A Gardening Saga

[AlanHo]

I am not much of a gardener - never have been - having been content to leaving it to my late wife. I helped her by doing the heavy chores whilst she did the pretty stuff.

Since 2003 it became my job - and I have found it a bit difficult. Especially the hanging baskets at the front of the house. In 2003, under supervision, I planted the baskets with surfinias and some small trailing plants which resulted in a splendid floral show.

In 2004 I tried to replicate the previous year's display - but it was at best disappointing - at worst a disaster. However - the busy lizzies I planted in the borders and tubs were magnificent.

In 2005 I decided to plant busy lizzies in the hanging baskets to replicate the previous year's display - it was very disappointing with heavy losses and a short flowering period.

This year, under the supervision of new management, I reverted to surfinias in the hanging baskets and busy lizzies in the tubs and borders. The baskets have turned out better than ever before but of 60 busy llizzies planted in borders and tubs only 7 have survived.

I have come to the conclusion that some years favour certain plants rather than others - and I have a special talent in sniffing out each year's losers.

Here is a photo of the baskets at the front of the house this year - I am too disappointed to add a picture of the bedraggled tubs and borders in the back garden. Does my experience ring a bell with others?

[Watchful]

It certainly does. Last year was good for Busy Lizzies and this year is good for petunias. As an avid gardener I still make mistakes.

PS. Your hanging baskets are a credit to you Alan. Keep up the good work

[dadyassa]

Nice baskets alan, hope you got new management to wash your car while you were deadheading the baskets.

[rong]

Mix a little, geraniums (peligoniums(not sure of the spelling )) are nearly always a good insert as they are happier if the watering is a bit lax at times

forgot to say then if something has a bad year all is not lost

[Thos]

Nice picture, nice house and nice flowers.

I always suspected you were a basket case.

Thos. :P

[gordythegouge]

Don't feel despondent....we've all had disasters..I planted some Lillies a few years ago without checking their eventual height!!! Right next to a very narrow path going into the front door. It was The Day of the Triffids all over again. People had to fight their way in or go round the back! Postie wasn't very pleased!!! Mind you, the scent would just knock you down! There's always a silver lining, all you've got to do is look for it! Or in this case ....smell it!

gordy

[D4\/!d]

We do the busy lizzies and petunias as well :)

Our front door faces south. It is hot on the front door step and that's were we put the petunias in pots. We found they don't mind the heat and (sometimes) dry containers. Although this year, with drought restrictions, we've started to empty the washing up bowl into the pots. The fragrance of an evening is wonderful - the flowers that is, not the washing up water ;)

The back patio is in shade most of the day and that's where the busy lizzies go. They can flower well in shade. Although this year's display of busy lizzies is poor. I think the pigeons have been eating the buds.

One tip we learned about bedding plants is to water with a tomato feed. Sounds funny, but it's the potash you know. We get the feed from the £shop. Water most days, and feed twice a week.

[andsome]

Like the baskets Alan. We too get very mixed results, no two years are the same except for certain plants. We do very well with Euphorbias every year, but Buzzy Lizzies are a no no. Pinks are going well this year, so are tomatoes in pots on the patio.

[Watchful]

That's a good tip about the tomato feed as we do that as well. It also improves daffodils if watered in when the leaves are dying down (that's for next spring's blooms).

Good year for roses and lillies too, which are now blooming in full.

Bad year for me for my Peony as, for the second year, the buds disappeared (it's a white one) so it must have been got at by some predator.

My Pyracantha is full of budding berries but I know the blue-tits will eat most of them so, instead of being covered in flame-coloured berries this autumn, it will just be left with the few that they can't reach. Happens every time but heh, that's what berries are for isn't it? bird food :D

[D4\/!d]

My Pyracantha is full of budding berries but I know the blue-tits will eat most of them so, instead of being covered in flame-coloured berries this autumn, it will just be left with the few that they can't reach.

I've got the red berried variety. My blue-tits seem to leave it alone. However, come the fruiting season the blackbirds (and the wretched pigeons) will attack it with gusto. If we are lucky we might see a thrush or redwing get a few red berries.

As you say

but heh, that's what berries are for isn't it? bird food :D

[Watchful]

Thrushes do enjoy them but we haven't seen any for a long time round here :(

[andsome]

We used to see quite a few. We also used to get flocks of Blue Tits, Great tits and others of the family, and it was nothing to get a small flock of Green finches in the garden. Now we are lucky to see these birds two or three at a time. This year there has appeared to be the first increase in the number of sparrows in the garden. Fings ain't wot they used ter be.

