Groeswenphil's Inbox

You should send him on one of those round the world trips, will cheer him up a little.

like this, looks a bit solitary though!!

You have a nice collection of reds in this area of your garden, lovely.

Gr8 picture :-)

What a view!!!!

Looks like you had a great time- love the way the traditional culture remains central to us, and what we do !!

Sounds like you all had a great time

Wonderful....The costumes look superb as well.Its lovely that your group is keeping our traditional customs alive.Well done, and glad you had a great time.
Best wishes,
Grenville and Alan.

What fun! I love watching the Morris Men.

lol good answer

now that sounds like a great evening

how did you train them to stay in your garden lol

fantastic view.

Hi Phil nice to see you able to communicate without trying to send dubious video files.never did get to see it did it end happily? My recommendation would be to to buy the best you can afford. With the strongest motor the most blades Electric shredders fine for privet but I ve always needed to shred much thicker stems and sure you will in future.My shed littered with cheap gardening equipment.In my experience buy cheap buy several times.

I've brought one this year again mainly for hedging cuttings - I looked all around and was amazed at the cost - the most reasonable was one from Wickes £59 where as even Argos was into the £139... range. It seems to work fine with thick rose stems.

i saw a hedge trimmer on qvc earlier that looked ideal - it shreds as it trims and collects all the bits into an attached container or bag.
it is called "Garden Groom Multifunctional 500w Hedge Trimmer with Collection Container" if you look on qvc website for this item there is a demo you can watch

I would certainly recommend using a shredder. Our two gardens are edged primarily by hedges: beech, hazel, privet, leylandii, holly. The alternatives to shredding would be the municipal composter or burning, what a waste!
I prefer to shred almost all our clippings, some are reserved for protecting plants ( pyracantha and holly are useful here) and some for supporting ( peas, lanky perennials and sweet peas until they can scrabble up the supports) but the rest is used as mulch or composted at home.
As for which shredder, I wouldn't like to advise. We bought two, one for each garden, both through Ebay. No doubt 'Which' have done a report on shredders, a browse through that may be useful, and temper some personal recommendations.
May I wish you Happy Shredding :-)

he is so cute...........................

I agree with Tammielee :-)

Tammielee, have a look at my blog on Wassailing back in January and you will see some real Morris Dancers in action! We do have strange customs in Brit-land, don't we!

Sounds like you have a great idea. Get working on it! (now I am off to Google Morris Dancers)

hi
watched gardeners world last week and monty don said it was a good time to start splitting bulbs of dafs that are fading - so maybe it applies to tulipts too? he said you could spread bulbs around garden to get an even better display next year ?

Shame on them

lol i would love to be there if someone was trying to explain morris dancing . guess you will just have to make them yourself

Love your ickle friend

One extra point about leaving them in pots - if they get too wet, they are liable to rot as the compost cannot drain as easily as if they were deep in the gound. We also tend to plant them more shallow - ly in pots than they would be in the garden soil. Don't be too disappointed with next year's show, but it's worth a try if you don't need the pots for different plants during the summer.

In theory, yes. Spritzhenry's point about commercial bulbs not doing so well in following years still stands.

Once the leaves have died, you can forget about the pots until spring.

Interesting aside - spring bulbs developed to occupy the ground below deciduous trees. They leaf and flower early because later in the season, the tree will leaf, and leave the area in shade - so they need to get their sunlight before then.

So, they grow when there's little light, by using energy stored in the bulb, then collect energy by photosynthesising spring sunlight, developing new energy resources in the bulb, then die back in summer, when the tree steals all the light... and repeat the cycle the following year.

Of course our ornamental flowers are artificially bred, so not everything works exactly as in nature -- but if you want to leave bulbs in the ground for a perennial display, it makes sense to simulate their natural habitat -- after the flowers die, keep feeding them and do not cut back the leaves, because this is the crucial stage where the bulb is being 'charged' for next year. It's not a pretty stage though - which might be a reason to buy fresh bulbs next year instead.

When they finish flowering, break off the heads, let them die down naturally - but keep watering and feeding - until the leaves are dead. Then lift them and store in a cool dry place until planting time. Tulips are bulbs that deteriorate and don't do so well in subsequent years. Most people just buy new ones each year and maybe plant the old ones in a corner of the garden for a bit of colour.

Sorry Phil this link doesnt appear to work so there are no photos to see.