Things I have learnt about gardening this year.

My very small garden is purely ornamental so no fruit or veg.

If you like butterflies you must put up with a few caterpillars.

I like perfect symmetry but Mother Nature has other ideas. The shady border has plants which struggle on the sunny side which needs more attention (going out with watering cans is tedious). The shady side largely looks after itself.

If a plant is happy it can go berserk, doubling or more in size or height. They need space to grow. I have overplanted my borders (trying to create a mini Sissinghurst on a pocket handkerchief) with too many different plants but at least it keeps the weeds down - it is impossible to be completely weed free.

I am inherently lazy and prefer to sit about with a cup of tea and a book rather than to actually work in the garden. I've never liked extreme heat so this summer has been difficult. Therefore shade is needed - my new build has very little. I will have to put in pergolas (which I adore) to help achieve this. I'm not looking forward to this extra work and expense but - you get out of gardening what you put into it. Your efforts are so worthwhile - then you sit back with your cup of tea and admire your handiwork. Mother Nature does the rest.

This year, due to the enforced stay at home thing from March - June, I have learned that I love the garden even more than I'd previously known.
I've had confirmed my suspicion that you do need to be weeding and dead heading daily.
I've learned that the various architectural type plants I put in to create height have trebled in size now they're established.
That a combination of warmth, sunshine and monsoon like downpours make for very happy gardens.

I have not managed to protect the hosta's I grow in tubs from slugs and snails. I used the copper tape early on and until a couple of weeks ago that was effective. I suspect the barstewards are abseiling up the nearby plants, then catapulting themselves onto the hosta's so they can destroy them. I'm still trying to avoid the deadly pellets because I'm feeding the birds and don't want the ground feeders to kill themselves. Would welcome any advice (that doesn't include going out at midnight with scissors or salt)

The main thing I have learned over the years is to beware of plant labels when they say things like “maximum height xxx inches”. I wish I had a pound for every planting scheme I have put in place where plants at the front of a bed have grown out of all proportion to their supposedly bigger mates at the back who are then hidden for the rest of the season.
Don’t let your DH dig anything up until you’re sure what it is. I lost a whole lot of echinacea purpurea this year because he “thought they were weeds”!
If you give any of your best, carefully raised plants to your adult children, don’t expect the to still be thriving next time you visit!

To make sure to rehang the shed door if it drops on its hinges, I had a wasps nest because they got in through the gap at the top.
To keep fence paint in store, as this year it’s been so difficult to get hold of the same colour and brand I used previously due to lockdown.
What a wonderful invention cordless hedge trimmers are, wish I’d bought one years ago!

To Iam64 I find that beer put out in shallow saucers attracts slugs - they drown with a little smile on their slimy little faces. Fling their corpses to the back of the border and replenish - keep some back for yourself though.

What lovely posts, I must admit reading them has made me cry. Thank you all for the humour and the great tips. Long may our gardens grow.

Only water pots daily. Grass and borders are better watered really thoroughly once a week as you want to discourage surface rooting.
Fellow gardeners are generous people. Get chatting with people with lovely gardens and before you know it you will be exchanging plants.
Remove weeds and diseased material and bin. Do not compost.
Buy hormone rooting powder and save clear plastic bags for cuttings. Water pot with cuttings in then place in plastic bag. Having its own little greenhouse hugely multiplies your success. When they show signs they have rooted gradually open the bag. I blow into mine before tying.

Due to difficulty getting plants at the start of lockdown, I rummaged through old packets of free seeds I had accumulated from magazines and sewed them - some in trays in the greenhouse, others directly into the garden. I now have dozens of cheap plants giving a riot of colour in my garden. I set Rudbeckia, Nicotiana, Godetia, Sunflowers, Cosmos, Cornflowers, Marigolds - all things I probably wouldn't have chosen myself, but they are fabulous.

Next year in going to grow my own Dahlias, Lobelia, Vanilla Marigolds, Rudbeckia and many others in the varieties I like best and save a huge amount on buying plants, which I would normally have done.

So that's the main thing I've learned this year - how to save money!

