A bit of a mystery in my friend's garden. By the front door with its root under the privet hedge, there was a plant, avery small shrub, which grew slowly and was gradually covering the path to the door. It had been planted by his mother, and he was very fond of it. But it needed pruning and so, a couple of months back, he cut the ends of the stems with a pair of shears. It is now dead, apparently right down to the ground (I'm going to use secateurs too see if there is any green cambium), and he is blaming himself.
I've looked through my Mum's book of garden plants, and round the local garden centre to try and identify and replace it, with no luck.
It had grey green silvery leaves, in pairs, and roughly oval in appearance (the tops looked bent over, with a non-oval part back to the stem. When it flowered, it had small white trumpet shaped flowers in the axils.
The garden centre did have something that might be related - non-woody stems, though, narrow silvery leaves, and large white trumpetty flowers - about an inch and a half. These plants were only plant pot sized, didn't look as if they planned to grow any higher than 9 inches, certainly not three foot with a spread of two or so, as the original did.
We want a replacement. And what I obviously can't do is take a cutting from somewhere. I can't believe the little trim could kill it so completely.
Have you tried one of the plant ID facebook groups? There is also a useful plant ID app, I think it's called Plantfinder?
Sadly, tall is vulnerable. There was a handsome eucalyptus about 4 gardens along, but it got storm damage to the upper branches and has now been felled.
Miserably cold the last couple of days, so a couple of trays of bedders still to go in. But I have scattered some calendula seed.
Here's to tree surgeons, 3 of whose stalwart band have reduced our eucalyptus to some thing normal. And there is light pouring down, there is sun, there is blue sky, there are angels singing. And I am several hundreds of spondulacks lighter.
Good the pruning went well @quetzalcoatl.
Some 'patio' vegetable plugs plants I ordered turned up this morning. I think four of them with a bit of nurturing will be OK, one is a bit dodgy, and one had got broken in transit. I planted it anyway in case it miraculously recovers.
I often despair of mail order plug plants when I first unpack them. Mostly they pick up remarkably well once potted on ( a bit of microrrhizal root powder helps). Your broken one might throw out side shoots if you are lucky - depending on the growing habit of the vegetable in question.
I bought a rather frail tomato plant at a garden centre this morning - the last of that variety, so it was buy it or do without.
It had already had the main stem pruned out and a side-shoot was replacing it, then Mr RoS broke that when packing the car. I am hoping that another side-shoot will grow, and that we have a long enough summer to bring it to fruiting size!
My first daffodil bloomed today!!! Not bad, considering it last snowed two days ago. However, none of the 25 snowdrop bulbs I planted last fall made an appearance (*shakes fist at squirrels*)
Sadly all but two of the plug plants totally shrivelled up. I'm not sure why as I planted them up carefully. The two the remain look like peppers. Let's hope they do something.
We have finally decided on what we are doing as an interim measure with the far too much decking we inherited. One half is going to by more grass with a bed round a tree and the other bit will be made much smaller. We'll have more gravel laid and raised beds on that. When funds allow we'll go for some nice paving, but this will at least give us some space to grow a few more herbs and veg. My raised bed that I've planted up with purple and white flowers is starting to look good, as is the reds and yellows planting at the end of the garden.
I read a newspaper article a while ago about one that made a break for freedom down the side return and was last seen trundling down the road 100 yards away.
My plot is getting to the fun stage now where things have actually started growing into something resembling vegetables. My radishes were a miserable failure that got eaten by the pigeons , but my carrots OTOH are starting to look very much like carrots. I have also have a couple of courgette plants going great guns and definitely as much salad as we can eat. My tomatoes have only just gone in so I'll have to wait a while for them to do anything. Last year the beans all grew while we were away over the summer, so I'm going to sow them late this year, in the hopes that we can have them in September when we get back.
I could do with a few more flowers, but my dahlia is coming up nicely, so there's that.
