Gardens

[Zaria]

We've just had some work done in the garden and I am looking for some big wooden tubs/planters to put trees in (bay trees maybe, can't decide). Does anyone know a mail order place that sells them - and also ideas and a good email site for suitable trees?

I'm addicted to the gardening site crocus.co.uk who do all sorts for the garden from pots to bay trees, although I'm not sure if they do 'big' trees, ie the trees they sell are not very old, therefore not very big. They're definitely worth a look though.

Have you tried Crocus?

Snap!

Janus, am seriously worried now - another John Lewis and Crocus fan!

God, when I turned 30 I suddenly got in to gardening, having been a complete pub girl before that but became pregnant and had to find something else to do! Even asked for a subscription to a gardening magazine last birthday, what happened!!!! My partner still wets himself when he sees me pouring over it! Makes a great gift though for an avid gardener!

Help, our house is being invaded by fruit flies, they seem to be breeding in the compost bin and then moving in wholesale to our kitchen. Anyone had this probelm and more crucially got a solution?

Always cover food scraps with grass cuttings/garden waste. Dig them in when you add them. Keep your bin covered with sacking/old carpet. As a last resort always wash veg peelings before putting them in.

You can make a good fly trap by filling a glass jar half full of beer, then cutting the corner off a plastic sandwich bag and taping the outside to the outside of the jar (so the cut-off-corner bit makes a funnel into the jar).

Just to add, don't bother with fly sprays, they are c**p and bad for you. I'm sure the flies we get here are genetically modified, no spray/block kills them. We live in a rural area and when they harvest the field opposite its like the Amityville Horror in my kitchen.

My homemade traps work, also fly paper is good but looks horrible. My desert island discs luxury would be my Philip Starck fly swat which sends the little critters swiftly to s**t heaven.

Zaria - Had saved a catalogue which comes with the Mail on Sunday from time to time, they have them in there, a set of 3 large wooden planters for £111.00 and smaller ones individually for £12.95 and £14.95. And they have a website www.thegardenfactory.co.uk.

As for trees, try www.greenfingers.com - brilliant site, choose the plants you want and it gives you a link to nurseries that supply them online!

Enid-never knew this side to your many talents!! I'll be coming to you for my gardening tips from now on!!

Yes, my talents now stretch to compost heaps (have started a massive recycling program) and fly killing

Enid-Where do I get my fly swat from, we're infested, and I could do with some excellent stress busting?!!

honeybunny why not get a venus fly trap? Great entertainment for the kids! R

Does anyone have a few tips on how to discourage other people's cats from using my garden as a toilet? I can never let dd into it without going on a search with gloves and plastic bag first, it's annoying and unhygienic (can't spell today).

thanks a lot!!!

Try having a look here!

www.cathate.co.uk

I will one day read how to do a proper link!

chiara71, I have found mousetraps very effective. I have never caught a cat in one, but they do scare them away and seem to keep them away for a week or two. Unfortunately, they aren't terribly safe to have around with little ones. Supposedly moth balls work well. I've had some luck with them. The sprays and chemicals work somewhat, but stink so badly that you can't use your garden. Chili powder seems to work well too. Probably the least harmful option to have around kids.
Ultimately I find that I have to plant my flower quite close together and put down gravel or slatechips where there aren't flowers so that the cats don't have anywhere soft to dig. good luck

chiara I don't know if this works but is worth try.
Go for them with a super soaker water pistol. After a day of this treatment which they won't like but which will do no harm, they are supposed to give up and go somewhere else.

jasper, we've tried the hose, water pistol, bb gun, irate husband...none of them have worked...maybe we have really dumb cats our neigborhood, but they keep coming back for more.

We managed to keep the cats out of our tubs (favourite place for an afternoon snooze in the sun) by sticking lots of short pieces of cane in the soil, we can't keep them out of the flower beds or even off the lawn though. Lion poo is supposed to be good (they are frightened by the smell of the bigger cat) and you can buy it at your local zoo! We're thinking of putting an electric fence up all around the boundary to sizzle their whiskers, failing that I think we should get a shot gun

Small holly twigs stuck into the ground at regular intervals tends to discourage them, or black cotton wound around short canes.
Good luck !

Our problem is keeping them off the lawn where the canes, cotton etc ideas don't work. Also of course where DS likes to play. The only sure way I have found was to get my own cat. But then he disappeared and we moved and the problem is worse than ever.

You can get a sonic device which emits a high pitch noise when cats cross the path of the detectors. They don't like it and find somewhere else. They're quite pricey but can be found at most garden centres.

A word of warning about cotton wound canes - it has a nasty habit of ensnaring the birds.

Just this weekend I had to cut free a thrush which had cotton so tightly wound around it's legs that both legs were effectively tied together, and the poor bird then got entangled in one of our bushes as the cotton caught in the twigs. Although I managed to free it and cut away much of the cotton, a lot was so tightly wound around its legs that there was nothing I could do, so it will probably cut off the circulation and mean the poor bird has a rather nasty death.