Yet Another Cycling Forum
Random Musings => Miscellany => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Mrs Pingu on 19 September, 2021, 07:03:41 pm
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(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51493858965_8372936ba7.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mskufz)2021-09-19_06-46-51 (https://flic.kr/p/2mskufz) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
This is our front garden. I would like to put in a solid path diagonally from the driveway on the left by the street to the front door on the right (so I can go for a walk in the morning without all the neighbours knowing about it), but mainly I would like to make it a bit more green & wildlife friendly.
I would like to put in a hedge where that mini fence is so that I don't have to see so much of my neighbours tarmac and giant orange SUV, but nothing too big or thuggish (same height as the one on the street would be fine).
I thought about laying turf where there is currently chuckies (and the empty bed in the middle) but it's on a slight slope so not sure how ideal that is, or if it's worth the hassle of mowing such a small area.
I then thought about getting https://www.beebombs.com/ (https://www.beebombs.com/) but they need full sun and this is a north facing garden. :(
Any suggestions appreciated, bearing in mind we're in the North of Scotland...
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Try Scotia Seeds for some wildflower mixes, suitable for north of Scotland. https://www.scotiaseeds.co.uk/
Bee bombs seems like an overpriced gimmick. I'm sure you could get better results by preparing the ground, then sowing the seeds properly.
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A bit of shelter for the increasing number of urban haggises?
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Chuckies was a new one on me, even though I worked in the Banff area one summer. I guess it's new since the '60s. Was tickled to see that the first vendor Google threw up was in the Moray area.
Anyway, buddleia might be an idea for one side of your path: it's great for bees & butterflies. Give it plenty of room, though, because when it's laden with snow or heavy with rain it likes nothing better than to share. You could also plant it close to your low fence so that it hides the thuggish SUV and dollops snow down the backs of their necks. You might have to keep an eye on any overhang to the neighbours' side, though, but there's compensation in the thought that when it's full of things with stings and humming like an engine-room they'll have to push close to it to get into the orange monster.
In Norn Iron, too, my mum had a broom bush that she loved, though the neighbours thought her a bit potty since it grows wild. She was a bit potty, come to that. One day she opened the curtains to find a soldier lying flat halfway under it and pointing a gun at a house across the road... different anecdotage, that.
This bunch might give you a few ideas: https://highlandliliums.co.uk
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The current gravel could stay and you could get a selection of terracotta containers and plant them up with herbs. The woud benefit from the good drainage the gravel affords and you'd have fresh herbs on your doorstep. Marjoram and rosemary do well in the UK and don't need full sun. You could bake rosemary bread. You could also make marjoram tomato sauce. That's what I like to do anyway.
You can also get decorative rosemary which will grow into fragrant evergreen shrubs.
Lavendar is a nice plant in a front yard and can be appealing to bees. Then you could clip lavendar sprigs and bring them inside, if you like the fragrance.
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I'm not short of rosemary, I just half filled the garden waste bin with a rosemary bush which was out of control! Additionally in the back garden we have mint, thyme, oregano, purple sage, marjoram, lavender... I think that's all the herbs...
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I'm not short of rosemary, I just half filled the garden waste bin with a rosemary bush which was out of control! Additionally in the back garden we have mint, thyme, oregano, purple sage, marjoram, lavender... I think that's all the herbs...
Well you forgot Dill the dog, Parsley the lion, Bayleaf the gardener to name but a few ;D
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I'm a rather fat feathery owl called Sage.
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We have Bayleaf. We don't have lion that mistakes a hosepipe for a snake thobut.
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I had a friend/acquaintance/idol once who was one of the best qualified beekeepers ever. She kept beehives in her back garden and grew gooseberries in her front garden.
In deepest, darkest Thorpe bay.
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This evening I Google Lensed most of the plants in the front garden, which seem to be:
Berberis
Juniper (mmm)
Juniper haircap moss
English yew (maybe?)
And some sort of Heath or heather or crowberry (p'raps)
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Heather is good for the haggises.
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You're obsessed. And shouldn't it be haggi? Or just haggis plural?
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That’s a good question. Haggae?
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Sarcococca confusa (Christmas Box) would be ideal for that low hedge. The scent in winter is outstanding, and it's pretty low maintenance.