Last autumn I planted a hundred bulbs in an area of our front garden, looking forward to a lovely spring show. All I can say is that the four tulips are nice. >rolleyes<
We came back from a weekend away to find a pretty show of white iris in the bulb bed, so things are a bit better than I thought they were. I expect the rain will be battering at them, though.
The daffodils and tulips are starting to flower, just in time for a 10-minute hailstorm yesterday.😭. Most survived, but I’m very glad I heeded the old superstition about not planting until Victoria Day weekend. Some of my more ambitious neighbours will need to do a bit of re-planting, I think.
Hurrah! I have pulled up my very first carrots what I grew myself in my garden. They are still at the baby carrot stage, but big enough to be edible.
Husband en rouge is putting them in a wild boar casserole. The tops will make pesto because I refuse to throw anything in the bin that I have grown myself.
Cleared a raised bed of last year's chard yesterday, as it was bolting like crazy
. The seedlings for this year are not looking very promising. Too many changes from cold winds to blazing sun, and not much shelter in my garden. Leek seedlings looking pretty miserable too.
Purple french beans now climbing nicely up their poles. but the runners have not started yet. First sowing (last year's seeds) was erratic & slow so bought new, which made a much better start, so now have double quantity. Probably just as well, as I seem to be growing them to feed the snails coming in over the wall from the little car park next door.
I am picking a fresh lot off every morning.
Tomatoes also very behind, but three are now flowering, I just hope the summer, such as it is, lasts long enough for some fruit to develop & ripen.
Various members of the cucurbit family still need to produce a second set of proper leaves before they can be planted. My harvest in general this year looks like it will be small and late, if I am lucky!
Our allotment is looking good, as we watered regularly in the drought, which hopefully is over. Our purple irises, next to the red bracts of pieris, plus the nigella now spilling everywhere looks fab. Thankfully, we are allowed flowers as some allotments don't.
The planting that we had done last November is beginning to feel like ours rather than something that was imposed on us. I've bought a few new plants to fill in gaps. Today's addition is a courgette plant. I'm hoping we can mix in a few veg among the ornamentals.
After the drought, came forth rain. See, I told you the rain dance practised in the Nahua tradition works. Our allotment is looking spiffing, as a result of it. The nigella are becoming thuggish, ah well. The borage are unfurling, and will soon be thuggish. Lots of veg looking cowed.
After 5 years, our gardener has increased his prices by 25%. It will not cost us a lot more as he always appears to turn up less often than we would like him to.
We keep checking on bees, as some flowers are not bee friendly, e.g., roses.
We have a big comfrey, very popular, plus, nigella and blackberry, ditto. Coming soon, various herbs, also popular. So far, mainly bumbles, with very few honey bees. Some years, we get hornets, very exciting.
Last year’s chard of all varieties are now all running to seed as are the assorted spinach. But last year’s carrots and spring onions were finally eaten for lunch today but the kale (nero) are still throwing out leaves, hurrah!
Leek seedlings steadying themselves, the onions are swelling nicely and there is enough Claytonia for the entire street!
First lot of mizuna salad leaves have been levelled to the ground (and then some) so in order to add to our salad stuff I ve started pea shoots again. We appear to have interested pigeons so the pea shoots have been relocated to safer territory. Salad leaves (assorted) are refusing to play the germination game so I may have to resort to sieving the compost in order to suit their temperamental mood this year.
Last year was Aged Parent crisis, this year it is my own health nonsense so anything that can be Easily raised is being considered:
Here comes perennial veg, apparently…. Via Royal Mail no less!
No Mow May has evolved into ever widening path cut through the meadow like vista ……. And we have frogs. Lots of frogs!
🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸
Last year’s chard of all varieties are now all running to seed as are the assorted spinach. But last year’s carrots and spring onions were finally eaten for lunch today but the kale (nero) are still throwing out leaves, hurrah!
Leek seedlings steadying themselves, the onions are swelling nicely and there is enough Claytonia for the entire street!
