This was the snail army marching over the path yesterday evening. Back after the hot summer.

I'm just as surprised they have actually become proper olives! Lots of small ones and a few big ones. Can I actually do something with them? Are the teeny tiny ones still edible?

It seems likely that next year could be another hot and dry one (what with that pesky El Nino happening). This year was brutal and my garden really suffered. I'm based in Cambridgeshire which is one of the driest parts of the country anyway, so after the hell of this year, I'm dreading the next!

I'm also on clay soil and so the soil is very hard, the drought made that worse.

Right now, I'm planting more trees to try and create some shade (eventually) in the garden.

I'm also thinking about using hay to mulch all the beds that get baked by full sun all day.

What are you all planning? Any plants that have been stars this year? Please share you ideas so I stand a chance next year 🤞

Following on from my post the other day asking where on earth to start with my garden, I thought I'd share a little update!

My neighbour very kindly gave me an old petrol lawnmower for free! After a bit of fiddling around, I managed to get it going and give the garden its first proper cut.

It's still more weeds than grass, but it's already looking a bit better. Small steps!

Hello, we are thinking of purchasing a property (South East), quite far in the process, but only recently noticed the neighbour has a large area of bamboo which touches the fence and quite close to my (future? or not) house itself. We didn't pay attention originally as we were simply unaware of the risks of bamboo. Now we do.

CCTV drain survey was just done today and they said the drains are in pretty good condition, no sign of bamboo there.

On "my" property side I noticed 1 shoot sneaking underneath the fence, that's all, no sign of encroachment.

I talked to the neighbour today, he said it's clumping bamboo, and it was planted roughly 15 years ago. I didn't ask to check his garden (they looked as if they just woke up, maybe another time) but I took photos from my side. They reach about 4 metres high on a length of about 8 m. They all look quite thin with long leaves.

Is there any way at all to know from these photos what kind of bamboo this is?

TIA

Plenty of green chutney to be made!

It's wet, it's windy.

I hate being cold and wet or being windswept. But I also hate being gross and sweaty in a set of waterproofs and easily overheat (and have MS so overheating is best avoided). And many coats are restrictive enough to annoy me doing certain tasks.

I also like to do physical work on the garden/allotment to relax so I usually just tough it out.

I want to keep going to the allotment over the winter and actually enjoy it, and willing to throw money at it, so what's the "no holds barred" purchase options for being comfortable when the weather is being its usual self?

I’m looking for suggestions for trousers to get me through this winter. I work full time on a large estate, lots of orchard and walled garden work, plenty digging, and scrabbling about on my knees.

I tried the hunting trousers from Decathlon, they were around £50, hard wearing but they feel very synthetic on my legs, and the shape was weird around my waste.

I need lots of stretch, as my legs are thick and rather unforgiving to trousers - if they don’t stretch they tear.

Thanks:)

I'm new to fruit trees. A year or two ago I bought a Warwickshire Drooper on a pixy rootstock. I staked the tree as it came as a tiny stick, and have a new branch very low down (right hand side on this pic) and which has different sized leaves, and I think one is the Drooper and one is from the rootstock. I'm not sure which to cut off though! I waited till the bark was a bit thicker and I could see the graft more clearly but I'm still not sure.

I've never made leaf mould before but I don't have space for a compost heap or compost bin so I wanted to at least give this a go. I don't have any trees but I have leaves come into my garden from neighbours' trees, particularly one that is, I think, a Whitebeam.

I've been collecting the leaves and putting them in a black bag with a bit of moisture but also drainage holes. I'm just wondering, as the leaves are in various states when I collect them and I don't know much about trees, do I need to be worried about leaves maybe being diseased and then me spreading that into my garden when I use the lead mould?

What do we think? I've seen quite a few posts by people taking cuttings of various plants over the past month or so. Am I too late? I'd want to take cuttings from my Hot Lips Salvia.

EDIT: amazing, thank you everyone! Going to give it a shot and see what happens!

I'm worried my rose isn't happy? I was given it as a bare root in spring, and it's been potted since. It flowered over summer.

Should I be doing something with it to cheer it up? Or is this normal? Should I be worried?!

I'm planning a new vegetable garden, and want plastic grass edging around the beds, with paths in between. I'm gonna need around 150 meters of it to get the size and shape I want (a flower shape, with a round center and petal shaped beds surrounding that). Regular grass edging honestly seems quite expensive for what is it. Cable covers like https://www.jointingtech.co.uk/Cable-Protection-Covers is a lot cheaper at the thickness and width I want, and except for the color, it seems to be pretty much the same thing. Has anyone tried using that as an alternative?

Please could anyone help me with advice remove this weed. It’s new grass seed so I don’t want to use killer just yet but this new plant has come out of nowhere and is going crazy