GreenFly - A 'flylady style' gardening thread with weekly tasks to tame your garden

Cherryfudge

You've reminded me I need to drain them before the water starts to do damage!

Story: when I was student a friend saw me buying an African Violet in extreme need of care and said she was too embarrassed to be near me. I had fun bringing it back to life.  

PS. Just checked and every plant has perked up. There's actually quite a lot of good foliage on the astilbes but I've never grown them before - any tips please?

SuzeQStan

Astilbes spread but play nicely with others at least in my garden - I’ve got them in shade most of the day and they seem to be happy enough. Will have to remember to divide them this autumn as flowering isn’t a vigorous as usual.

Cherryfudge

SuzeQStan said:

Astilbes spread but play nicely with others at least in my garden - I’ve got them in shade most of the day and they seem to be happy enough. Will have to remember to divide them this autumn as flowering isn’t a vigorous as usual.

I haven't found a place for mine yet but both are thriving and I'm pleased to say they have different greens in their leaves so I'm hoping I have more than one colour of flower to look forward to. I'm glad yours tolerate partial shade, as that gives me more scope for placing them. The house shadow limits how I can use one half of the garden, and moving the house isn't an option.  

In less good news, the ground elder is back, in the form of a trillion tiny leaves. I've spent about 45 minutes reducing the evidence today, and it does look a bit better. I also found three ragworts, newly sprouted. I've read that the seeds can stay dormant for 40 years, so I'm glad I spotted and got rid of those. The rain seems to have kick-started everything! And again - the plantain has now appeared on the side of the house that had hitherto been free of it. I'm thinking seriously about systemic weedkiller now, much as I hate the though of it.  

SuzeQStan

So sorry to hear about the ground elder Cherry 😔 - can relate as I had to take the horrible action of putting down a weed membrane in my largest garden bed 2x grow seasons ago to fight an aggressive Japanese anemone and its underground rhizomes. prior to that I would find myself pulling anything up to 100 seedlings per day which is a PITA.

happy to report appear to be winning this fight - can count anemone seedlings on one hand that I find every couple of weeks. And they are sickly looking and don’t come back once pulled. So am hopeful to remove the membrane after next season.

I have heard that cardboard can do a god job of beating back weeds - don’t know if that might be an option for your ground elder? Probably better than membrane for wildlife too I would imagine. 

maddiemay

I hope you don't mind me chipping in, Astilbes generally do well for me here in my partially tree shaded borders as they are happy in partial shade and tolerate near full shade. I have an area which will need replanting after the incessant heat and sun, Astilbes will be on the list.

Cherryfudge

SuzeQStan said:

I have heard that cardboard can do a god job of beating back weeds - don’t know if that might be an option for your ground elder? Probably better than membrane for wildlife too I would imagine. 

You've reminded me - I had a cardboard box ready to use as a mulch! I was in a big hurry prior to a visitor arriving, so I just shoved pots of plants over the area and now there's a certain amount of regrowth, but if I move the pots, fight back the weeds yet again (surely I've got all the roots by now? Or are they turbo charged?) I can start to cover the ground with card. Where DH used tarpaulin a few months ago it really slowed them down, but I'd rather have something that will eventually degrade. So I'm glad you said that, thanks!

maddiemay said:

I hope you don't mind me chipping in, Astilbes generally do well for me here in my partially tree shaded borders as they are happy in partial shade and tolerate near full shade. I have an area which will need replanting after the incessant heat and sun, Astilbes will be on the list.

I love my trees so I have quite a lot of partial shade - perhaps I need to go back to the shop tomorrow and see if they still have some freebie plants to give away!

Cherryfudge

About another half hour of battling the ground elder over the past couple of days. At present I'm trying to shovel gravel from a small path into a bag (found blowing away from a building site: they have something heavy duty delivered in them so I rescued it rather than waste it or let it blow into the traffic). Anyway, the gravel is laborious to capture but under it are roots of GE, so up comes the gravel. There's a lot of new foliage too, so I need to press on with it.

We've started to harvest the blackberries. Not much freezer space but I'll encourage DH to add them to his daily tin of fruit rather than attempt to freeze the lot. I could make jam, but DH would get through it in a week.