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

It's a bit of both, Kuc, the nests are surprisingly big and my hands are small. Size 7, I think.

Long tailed tits cluster on winter nights and many have been counted sharing a nest. Can't remember the figure but think it was 20+. Maybe that's one reason for the size of the nests, or maybe the birds are just taking advantage of it, who knows.

Warmth in numbers when you're that small.

Indeed! See the third photo.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01s4msj/p01s4mrl

I love the way they hang out in big flocks, garrulous and quarrelsome.

We had a lone blue tit who spent an entire winter sleeping in our webcam nest box at night. Don’t know if it was a parent or baby from that year’s nest, or just a fortuitous find for a random bird.

Apparently blue tits tend to be loners

https://www.bto.org/about-bto/press-releases/godresttchillygentleewren

I wondered if it was doing the blue tit equivalent of humans queueing day and night for a sale, or a royal event - finders keepers when nesting season comes round again.

I love the thought of 20+ long tailed tits in a nest! I wonder if they slot in carefully or are all randomly squashed in with some upside down

Here they are gathering to roost on a holly I don’t think any of them is getting a good night’s kip! Another video clip showed the newcomer always joins in the middle - even the third to arrive pushes his way between the first two.

Maybe they go for three rows, one on top of the other, in a nest? I bet the ones who get forced into the outer draughty edges are really fucked off.

I think that video suggests they just move and push themselves into the middle

Resurrecting this thread with a boring practical fence question!

One of our fence posts has (I think) rotted at the bottom. That section of fence is leaning outwards and is being kept sort of upright only by the neighbour's big hedge.

We have loads of plants in the beds right in front of the fence, including some lovely Trachelospermum jasminoides growing along it. I'm therefore very reluctant to have Big Diggy Replacement Work done, because frankly I value my plants more than my fence.

What bodge-type solutions could we try? Just chucking some quick-set cement around the base of the post?? Or perhaps we could just let the fence continue to lean on the neighbour's hedge? She wouldn't notice (honestly!) - it's a very thick and tall hedge.

Cement won't help if the bottom of the post has gone. You could add a supplementary post and cement that.

Good point! I may need to do some careful digging to check. Perhaps I could put in a short post at the base of the existing one and screw them together?

You can get fence post spikes that you could drive in with a block of wood and a sledgehammer having first removed the rotten post.

I'd hammer in some rebar.

Ooh, where could I get a bit of rebar?

Bear in mind that my main concern is not the fence (!) but minimising disruption to my precious plants!

Perhaps I could put in a short post at the base of the existing one and screw them together?

I'd go full height. Doesn't disrupt the plants any more than a short one but will be a lot stronger.

@Kucinghitam a builders merchant would have it and it shouldn't trouble the plants.

Goodness. I can get rebar from Amazon!

Kuc we had the same problem and during Covid our fence was basically supported by our neighbours' shrubs.

In the end a man came and put concrete posts in the ground and attached the non-rotten bits of our fence posts to them. I was expecting to have to replace the whole fence (it has those overlapping strips, not panels) so was very pleased. No damage done to the plants either as the original fencer had put the posts on the neighbours' side.

Our back fence was getting a bit precarious, we had it fixed up just with some additional treated wooden fence posts banged in on the other side and the fence nailed to those too. DH is sceptical about reinforced concrete fence posts, they can be prone to rust and spalling.

Our neighbours on the other side had concrete fence posts put in before our wooden ones were, and they are still standing - our wooden ones only lasted about 10 years.

Hi my friend is thinking of moving to Kirkmuirhill, South Lanarkshire and they were wondering is it a nice / good / safe place to live they have a car so travel is not a problem any thoughts ta.

You'd do better to start a thread in the Scotland folder, you'll get more response there.

A bag of bulbs arrived today - autumn crocuses, which need to go in nownownow (if not sooner), tulips which need to wait a while, and very early daffs for planting somewhere between the two.