First lot of mizuna salad leaves have been levelled to the ground (and then some) so in order to add to our salad stuff I ve started pea shoots again. We appear to have interested pigeons so the pea shoots have been relocated to safer territory. Salad leaves (assorted) are refusing to play the germination game so I may have to resort to sieving the compost in order to suit their temperamental mood this year.
Last year was Aged Parent crisis, this year it is my own health nonsense so anything that can be Easily raised is being considered:
Here comes perennial veg, apparently…. Via Royal Mail no less!
No Mow May has evolved into ever widening path cut through the meadow like vista ……. And we have frogs. Lots of frogs!
🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸
Our apple tree is a mass of leaves and no flowers. It's a good job that Morrisons sell apples
I've noticed a couple of our trees doing nothing in the blossom line. I put this down to a) heavy fruiting last year and b) putting their energy into growth (they're mostly saplings). Fine by me, as I still have a shelf-full of apple jelly.
Jobs for the weekend include hedge trimming, lining a gravel bed and weeding. Lots and lots and lots of weeding.
Ah @Firenze , another one here weeding. But in this dry weather the roots come out So Satisfyingly!!!!
A quick question?
Weeds.
Weeds with roots.
How do you dispose of your weeds?
In days of yore i incinerated them but Dry Weather + This Weekend (!) + is this the correct way to go about such things now-a-days?
I ve heard of folk laying weeds out in the sunshine to completely dry up then adding to compost bins?
Some folk drown the weeds?
Some happily throw all regular weeds , root and all, into their compost bin and trust the magic of composting to kill off everything?
Others vow Never To Do This!
As it will be Annual Seeds In The Borders for ever after?
One keen gardener and I thought environmentalist of my acquaintance apparently bags up Their weed roots and weed seed heads and it goes in the general waste?
Others have green bins supplied by / emptied regularly by the council throughout the year?
I do know one person who chops their weeds up and carefully fills their green kitchen waste bags….!
Some people where I live (very obviously) use their carefully extracted weeds to construct edges to local foot paths…
I think the person we bought this house from used to throw their weeds behind the oil tank!
I subscribe to the Council's fortnightly garden waste uplift. The sheer amount of biomass is too much to process in one small garden - plus woody stuff that's not going to compost (in my lifetime). I have space for one compost bin, which gets fed grass cuttings and leaves for the most part.
But then there's weeds and weeds - some make it into the wildflower category: red clover, rosebay willowherb, poppies, red campion, yarrow, meadow buttercup, bluebells up to a point.
Ah @Firenze , another one here weeding. But in this dry weather the roots come out So Satisfyingly!!!!
A quick question?
Weeds.
Weeds with roots.
How do you dispose of your weeds?
In days of yore i incinerated them but Dry Weather + This Weekend (!) + is this the correct way to go about such things now-a-days?
I ve heard of folk laying weeds out in the sunshine to completely dry up then adding to compost bins?
Some folk drown the weeds?
Some happily throw all regular weeds , root and all, into their compost bin and trust the magic of composting to kill off everything?
Others vow Never To Do This!
As it will be Annual Seeds In The Borders for ever after?
One keen gardener and I thought environmentalist of my acquaintance apparently bags up Their weed roots and weed seed heads and it goes in the general waste?
Others have green bins supplied by / emptied regularly by the council throughout the year?
I do know one person who chops their weeds up and carefully fills their green kitchen waste bags….!
Some people where I live (very obviously) use their carefully extracted weeds to construct edges to local foot paths…
I think the person we bought this house from used to throw their weeds behind the oil tank!
What do other people do?
🤷♀️
A weed is merely a plant in the wrong place. The most beautiful flower would be a weed if it was in the middle of a cricket pitch.
We have a problem with weeds in the lawn which become very prominent when the gardener doesn't cut the grass regularly.
We do have a green bin supplied by the council but we have to pay to have it emptied.
