Topic: GMG Green Thumb Club

[Szykneij]

Another thing that's helpful, I found, is to have a fan blowing on the seedlings when they're inside. It helps avoid fungus and strengthens the stems.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Another thing that's helpful, I found, is to have a fan blowing on the seedlings when they're inside. It helps avoid fungus and strengthens the stems.

Yep!  Good point! 

Besides snow drops now being open, I went outside today to see my small (botanical) crocuses up and in bloom...yeah!  Need to start raking soon!

PD

[Irons]

Watching too many YT allotment channels but they are most informative and you can pick up some good ideas. The latest is line the inside of a cold frame with silver foil with the aim of making the maximum use of available light. Simple, costs next to nothing and works.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

Watching too many YT allotment channels but they are most informative and you can pick up some good ideas. The latest is line the inside of a cold frame with silver foil with the aim of making the maximum use of available light. Simple, costs next to nothing and works.

Interesting.  Would you mind posting a link to one of those?  Curious as to what they are doing.

PD

[Irons]

Interesting.  Would you mind posting a link to one of those?  Curious as to what they are doing.

PD

I think you will find this of interest, PD.

https://youtu.be/m_Sf1c3wg7o

[Herman]

I am currently impatiently waiting for a rose bush to show signs of life.

My girlfriend saved this white rose from perdition, when her ex (divorced nine years ago) restructured his back yard last month. It was her favorite. So I offered to give it another lease on life and put it in a nice big terracotta container hoping it will be happy at my place.

[Mandryka]

I am currently impatiently waiting for a rose bush to show signs of life.

My girlfriend saved this white rose from perdition, when her ex (divorced nine years ago) restructured his back yard last month. It was her favorite. So I offered to give it another lease on life and put it in a nice big terracotta container hoping it will be happy at my place.

London must be warmer than Amsterdam, mine are full of shoots ready to burst forth. You know this poem, obvs. That force that Dylan Thomas talks about is exactly what you perceive, sense, when you see the shoots.

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The jobs are mostly cutting. I cut some Cotinus down to the ground today because it makes them produce giant foliage, and it left a sticky sap on my hands which smelt nice, but the smell was unwanted, and was hard to wash off. I knew it would do this but was too lazy to find gloves.

A cold snap, down to -3 or less, a few weeks ago ravaged some Teucrium and some Rosemary. Some leaves look alive and as they say, where there's green there's hope.

Thanks to a conversation here last year I'm going to try some bronze fennel in a huge container. I have the plants and they are happy.

[Herman]

London must be warmer than Amsterdam, mine are full of shoots ready to burst forth. You know this poem, obvs. That force that Dylan Thomas talks about is exactly what you perceive, sense, when you see the shoots.

The temperatures between London and The Hague are not that different. I see red shoots in lucky rose bushes, too. I think it's just that this rose bush we saved needs to pretty much to start from scratch, under and above ground.

If my girlfriend's white rose is dead, demised and has ceased to be, I'll get her another one.

[Mandryka]

If my girlfriend's white rose is dead, demised and has ceased to be, I'll get her another one.

Not Madame Hardy -- in case she knows this

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

[Szykneij]

The weather was terrific today, so I took the opportunity to spread some topsoil and assess the rabbit damage that occurred over the winter. I never had a problem with rabbits before, so I didn't prepare properly and several small trees were completely girdled and will be lost. The creatures also did some interesting topiary work on a few of my evergreens by eating off all of the lower branches. This Norway Spruce should survive, but I'm not sure of what its eventual shape will be.

[Pohjolas Daughter]

The weather was terrific today, so I took the opportunity to spread some topsoil and assess the rabbit damage that occurred over the winter. I never had a problem with rabbits before, so I didn't prepare properly and several small trees were completely girdled and will be lost. The creatures also did some interesting topiary work on a few of my evergreens by eating off all of the lower branches. This Norway Spruce should survive, but I'm not sure of what its eventual shape will be.

Oh dear!  So sorry to hear that!  Besides the one in your pot there, did you buy and plant the others?  That could smart moneybelt-wise.    I wish that I had more space to plant tall-growing trees.  I like having a pretty sunny yard though, so there are compromises to be made.  I wonder if perhaps you were able to keep rabbits at bay for a while longer, whether or not lower branches might still grow?  Hard part though, I suspect that they won't catch up to the more mature branches above unless you did some pruning.  Even then....  Like you, wondering what it will look like in the end?  Depending upon where you wanted it to end up, you might want to start again?  Good question for a nursery!  Let us know how it goes too. 

PD

[Szykneij]

On the weather thread, the subject of bees came up. Today, I saw our first bumblebee of the season and activity has started at the bug hotels.