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

OMG, Elderberry, I bet there were some grumblings going on once the horsetail got shifting. I'm curious as to what they ended up doing about it. Bet they sprayed it.

Equisetum moorei

https://maps.biodiversityireland.ie/Dataset/178/Species/180352

rare AND legally protected

I counsel against the weed killer, @Kucinghitam, because I just don't think it's worth it. There's all the damage to the ecosystem it causes, and it does nothing more than provide a temporary pause. I avoid weed killer, but have previously given in on occasion in the face of bindweed and within a short period of time it was back, so I felt ashamed and beaten! Just pull the fucker up with maximum aggression. It still won't work, but little creatures will thank you.

I have my eye on some bamboo.

I hope it will go left, but have my doubts!

On the bindweed challenge, I follow Charles Dowding on YouTube and he suggests setting a 2 year timeframe rather than trying to eradicate it all in one season. If you've been plagued by bindweed the way I have you'll try absolutely anything! I'm into year 2 of grabbing handfuls of the damn stuff and chasing it back carefully to its root source, laying down to stems and then getting a trowel and patiently loosening the soil so you get out as much of those pesky white roots as you can.

every time you see any sign of it, repeat the above. Be persistent and do it every week. The roots weaken and the growth slows down. You'll start to see much smaller 'weedier' looking foliage, but the long stretches of stem and roots chasing along the ground aren't there this year.

no weekkiller needed, just lots of dogged determination 💪

eventually after 2 years I'm definitely feeling like I'm winning the battle, so I'm going to keep going into year 3. Why the hell can't my Morning Glory with those beautiful purple blue flowers be as easy to grow 😱

We had a holiday in Nice a couple of weeks ago, I had distinct Morning Glory envy. Returning home, despite there not having quite been a frost, mine had pretty much died.

Chasing bindweed to its root source is a good plan if it's on your land but not so good when it originates on the other side of a fence.

In a way it's my own stupid fault for trying year after year to grow a plant that's a dry heat sun-lover in a climate as awful as UK (unless you're in East Anglia or Kent)!

Chasing bindweed to its root source is a good plan if it's on your land but not so good when it originates on the other side of a fence

I think I might have been the originating side

I never got anywhere with morning glory even in Norfolk. Not worth trying where I am now.

I have successfully grown MG, in Surrey, until this year. Maybe it was too wet? It's usually quite happy - it's in a southwest facing narrow border, and self seeds. Maybe I'll buy a new packet of seeds next year.

There are some allotments near us that have it growing all along a chain link fence, and it's glorious.

I had enough pure blue flowers on the ones I grew this year to bring me joy. It was the first time I've tried them here in Lancashire, having failed in the past in Yorkshire. I saw some good ones in the U.K. earlier in the year - think it must have been in the Cambridge botanical gardens, that's probably one of the hottest and driest places in the U.K.