We have garden waste collections which also include all food waste, cooked or not - “ Your food waste is taken to an In-Vessel Composting (IVC) facility in the UK.
Mixed food and garden waste is composted 'in vessel'. This is an enclosed, intensive method of composting with accurate temperature control and monitoring to ensure the material is fully sanitised before it's matured and screened to use as compost.
This process is used for both your pure food waste and your food waste mixed with garden waste.”
So I make my own compost with just raw food waste and cardboard. It comes out very sweet smelling and nice to use. I will miss making my own compost if the outside space is too small at our new place.
Tell you something's just gone into my compost bin - sourdough bread. I bought expensive artisanal loaf, but decided, a few slices in, my teeth weren't up to it. So I tossed it on the lawn for the wildlife - birds, gulls, squirrels (and probably the odd rat). Normally bread disappears overnight, if not sooner, but no, after 3 days it's still there - just a bit pecked and gnawed.
@Telford …i can feel myself sliding towards Paying For Uplifting being a very good thing indeed! And much to be desired!
Thing is, turn one’s back for a fortnight and there is a six foot thistle ruining the hesperis. Or four foot high sowthistles in the antirrhinums.
I m all for thistles and sowthistles in the right place, but need to be convinced about the very front of the border….. or ruining the hesperis!
With the official lack of garden waste uplift…. Paid or unpaid…. What might you do?
🤷♀️
For some years now I have not been fit enough to do the job myself. The gardener is supposed to visit every two weeks but often lets us down if it rains or finds something better to do. Get someone else I hear you say. I can't be bothered to as he still does a very good job in the Autumn,
Last year’s chard of all varieties are now all running to seed as are the assorted spinach. But last year’s carrots and spring onions were finally eaten for lunch today but the kale (nero) are still throwing out leaves, hurrah!
Leek seedlings steadying themselves, the onions are swelling nicely and there is enough Claytonia for the entire street!
First lot of mizuna salad leaves have been levelled to the ground (and then some) so in order to add to our salad stuff I ve started pea shoots again. We appear to have interested pigeons so the pea shoots have been relocated to safer territory. Salad leaves (assorted) are refusing to play the germination game so I may have to resort to sieving the compost in order to suit their temperamental mood this year.
Last year was Aged Parent crisis, this year it is my own health nonsense so anything that can be Easily raised is being considered:
Here comes perennial veg, apparently…. Via Royal Mail no less!
No Mow May has evolved into ever widening path cut through the meadow like vista ……. And we have frogs. Lots of frogs!
🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸
Wondering if it's too warm where you are for the salad leaves to germinate properly? Maybe some cold stratification would help.
We have garden waste collections which also include all food waste, cooked or not - “ Your food waste is taken to an In-Vessel Composting (IVC) facility in the UK.
Mixed food and garden waste is composted 'in vessel'. This is an enclosed, intensive method of composting with accurate temperature control and monitoring to ensure the material is fully sanitised before it's matured and screened to use as compost.
This process is used for both your pure food waste and your food waste mixed with garden waste.”
So I make my own compost with just raw food waste and cardboard. It comes out very sweet smelling and nice to use. I will miss making my own compost if the outside space is too small at our new place.
The rotating composters are very good - composting is much quicker and as the barrels are above ground there's no risk of rats and they also take up less space.
Waste veg, tea bags, etc goes into the wormery, an old ‘can of worms’ stacking tray system we’ve had for about 15 years. It produces rich compost and plant feed. Most garden waste goes on to the compost heap but we also have a chipper for small branches. Anything in bulk goes in the large green bin which gets taken away every fortnight in summer, monthly in winter - for free.
We have a small garden and one wooden slatted compost bin.
In that goes raw vegetable matter from the kitchen, debris from the veg beds, cardboard, and cuttings from the back 'lawn'. Sometimes there is not enough other matter to stop the cuttings clumping into a putrefying mass, so cuttings from the smaller, very weedy front lawn and surplus from the back lawn get bagged up. To those bags gets added whole small weeds, plus the roots and flowerheads of larger, leafier weeds, rose pruning and all debris from the tomato plants. Our composting is very slow, so I can't risk roots and seeds of perennial weeds surviving.
