Awful weather - typical Brits talk

YoungBlueEyes

Scorchio here. Thank god I was up showered and out early doors before the heat arrived Nipped out to Morrie's for petrol (the station we have in town is wildly expensive - I think they use bingo numbers for prices ) and discovered the supermarket was open so I did food shop there. Gawd but I paid for the privilege! So I swung round not-my-usual Lidl on the way home to check for bargains to offset Morrie's prices. Ended up with more plants because they were only cheap , and even cheaper at the till  

So if anyone's in need of an £8.99 hydrangea for £4.99 or some £3.99 "assorted perennials" for £2.49, get on it!

YoungBlueEyes

Here’s my (very restrained!) haul - 

Good luck to anyone going out this aft 

Farway

YBE, I love coreopsis but never managed to grow it, best of luck with it. And gypsophila takes me right back to my grandad's garden in the 1950s. For some reason, the front garden was full of it, but I never saw it being used

YoungBlueEyes

Aww I hope I haven't picked something difficult I only picked them for their names - Teeny Deep Rose, Teeny White, Early Sunrise... too hard to resist ha haa!

What would gypsophila be used for...?

I'll take pictures of the coreopsis every week so you can have your fix, how's that   

YoungBlueEyes

Jeez that's some tree taff, your skyline is gonna look odd now eh! I have mare's tail here too - what do you do about yours?

Edit - and is it successful?

twopenny

Gysophy-whasit is used in cut flower displays.
Hydrangeas are great. They can survive almost anything..good cut flowers, dry flowers for winter,  water in drought.
Cloud cover, breeze dropped and it's boiling!

YoungBlueEyes

Ahh baby's breath (?) Mine is only little so I didn't associate it cos bb is tall..

Not a cloud in sight, breeze struggling, boiling. I've had enough of it frankly.

ArbitraryRandom

You might recognise gypsophila if we call it baby's breath? 

It's mostly used in flowers like 2p says, but IIRC it's also edible (flowers and leaves) - but check that before scoffing down would you

-taff

@YoungBlueEyes my skyline now reminds me of Greek islands with non stop sun, wind, and all it's lacking is a pool The only tree I can see now is my bay tree.

Mares tail...Yes, quite successful but it depends on your approach. I haven't used a weedkiller for about 15 years, so my approach went down the control route. At the back is a large rectangle of concrete edging with earth in the middle. That's full of it, and we will be using that to make a Goth Box 2.0 [outdoor shelter] so I took all the gravel off it, sieved the gravel, used the big bits in various bits of the garden and the front garden, retained the smaller sandy stuff, removed what attempts the previous owners had made to put down a weed suppresant [ builders yellow plastic bags], recovered with a heavy duty tarp, put the sandy stuff back on top and raked flat. The odd bit pops up that I pull out. The cats are currently using it as a dust bath/giant litter tray

In the veg bed area, I dug over a 4m by 1m bed to a spades depth [but really a beautiful old -sharp as a pin- forks depth], removed the bindweed roots and what mares tail roots I could see. Covered with cardboard and wet newspaper, built a type of lasagne bed but backfilled on top of the newspaper with what I'd dug out. The odd bit of both pop up in there too, so I stick my trowel in as close to it as possible and as deep as possible and rock it until I feel the root snap, pull it out...

I'm quite happy with the effort needed to contain it now, which isn't an awful lot and I just mow what there is in the grass and put that in the green bin.

Hope you were prepared for an essay

YoungBlueEyes

We must have been typing at the same time Arb, yeah I thought it was Baby’s Breath

Thanks for the info taff, not something I can do tho cos mine is all down one side of my grass I did find another stalk across the other side but I diggery-pokery’d the root up (as far as I could), it was SO satisfying! 

I’ve put systemic weedkiller on it but it’s hardly slowing it down, the new stalks I’m pulling up in the mornings. If we get any dew/fog overnight it settles on the tails differently so they stand out. I’ll keep going….