Gran/Grandads Gardening Corner

I just keep wondering if our President is in tune with the one over there (iyswim)
Although it was planted many years ago!

in which case I will happily give it the chop.

Jalima

Well, our President has not produced a flower yet this year, although there is some greenery.
I have given it a good talking to and threatened it with the secateurs.

Only perennials in the borders
Deadhead (as and when there is time!)
Lots of containers (adds some colour)

and I would add - water, water, water.
Or pray for rain between 1 am and 3 am.

I'm not a gardener but DH is. Over the years I've managed to persuade him to make a few changes with our dotage in mind but he does love his bedding plants and baulked when I said can't we just have perennials. He said I was spoiling his enjoyment of the garden and he would have time to change things. . . . .
Well he suddenly had surgery beg April and is still not gardening fit so I've had to take over! Lol! Poor plants. I found myself pleading with his geranium cuttings to stay alive. They did AND I planted them out. Took photos into hospital for further instructions. Even tops of plants to check if they were weeds or not!
It's a whole new world for me. My new mantra is "only perennials", "few containers" and "deadhead".
What do you think?

Climbing roses benefit from having the main stems bent horizontally, flowering shoots grow vertically.
Regarding clematis, I tend to buy the ones on the sad shelf, at the end of the season. Often they are missing a label. The flowers are a wonderful surprise!

The President (clematis) finished flowering a couple of weeks ago, but have another smaller purple flowered one still going ( no idea of the name though.)
The one that I want to buy is Dr Ruppell ( or Rupell) as I love the flower colour .
If anyone has one, post a pic on here.

Wham, bam, thank you maam kinda fly.

Bluebelle perhaps they have feasted and now turned into flies and flown away.

The large rose sawfly (Arge pagana) will produce two (sometimes three) generations from May to October. Arge ochropus usually has a single generation in early summer, but sometimes there is a second generation in late summer.

Eats shoots and leaves as they say.

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cornergran, I am definitely no expert rose grower. I bought my first climber this year. I have only had one flower so far! One of the main stems is doing as you describe, with shoots at nearly every joint. I wonder if this is the way climbers grow.
I was also interested to see a leaf-cutter bee dragging a piece of rose leaf into my bug hotel. It has left neat semi-circular holes on the plant.

I don't know Jalima I can't see any eggs or any sign of ANY insect or caterpillar they are just stalks and veins left
Talking about clematis I ve had one in the garden about 20 years it grows prolifically the greenery covers a shed and a wall but it's NEVER had a flower on it not one Any ideas about that

Our clematis seem to be looking better with a good top dressing of shrub compost.
We may have some flowers on Hagley Hybrid at last although Mr President still looks quite sickly.

Sorry Bluebelle can't help but I also have a rose problem.

We have two fairly new climbers. When they bloomed I cut off each dead flower stalk to a 'joint'. Some have re-grown strong shoots with new buds. Others are sprouting what look like suckers from 'joints' all the way up the stems. These are very soft and carry no buds. I have never had this happen before. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Please?

Could it be these Bluebelle?

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=196

I have a wild rambling rose in the garden it's just finished flowering and the leaves are now getting completely decimated eaten down to just leaving the veins only left It seems like some caterpillar but I can't see anything on it anywhere
Any ideas ?

Our garden was at it's best a month ago. Having to scatter some pots of various plants around now to fill the gaps.Lawns need rain badly as well.
Tomatoes doing well though, and herbs.

I could be generous and say my garden is a riot of colour at the moment, but while it is very colourful it is a bit of a mess (job for tomorrow), with things going over, and we will have a lag phase before other things, like the agapanthus, hollyhocks and yellow and pink rudbeckia come through. Dahlias and lilies are holding the fort though. I never seem to get it quite right, and all my roses apart from one have been a complete disaster this year. That's a nice dahlia, shysal! I like the dark foliage varieties.

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Thought I would get this thread going again. I expect our gardens are at their best at the moment. I spotted these 'Happy Days' dahlias at my local plant centre this morning when looking for something to fill a gap on the patio. Only £10 for two. The photos don't do it justice, the foliage is almost black and the flowers a deep purple, or they also had crimson. They were selling like hot cakes.

Oooops just catching up with this thread.

The lawn advice I followed (after trying everything else)was to buy 2 strips of turf (B and Q's best) and cutting patches out of it and replacing the bits that had been decimated by the moss killer. We tried seeding and re-seeding so many times but to no avail, as the seed just wouldn't germinate. The patching has worked a treat and DH is feeding it every week too. Its looking really good. Just want a bit of sunshine to enjoy it now. 3 days of solid rain here on the NE coast.

Thanks for that warning Shysal. Since introducing a Black Barlow to my wild grannies I now have a fantastic range of colours and would be devastated if this disease would kill off aquilias indiscriminately. Will keep a beady eye out.out.

Thanks Icyalittle

I did think of baskets but if we go away they're one more thing to water.
Or a hydroponic system

Or Waitrose, which is what we ate tonight!

It's strange, because we get little Alpine strawberries seeding themselves all over the garden and nothing goes for those at all.

For strawberries - husband made a range of 4 rows of wooden troughs, fixed to a wall of our house, plants them there.
So far no slugs, no weeds, easy to water and pick.
He hasn't renewed them yet, I'll try to post a picture when they're ready.

For the tiny slugs (actually it works for big ones too), have you tried naematodes? You buy them on line, they arrive invisibly in a small plastic container in sawdust stuff. Mix with water, water in round your strawberries or hostas or whatever and they deal with the slugs biologically. I bought my first lot via Amazon and it / they really seemed to make a difference.

Thanks Mamie - I may go and do that now!

In fact, we have a few pesky ants which keep appearing in the kitchen (can't find anything that they are after) and I read today that peppermint oil is good to wipe along their trail - apparently it overpowers the trail of pheronomes left by the lead ant!

I think these are the tiny slugs that live in the soil rather than the big ones that march across the garden at night.
The second one definitely had been pecked, much as like our blackbird and his song I don't want him eating my strawberries.
DH has covered them with some netting for the time being.

The ants are eating mine! I read that they hate the smell of mint leaves so scrunched some up and put them round the plants - now they are eating the mint. ?
Maybe try organic slug pellets around (but not touching) the plants, Jalima?

I am still trying to grow strawberries (never had much success) with some different 'guaranteed' plants given by a kind friend. Have put straw underneath but still a tiny black slug has eaten into the first ripe one and a bird has pecked the second nearly ripe one.