We have started a rule, if one of us starts eying up plants the other has to say "you can only have it if you know where we can plant it ". It works mostly .
We have started a rule, if one of us starts eying up plants the other has to say "you can only have it if you know where we can plant it ". It works mostly .
But then there are pots. If you see a nice pot you like you have to have something to go in it right? I have a spreadsheet for everything I buy with a column for where things are to go. And then I see gaps in the garden...
I wish I'd read this thread an hour ago. I just had a happy clicky moment on the Secret Gardening Club website (and I'd previously also decided not to buy from there anymore) and now I'm really annoyed with myself.
Delphiniums and dahlias. Two plants that I buy on a whim whenever a Secret Gardening Club offer comes up that I like or I rest upon rows of beautifully lined up pictures on pots in the garden centre.
Then I spend the next 4 months muttering that life's too short to cosset slug food, going out daily to spray garlic and spread grit, spending the summer looking at half eaten leaves and sad plants and wondering "What was I thinking?".
And now I've got 3 delphinium plants coming and I just can't imagine them ever really being safe in the ground so I'm going to have to find a way to keep them in pots and I know they don't thrive in pots so what was the point of me even buying them?!
Luckily I also have some scabious and a hollyhock coming so not I'm not completely regretting my purchases, but still...
Well the only thing that ever worked against slugs for me was water retaining crystals. It looks a bit ugly, the crystal sprinkled on the soil, but it dries up a slug on contact and ment my hostas made it out of the ground in my last house. Now its not so bad, as in this garden have thrushes and hedgehogs to help. That's what you need @Camelliad a hedgehog.😁
@purplerallim we have a huge logpile lined with leaves and an old bin lid with water and hedgehog food near it - I have been working hard to entice hogs into the garden. Some days I wander around the garden looking for hedgehog poo like a mad woman. Nothing yet. But I do like the idea of water retaining crystals... I've never heard that before. I have some. Haven't used them yet. So it's possible @purplerallim that you may have rescued my impulse purchase!
@Camelliad We visited a garden as part of the yellow book scheme (remember that visiting small gardens?) He had loads of delphiniums, it was only when I asked the owner how he kept the slugs and snails off he revealed they were all in large plastic pots, 4 -5 litre I think. They were massed tightly, with smaller plants in front so it looked like they were in the ground. Lots of watering though.
@Allotment Boy how clever!! So now that's really heartening to hear that someone has successfully grown them in pots. Yes I can imagine plastic rather than terracotta to keep the water in. That plus @purplerallim's crystals are a game changer.
Slugs , even before hedgehogs starting visiting the garden , I use gravel as a mulch and around my Hostas I put horticultural grit , which they don’t like Pleased to say I don’t have a slug 🐌 problem
Posts
Delphiniums and dahlias. Two plants that I buy on a whim whenever a Secret Gardening Club offer comes up that I like or I rest upon rows of beautifully lined up pictures on pots in the garden centre.
Then I spend the next 4 months muttering that life's too short to cosset slug food, going out daily to spray garlic and spread grit, spending the summer looking at half eaten leaves and sad plants and wondering "What was I thinking?".
And now I've got 3 delphinium plants coming and I just can't imagine them ever really being safe in the ground so I'm going to have to find a way to keep them in pots and I know they don't thrive in pots so what was the point of me even buying them?!
Luckily I also have some scabious and a hollyhock coming so not I'm not completely regretting my purchases, but still...
It looks a bit ugly, the crystal sprinkled on the soil, but it dries up a slug on contact and ment my hostas made it out of the ground in my last house.
Now its not so bad, as in this garden have thrushes and hedgehogs to help. That's what you need @Camelliad a hedgehog.😁
Pleased to say I don’t have a slug 🐌 problem