Woody stuff gets cut up small and added to the compost bin. I have a shredder, brought from our last house, but this garden has no trees and only one shrub, a forsythia which I can cut with secateurs.
Mr RoS puts the filled bags in the shed until there are enough to justify a trip to the
recycling centre, or until I complain that they are leaking.
We used to use a garden waste bin collection at our last house (and had 3 compost bins) as we had a huge, weedy garden. We didn't avail ourselves of that service when we moved as the garden here is small and the garden waste collection is more expensive.
About halfway through the Great Midsummer Weed. So far have trimmed beech hedge (strictly, beech, snowberry, grapevine, escallonia and clematis hedge) and cleared out the bluebells and aquilegia below it.
Today was a trawl through the planting on the dry/sunny side, yanking up more aquilegia, herb robert, buttercup, clover, bindweed, bugloss and a particularly deep-rooted tutsan. This last has been replaced with half a dozen dahlia.
Back to drought in London, but our plot seems OK. Lots of hosepiping though. Fruit coming through well, spuds positively thick and fast, although I worry its all foliage. Never mind. Our vines look great. Californian poppies are everywhere, beautiful, it grows like a weed.
Unable to trim our beech and clematis hedge as a large number of bees appear to have taken up residence near the roots.
Not quite sure what to do about this….
We moved from having a large piece of land to a small mobile home with a little patio. Today I was making a new recipe and it called for rosemary, sage, and thyme, and a finish off with the juice of one lemon. All of these were in my little pots of a garden that I started last year. I am feeling so self-satisfied.
I'm so pleased those little herbs added so much joy. Gardening, even with just a patio, can make life better. I wish you many more delicious herb-y recipes!
I have spotted one or two minute green tomatoes on a couple of my plants. Others have not started to flower yet. No flowers on the climbing beans so far. Courgettes and cucumber plants still so small it is unlikely that I will get anything from them this year.
The rhubarb clump is enormous, but I still have a pack of cooked rhubarb from last year in the freezer. I will be making a crumble with that at the w/e, and am going to try a rhubarb & lentil curry next week with sticks from the new crop.
The friend I used to give rhubarb to has moved, and Elder Son now has a productive rhubarb patch of his own, so we two are unable to keep up with the supply.
Rhubarb and lentil curry is a new one on me, but I like the sound of it!
My greenhouse is full of triffid-like courgette plants which (hooray) are producing fruits! Also the cucumber plants, of which I have too many, are flourishing and beginning to flower, which is a good sign; while the tomato plants are just about to form fruit, I hope. All this fecundity prompted me to buy a £2 melon plant from Tesco. It says outdoors, but I expect that means the south of England, to the Moray coast, so it also is in my green house and I hope the other flourishing plants will encourage it to do its best.
Now if I could just find a way to stop the dandelions and sticky Willie…
Comments
Very interesting….
Have you tried one of the plant ID facebook groups? There is also a useful plant ID app, I think it's called Plantfinder?
Miserably cold the last couple of days, so a couple of trays of bedders still to go in. But I have scattered some calendula seed.
Some 'patio' vegetable plugs plants I ordered turned up this morning. I think four of them with a bit of nurturing will be OK, one is a bit dodgy, and one had got broken in transit. I planted it anyway in case it miraculously recovers.
I bought a rather frail tomato plant at a garden centre this morning - the last of that variety, so it was buy it or do without.
It had already had the main stem pruned out and a side-shoot was replacing it, then Mr RoS broke that when packing the car. I am hoping that another side-shoot will grow, and that we have a long enough summer to bring it to fruiting size!