[AlanHo]

We still get in the garden loads of blue tits, great tits, coal tits, long tail tits, green finches, bull finches, robins, wrens, yellow hammers, nut hatches, green woodpeckers, lesser spotted woodpeckers, crows, jackdaws, rooks, jays, goldfinches, bull finches, blackbirds, red wings, thrushes, starlings, ring neck doves, bloody awful woodpigeons, herons, mallards, sparrow hawks, hedge sparrows, chaffinches, dunnocks, house martins and others I have had too much wine to remember. I reckon on spending about £20 per month on bird feed - much of which is consumed by pesky squirrels and magpies which raid the bird feeders.

I have a trellis covered in pyracantha - red variety - but the birds get the berries as soon as they are red so I have never seen it in full glory.

PS.

I listed the tits first - safe in the knowledge it would attract the attention of a certain person.

[andsome]

The one bird that I hate is the one that you have called the Ring necked dove, we call it the Collared dove. That insessant repeated call that it makes is sufficient to drive anyone insane, and this is made worse by the shriek that they let out as they are about to land. The wrestched creatures don't even belong her. They first appeared in the south in the fifties, and have worked their way further north ever since.

Wretched creature. Click here

[doug]

Bane of my life are the damned peasants (pheasants?). We live on what used to be part of Lord Lambton's estates. They have shoots every year. I gather they import 60,000 pheasant chicks each year for fattening for the shoots. After the end of the season they can only account for about 40,000. The rest go to predation and car strikes. I say strangle the damned things before releasing them. They take up residence i surrounding gardens and are like chickens, scratching everything up nipping out the tips of all the young shoots. As each year progresses our garden developes wonderful crops of patches of sticks that I plant to prevent them from using the dust bowls they create. Most of our soil finishes up on the lawn.

Anyone got any useful deterrent ideas?

[andsome]

How about an air gun? It is silent, and pheasant is very pleasant eating, as long as you don't chant a certain rhyme whilst plucking it. In fact, skinning is to be preferred.

[Watchful]

As we've gravitated onto birds I love collared doves, at least it's a soft call - coo, coo coo! The one that drives me nuts is a clutter of starlings gossiping whilst they roost and not far behind is the awful cackling shout of the magpie

[dadyassa]

Doug, dangle old cd`s off of string over the plants.

[AlanHo]

Doug, dangle old cd`s off of string over the plants.

What type of music works best?

[Watchful]

Des O'Connor :lol:

[catgate]

Bane of my life are the damned peasants (pheasants?). We live on what used to be part of Lord Lambton's estates. They have shoots every year. I gather they import 60,000 pheasant chicks each year for fattening for the shoots. After the end of the season they can only account for about 40,000. The rest go to predation and car strikes. I say strangle the damned things before releasing them. They take up residence i surrounding gardens and are like chickens, scratching everything up nipping out the tips of all the young shoots. As each year progresses our garden developes wonderful crops of patches of sticks that I plant to prevent them from using the dust bowls they create. Most of our soil finishes up on the lawn.

Anyone got any useful deterrent ideas?

I once knew an old chap who claimed that his way with pheasants was to dig a channel, closed at one end and with a wire mesh top, in the earth, about a foot deep and only just wider than a pheasants body. He would soak wheat and barley in whiskey and then drop a good generous helpiing into the bottom of the hole, with a trail leading out of the open end.

The birds found the grain trail and ate it right into the channel. When they got in, and ate more, they became so puddled that they just lay down. When he went to collect them they could not fly away because they could not lift their wings and the could not turn round, or find reverse. All he had to do was wring their necks and put them in the pot.

[rong]

Des O'Connors singing is enough to drive anything away

[dadyassa]

Doug, dangle old cd`s off of string over the plants.

What type of music works best?

Theme from CATS ;)

[andsome]

As we've gravitated onto birds I love collared doves, at least it's a soft call - coo, coo coo! The one that drives me nuts is a clutter of starlings gossiping whilst they roost and not far behind is the awful cackling shout of the magpie

My reason for my strong dislike of their noise is that it is so monotonous and repetitive. Something like the thumping noise emanating from some cars driven by kids. At least starlings fly in have their brief chatter and fly off again.

[rong]

Don't the police stop these under age persons from driving in your part of the north.