Iam64 you can buy slug pellets without metaldeyde that are animal safe.
I’ve learnt
1.if you have a mini greenhouse, weight the base with bricks or the wind can catch it, deposit all seedlings on the ground and patient labelling is muddled
2. Be careful what you wish for, one, just one courgette from three plants this year, previous years inundated
3. Borage and sunflowers are very efficient self seeders, not a problem as insects love borage, but scuppered some veg seedlings
4. Debris netting stops cabbage whites, totally
5. Pumpkin plants take over the garden
6. Growing veg is a constant tussle between pests and the weather
7. Every year, the pleasure in eating or giving away home grown veg is a moment of bliss and satisfaction

I've found colour descriptions difficult. flowers that are described as 'Blue' turn out to be various shades of purple.
I planted 'Italian white' sunflowers which grew a pale lemon, and Vanilla Ice marigolds are also pale lemon.

The rain we are having and had a couple of days ago has certainly been enough, but yes, we have had to water a lot

1 One or two courgette plants are enough
2 Lick a bit off the end of a courgette - if it tastes bitter then it
could be a toxic hybrid (learnt from another gransnetter).
You only need to try one per plant.
3 one cucumber plant is plenty
4 Yes, I can grow lettuce but cover them because the pigeons
like to peck them
5 Ericaceous compost is rubbish
6 Manure is wonderful stuff
7 Never buy seeds again from a firm beginning with F
8 I may need a bigger freezer

~^Never to leave soap in my shed (allotment) because rats steal it^

I never knew that. How astonishing! Do you think they've been listening to the advice about washing your paws MellowYellow?

If you weed thoroughly in spring and plant densely, there's no room for weeds - or if they do fight through, they don't show.

Plant spring bulbs around the outside of herbaceous plants. Then you know where the herbaceous plants which vanish completely in winter/spring are lurking, and where all those crocus and mini daffs are hiding in summer/autumn so you don't keep digging them up. Not too close mind or they all get incestuous.

lovebeighcardigans - Thanks, we did try the beer trick a few years ago. Sadly, we found only the baby slugs drowned, the big ones climbed out and continued to shred the Hosta. Mr I reckoned that they drank a skin full and went home to cause mayhem.
JaxJacky -thanks, I'll find some

If you weed thoroughly in spring and plant densely, there's no room for weeds - or if they do fight through, they don't show.

NfkD I remember visiting an acquaintance with a lovely garden many years ago; she had a very large herbaceous border and I said "that must take some weeding"! She said she did it once a year before everything started growing.
The problem here, however, is bindweed, it is a real nuisance.

Ah, Callistemon, you have my sympathy. With bindweed, you're b*****ed!

I was struggling with bindweed this morning.
Migrated in on a plant given to me a long time ago, but now resident.

I've seen a tip on here, cut the top and bottom off a plastic bottle, place around plant and squirt in weed killer.
It's worth a try.

Callistemon. Try training the bindweed up canes (anti clockwise) let it grow then when you have a large number of leaves poke a hole in the bottom of a tall garbage bag and feed the bag over the cane. Close off the bottom of the bag. (I usually just twist it or if there are plants underneath a clothes peg will hold it. The bindweed is now enclosed and you can spray it with systemic weed killer without any spray drifting on to nearby plants.
I normally keep the bag on the cane for a few days, spraying each day. Remove the bag and the weed killer will gradually be taken down to the roots and kill the weed without harming the soil.
Right now I am doing this with ground elder (the bag, not the cane ?). Good luck.

Thank you EsspeeI will try that, really dislike using weedkiller but it wraps itself round a lot of my plants.

This week I started cropping from my two hanging basket cherry tomatoes £4 each from Asda. And as I live in the North didn't even have benefit of any heat wave.
Cut up a couple of sprouting potatoes and planted into 3 large tubs. Enough to harvest soon.
Planted some scallion roots into a pot and within two weeks was cutting from them.
Great to do this on a patio, no grass or soil available. But do have varied sun/shade from 3 mature Apple trees. (Apple butter is delicious).
Beans and sweet pea are currently growing up though the climbing roses (in very big pots) that are past their seasonal best.

I have a jar of apple butter in the cupboard which I made in 2015. Should I eat it?

This is what I have learned:
1 - I hate bindweed! New garden, new weed. It is even growing in the lawn
2 - 3 courgettes are 2 too many
2 - peas are a waste of time
Good thread!

And I can’t count!

I am what you might describe as an accidental gardener. I mostly plant haphazardly, things I like the look of and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t . My theme is “if there’s a space, fill it” but I live very close to the North Sea and the cold salty air does take its toll .

We get a lot of rain here but it very rarely gets right into the pots and baskets so I still have to water.