We have finally decided on what we are doing as an interim measure with the far too much decking we inherited. One half is going to by more grass with a bed round a tree and the other bit will be made much smaller. We'll have more gravel laid and raised beds on that. When funds allow we'll go for some nice paving, but this will at least give us some space to grow a few more herbs and veg. My raised bed that I've planted up with purple and white flowers is starting to look good, as is the reds and yellows planting at the end of the garden.
I could do with a few more flowers, but my dahlia is coming up nicely, so there's that.
Husband en rouge is putting them in a wild boar casserole. The tops will make pesto because I refuse to throw anything in the bin that I have grown myself.
🙂
. The seedlings for this year are not looking very promising. Too many changes from cold winds to blazing sun, and not much shelter in my garden. Leek seedlings looking pretty miserable too.
Purple french beans now climbing nicely up their poles. but the runners have not started yet. First sowing (last year's seeds) was erratic & slow so bought new, which made a much better start, so now have double quantity. Probably just as well, as I seem to be growing them to feed the snails coming in over the wall from the little car park next door.
I am picking a fresh lot off every morning.
Tomatoes also very behind, but three are now flowering, I just hope the summer, such as it is, lasts long enough for some fruit to develop & ripen.
Various members of the cucurbit family still need to produce a second set of proper leaves before they can be planted. My harvest in general this year looks like it will be small and late, if I am lucky!
(We are trying to sell the house and move daaahn saaahth. 🙂
We have a big comfrey, very popular, plus, nigella and blackberry, ditto. Coming soon, various herbs, also popular. So far, mainly bumbles, with very few honey bees. Some years, we get hornets, very exciting.
Leek seedlings steadying themselves, the onions are swelling nicely and there is enough Claytonia for the entire street!
First lot of mizuna salad leaves have been levelled to the ground (and then some) so in order to add to our salad stuff I ve started pea shoots again. We appear to have interested pigeons so the pea shoots have been relocated to safer territory. Salad leaves (assorted) are refusing to play the germination game so I may have to resort to sieving the compost in order to suit their temperamental mood this year.
Last year was Aged Parent crisis, this year it is my own health nonsense so anything that can be Easily raised is being considered:
Here comes perennial veg, apparently…. Via Royal Mail no less!
No Mow May has evolved into ever widening path cut through the meadow like vista ……. And we have frogs. Lots of frogs!
🐸 🐸🐸🐸🐸
Our apple tree is a mass of leaves and no flowers. It's a good job that Morrisons sell apples
Jobs for the weekend include hedge trimming, lining a gravel bed and weeding. Lots and lots and lots of weeding.
But we have no clematis there?
🤷♀️
Turned out it was the apple trees, such was the profusion of blossom this year!
A quick question?
Weeds.
Weeds with roots.
How do you dispose of your weeds?
In days of yore i incinerated them but Dry Weather + This Weekend (!) + is this the correct way to go about such things now-a-days?
I ve heard of folk laying weeds out in the sunshine to completely dry up then adding to compost bins?
Some folk drown the weeds?
Some happily throw all regular weeds , root and all, into their compost bin and trust the magic of composting to kill off everything?
Others vow Never To Do This!
As it will be Annual Seeds In The Borders for ever after?
One keen gardener and I thought environmentalist of my acquaintance apparently bags up Their weed roots and weed seed heads and it goes in the general waste?
Others have green bins supplied by / emptied regularly by the council throughout the year?
I do know one person who chops their weeds up and carefully fills their green kitchen waste bags….!
Some people where I live (very obviously) use their carefully extracted weeds to construct edges to local foot paths…
I think the person we bought this house from used to throw their weeds behind the oil tank!
What do other people do?
🤷♀️
But then there's weeds and weeds - some make it into the wildflower category: red clover, rosebay willowherb, poppies, red campion, yarrow, meadow buttercup, bluebells up to a point.
We have a problem with weeds in the lawn which become very prominent when the gardener doesn't cut the grass regularly.
We do have a green bin supplied by the council but we have to pay to have it emptied.