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Sarcococca confusa (Christmas Box) would be ideal for that low hedge. The scent in winter is outstanding, and it's pretty low maintenance.
Thanks Ruthie, interesting. My 'Garden Plants for Scotland' book deems it acceptable. What sort of smell is it?
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That’s a good question. Haggae?
Hagges
as in axis, axes...
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I went out and measured for my sarcococca confusa hedge today, 3.5m long to buy plants and dig a trench for soon.
And on the list for planting next year after consultation with my book are foxgloves, astrantia and maybe also inula (still all in the north facing garden).
I've got a big long list for the south facing back garden now:
Lupins, common bistort, goatsbeard/aruncula/astilbe, perovskia, echinacea, red hot poker, maybe a sedum.
And then to decide what to plant for a small manageable wildlife hedge where the leylandii used to be, next year.
Need some rhubarb too. I've been dreaming about having my very own rhubarb for years.
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My mum used to make rhubarb & ginger jam. She used powdered ginger, but it'd be much better with root.
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I have never made jam. I probably saw my mum do it when I was small but can remember nothing useful.
Anyway, my sarcococca confusas have arrived. I was hoping they were going to come last week when it was a bit warmer, but they did not. So I'll be having a 2 hour lunch break digging a trench and attempting to plant them tomorrow before they die of shock.
I probably need to be buying a rhubarb crown and planting it soon, don't I?
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I have never made jam. I probably saw my mum do it when I was small but can remember nothing useful.
I saw my mum making jam when I was small and decided it was far too sticky to want anything to do with. :hand:
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I have an incredibly vivid memory of making jam by candlelight (on the gas cooker) with my grandad during a power cut due to an impressively big storm. It was the summer after we first moved to Pocklington, I reckon. 1981? He'd have been well into his 80s by then. Strawberry, not rhubarb though. We'd all gone out strawberry picking in the morning, and there wasn't enough room for us all in the car so Granny and mum cycled there and after a gloriously sunny morning of picking and eating fruit - back in the torrential downpour that started as we were leaving. The house,which my parents bought as a serious fixer-upper, was in the middle of being re-roofed at the time and much of it had only felt, no slates on and we discovered the wet way that the roofer had dropped something through the felt and made a hole in it.
Yes, jam making (especially with an 8yo involved) was quite sticky. And grandad also made excellent raspberry, marrow and ginger, and rhubarb jam :)
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Emergency lunchtime hedge planting
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51702188923_dda7558c5e_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mLKeup)2021-11-24_02-04-39 (https://flic.kr/p/2mLKeup) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
They've got flowers on already, even though they are weeny
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51702582954_2cb071e213_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mLMfC3)2021-11-24_02-05-02 (https://flic.kr/p/2mLMfC3) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
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I have never made jam. I probably saw my mum do it when I was small but can remember nothing useful.
I saw my mum making jam when I was small and decided it was far too sticky to want anything to do with. :hand:
My Lazy Idiot's microwave jam is what you need.
Into Pyrex casserole put equal weights of jam sugar and any fruit. Add no water. Put in a little lemon juice if it makes you happy.
Microwave on full till jammy, stirring occasionally and stopping the oven/reducing power to prevent boiling over.
That's it!
Boiling sugar is HOT!
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I have never made jam. I probably saw my mum do it when I was small but can remember nothing useful.
Anyway, my sarcococca confusas have arrived. I was hoping they were going to come last week when it was a bit warmer, but they did not. So I'll be having a 2 hour lunch break digging a trench and attempting to plant them tomorrow before they die of shock.
I probably need to be buying a rhubarb crown and planting it soon, don't I?
Rhubarb's not that fussy, you can plant in spring as long as you keep it damp, go for one of the darker, damper corners of the garden
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Thread rebooting.
The sarcococa box hedge is almost as weeny as it was in the pictures up thread. The area in the middle has been planted up with foxgloves, inula and some geranium for ground cover. I might poke some bits of creeping thyme randomly in the chuckies next year for a laugh.
The hedge still has that chunk out of the top left of it for some reason but it's covered in nice red berries at the moment. (Bits of it anyway, seems to be a mixture of plant types in there).
I did plant a rhubarb plant in the back garden and carefully didn't harvest it.