way, garden fork hurling is satisfying too especially if you can get it to stick in the ground.