I must repeat at regular intervals
“ covet not thy neighbour’s fortnightly garden waste uplifting”
We are encouraged to bag it all up and drive to the recycling centre.
Bag
Extracting slugs from our car is Not my favourite job ever!
Thing is, turn one’s back for a fortnight and there is a six foot thistle ruining the hesperis. Or four foot high sowthistles in the antirrhinums.
I m all for thistles and sowthistles in the right place, but need to be convinced about the very front of the border….. or ruining the hesperis!
With the official lack of garden waste uplift…. Paid or unpaid…. What might you do?
🤷♀️
Mixed food and garden waste is composted 'in vessel'. This is an enclosed, intensive method of composting with accurate temperature control and monitoring to ensure the material is fully sanitised before it's matured and screened to use as compost.
This process is used for both your pure food waste and your food waste mixed with garden waste.”
So I make my own compost with just raw food waste and cardboard. It comes out very sweet smelling and nice to use. I will miss making my own compost if the outside space is too small at our new place.
For some years now I have not been fit enough to do the job myself. The gardener is supposed to visit every two weeks but often lets us down if it rains or finds something better to do. Get someone else I hear you say. I can't be bothered to as he still does a very good job in the Autumn,
Wondering if it's too warm where you are for the salad leaves to germinate properly? Maybe some cold stratification would help.
The rotating composters are very good - composting is much quicker and as the barrels are above ground there's no risk of rats and they also take up less space.
Alas, Aberdeenshire is bathed in sunshine and I just totally forgot that means the salad leaves should be germinated Outside and In The Shade!
Thank you!
Maybe my wonderings should be jump-started into Action!
Have resorted to bagging them up.
In that goes raw vegetable matter from the kitchen, debris from the veg beds, cardboard, and cuttings from the back 'lawn'. Sometimes there is not enough other matter to stop the cuttings clumping into a putrefying mass, so cuttings from the smaller, very weedy front lawn and surplus from the back lawn get bagged up. To those bags gets added whole small weeds, plus the roots and flowerheads of larger, leafier weeds, rose pruning and all debris from the tomato plants. Our composting is very slow, so I can't risk roots and seeds of perennial weeds surviving.
Woody stuff gets cut up small and added to the compost bin. I have a shredder, brought from our last house, but this garden has no trees and only one shrub, a forsythia which I can cut with secateurs.
Mr RoS puts the filled bags in the shed until there are enough to justify a trip to the
recycling centre, or until I complain that they are leaking.
We used to use a garden waste bin collection at our last house (and had 3 compost bins) as we had a huge, weedy garden. We didn't avail ourselves of that service when we moved as the garden here is small and the garden waste collection is more expensive.
Although
We did invest in one of those hot composters a bit back. And have been studiously filling it too.
Suppose I should investigate….
Today was a trawl through the planting on the dry/sunny side, yanking up more aquilegia, herb robert, buttercup, clover, bindweed, bugloss and a particularly deep-rooted tutsan. This last has been replaced with half a dozen dahlia.
Not quite sure what to do about this….
The rhubarb clump is enormous, but I still have a pack of cooked rhubarb from last year in the freezer. I will be making a crumble with that at the w/e, and am going to try a rhubarb & lentil curry next week with sticks from the new crop.
The friend I used to give rhubarb to has moved, and Elder Son now has a productive rhubarb patch of his own, so we two are unable to keep up with the supply.
My greenhouse is full of triffid-like courgette plants which (hooray) are producing fruits! Also the cucumber plants, of which I have too many, are flourishing and beginning to flower, which is a good sign; while the tomato plants are just about to form fruit, I hope. All this fecundity prompted me to buy a £2 melon plant from Tesco. It says outdoors, but I expect that means the south of England, to the Moray coast, so it also is in my green house and I hope the other flourishing plants will encourage it to do its best.
Now if I could just find a way to stop the dandelions and sticky Willie…