Hoya105's Outbox

i think he's/she's a guardian of the garden!

It needs to be just wood ash - no coal residue etc! It contains potash - so is particularly good for flowering and fruiting plants. If you have fruit trees/bushes etc - scatter it generously around the roots - preferably in about march/april - just as they are about to make flowers. We always hoard our woodash through the winter - keeping it dry - then treat all our fruit plants!

There's the gardens at Ballymaloe Cookery School, Shanagarry - flowers and food! Rossdohan Island with tree ferns etc, Glebe Organic Gardens (http://www.glebegardens.com/location.html) Fota Gardens and Arboretum, 9 miles east of Cork (http://www.heritageireland.ie/en/ParksandGardens/South/FotaArboretumandGardensCork/) Lakemount Gardens (by appointment) 5 miles east of cork (http://www.lakemountgarden.com/) local tourist office should have opening times etc - have a great time!

It may also be too rampant - but tangutica is excellent - lush flowers and lovely seedheads too!

i have a cat just like this one too!

I have one in my garden (Devon) and it is growing well - about 8 ft but no flowers yet - roll on spring!

I think they are supposed to be sited a few feet off the ground and not facing north. If you have any nettles in or beside your garden it would be good to put the house nearby as they often lay their eggs on nettles.

It will get very big eventually - so best not to plant it out. You can decorate and bring it in for a few days over christmas, but ensure it doesn't get too warm - maybe a hallway, then put it out again to recover! If you feed ( get a feed suitable for pines) and water regularly you can keep it in pots - changing up a size each year or two, for many years - but eventually you may have to find a nice country spot to plant it out! So your daughter will have quite a few christmas' out of it!

Many thanks!

Many thanks!

Try and get plants from a nursery rather than garden centre - you will get more info and more choice. There's the South Devon Chili Farm down this way - i don't know where you are but they might post. I've had some great - and hot ones from them! Try Aji Lemon, bright yellow - devilishly hot - but calms down once its pickled. Or Twilight - a lovely small bushy plant with fruits in red, orange and purple, tiny but very powerful, this is an easy one to overwinter, keep above 5 degrees, and give it a good prune. Good luck!

and... - your local recycling centre might have cheap boards, old windows to use as a cloche, and even a nice seat (i got one there with a trunk underneath for tools!) or try www.freecycle.org .....

Make sure that you build the beds the right width - so you can reach the middle easily from both sides. Also ensure they are deep enough to add compost/manure/mulches etc yearly. And make the paths between them wide enough to take a wheelbarrow and to kneel comfortably, and have a water butt or tap nearby, and a compost heap near, and space for a comfy seat so you can view the fruits of your labours, and... and....

if the roots have filled the pot - i would pot it on into a slightly bigger pot, and give it a nitrogen feed once a month. I don't know what it is tho'!

you could try giving it a weak feed - of a nitrogen based fertiliser, any one that's for leafy plants.

I used to teach the RHS Level 2 (formerly 'general') and thought it was a very good grouding in horticulture - it packs an awful lot in in just a year (2 years in some areas) and has 2 exams - so you have to be quite dedicated and willing to put some time in for study and practice. But it is very wide-ranging and gives you a useful qualification. It teaches you much of the science behind plant growth as well as the practicalities of growing, pruning and tending plants. Go for it!

I don't see a need for peat composts in the garden - if making a raised bed the council compost and rotted manure and your own garden compost would be just as good. Peat has no goodness or fertility in it - it just has a good structure - which is why it is so useful for us growing plants in pots and seedtrays - if we can cut down on pot-grown plants by having a seedbed outdoors, using cloches etc and not having so many baskets etc (unless peat-reduced!) we could cut down our peat use. The other use for it is too 'acidify' the ground by adding it to enable us to grow ericacious plants when our soil is not ideal - azaleas etc (i too am guilty of this!) but we could just grow plants that suit our soil - and appreciate the others when we visit friends gardens! I still use a 50:50 mix of peat compost and loam for any pot plants - i don't see it as environmentally better to use coir etc - it is just nicking a resource from a poorer country for our hobbies! Peat is very good as a base for composts etc - but we can and should try and limit our use of it - so no more azaleas for me then!!!!

Then keep on mulching your veg/fruit with grass cuttings, compost, leaf mould - even hair (free from hairdressers!) and this will all help build up the soil - and keep the weeds down!

Prune them back hard - to whatever space you have, then put them in greenhouse/tunnel/conservatory and try to keep frost free. I keep mine above 3 degrees mostly! Keep them dry throughout winter and in april start watering/feeding with nitrogen feed, pot into new compost - in bigger pot when you get them out in may, then feed and water like crazy all season - then you get hundreds of flowers!! Lots of hassle - but so worth it! and take lotsa cuttings cos everyone wants one!!

there's also Leonotis leonurus - which is 'Lion's Ear' - a borderline in hardiness perennial, 3-5 ft tall with lovely velvety orange flowers in late summer. Roses 'Rainbow Magic' and Yellow Dream' could be good. Fuchsia 'Little Witch' or 'Dorothy' or Bergenia 'The Wiz'.

Its a type of Verbena - looked like aa annual - but i don't know which one - it obviously has stood up to the weather well!

Thanks! but i just spied the rogue evening primroses that sneaked in when i wasn't looking!

You have certainly packed in the plants -it looks brilliant and i will try and visit next summer - I open for the NGS too.

What is the paving?

A very inspiring way of getting kids interested in how food and other plants grow and the processes involved!

lovely poppies

What a nice wide pergola - usually they are far too narrow!

I love preserving - and even bought a dehydrator last year to dry apple rings, raspberries, strawberries and courgettes for winter use! Most of my mulberries go into kilner jars with a little sugar and topped off with vodka or gin. Shaken once a week -after 2-3 months I decant the liqueor off into bottles - good christmas presents, then I have to eat all the fruit up - hic! Good way of getting vitamins in the winter - at the slightest sniffle - a tot of mulberry gin and hot water does the job! I make lots of chutneys too, and crab-apple jelly, and grow a few different varieties of chilies which i freeze, pickle or make extra hot chutney with!

Rydal Hall is now a Christian conference and retreat centre with a lovely cafe! The terrace was designed by Thomas Mawson and the waterfall viewed from a summerhouse was an inspiration for the start of the 'picturesque' movement. More work needed but much to see and admire - next door to Wordsworth's house!

One of our oldest gardens and one of the best! Stunning topiary, wonderful use of colour, great veg/fruit gardens, colourful, interesting and historic all at once!