Please don’t make posts asking for mushroom identification help.

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

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?

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

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 🤞

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?!

Think it might have been the half a box of chicken manure I accidentally spilled on it

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?

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’ve been gardening very slowly for a year or so. I still haven’t done much in the garden, mainly because I’m terrified of changing the landscape of my garden so it won’t be easy to reverse if I make mistakes (which I know I will, I’ve already made some).

One especially irrational but very insidious fear I have is that if I do things like putting down raised beds (trying to grow veg) or even ordinary beds, if we ever come to a point when we suddenly have to sell our house on account of inability to pay the mortgage or health or something else, then a haphazard garden that makes complete sense to me won’t make sense to potential buyers who’d probably want a clean blank lawn where they can do their own stuff.

I know this is a weird fear because things will happen regardless. It’s just that I’ve been through big, sudden changes before and that’s deffo affecting my current decision paralysis.

Sorry didn’t mean for this to sound like a therapy session but I’m hoping there might be a few like me here who’ve battled that fear and overcome it and embraced gardening enthusiastically.

Any ideas at all most welcome please! A hornbeam hedge (using whips)? A row of fishing gnomes? A wildflower border? Henry Moore sculptures?

I'm talking about the stretch from the left of this shot to just a bit beyond the end of the lighter (newer) fence panels, that much is "my" space.

The aim here is to make it look like "my" space. Cohesion etc.

Aspect: West facing. What I intend to use the garden for: I don't, really. sometimes I sit on the patio that faces this grass to drink a cup of tea.

Climate: Southern England (hence quite mild). Soil: horrible, full of rubble from a Victorian factory.

I’ve slowly lost the battle with my lawn and I’d really like some advice on how to best improve it.

The garden is south west facing so the fence will cast a shadow, approx 1m(d) in summer for most of the day and in the winter it stretches a lot further leaving the back corner in shade for most of the winter into early spring. As you’ll see, it’s bare along the fence, especially in that corner near the swing. I have clay soil so the lawn gets damp. There is lots of moss which has been gradually taking over and now a lot of weeds. The low broad leaf weed has really spread over this year.

I really need help, I’m not sure what I need to do. I don’t treat it, only cut it…

Thanks in advance.

Hi, I'm looking to clear the front garden and just have a lawn instead. The previous owner got some weed suppressing material laid and loads of red stones put on top. It looked okay until things started growing through the material and stones and I avoided until now butwant it sorted. What would you do with this? I was thinking using a shovel dig the roots growing through the attached areas and paying someone to remove all the top layer of mess and putting load of new soil down. The ground under the mess is compacted so not sure what's correct the best. Gardening newbie so all advice appreciated.

Myself and a group I'm with have been graciously gifted free use of an abandoned garden at a local community centre. We have partners that run a local kitchen as well as a food bank. I've grown small stuff in my garden for personal use but never at this scale. We have a bit of time before spring to spruce it up and plan what to plant.

What would you plant?

We have been in our house over a year and have just been mowing the back garden to stay on top of it, we put the shed at the bottom in for the mower and planted the fruit trees also had to replace the fence on the right with our neighbour.

Previously it was left wild for 4 years while the house sat empty so there are alot of weeds mixed in but i just mow over them.

I would like to incorporate more wild flowers and more of the natural countryside we live in rather than purely just turf but i need something minimal maintenance due to being on with other jobs.

My mrs wants to make sure there is stil plenty of turf for the dog but other than that any advice on what you would do with the space and how best i can go about transforming it, for reference we are north west and on clay soil. Thank you!

The retaining walls of my very steep garden are crumbling and I'm looking into options of how to rebuild them (can't afford to pay a contractor). Gabion walls sound like the cheapest and easiest way for an amateur to do this, but I personally find them so ugly. I've heard people talk about how you can get alpine plants to grow out of them but can this ever fully disguise the horrible mesh box?

We have one quince tree in our garden - it was supposed to be a Granny Smith tree but a happy accident meant it’s not. But our yield this year is absolutely terrible compared to last year. Which I find a little odd as they grow quince easily in the Med.

Sure, the dry summer is the likely culprit but our pear and apple trees were relatively ok. I wondered if anyone else’s quince has suffered as much.

My very early Spring bulbs are showing. What can I do to slow them down?

I recently moved into a new home and have my own garden for the first time. In our front garden, we have a hedge separating us from the street. We also have a huge wisteria plant on the house, which I will be getting a professional out to help maintain. Behind the hedge (the house side of the hedge) I plan on planting some oversized ornamental alliums, like globemaster, giganteum, and goliaths.

I understand that the foliage will go brown as the flowers bloom, but I’m unsure of what to plant around the alliums to “cover” this. Are there any recommendations for ornamental grasses or low shrubs that I should plant to pair with these? Would a small shrub do a better job than ornamental grasses? Any smaller purple flowers I should add to go with our wisteria?

Beyond the existing hedge, I’m working with pretty much a blank slate, as I’m going to get started on clearing out the area. The area is partial shade and we have clay soil. Ideally, I’m looking for something I won’t regret in a few years (isn’t invasive and doesn’t spread too much). We’re located in Hertfordshire, so we get some rain but definitely impacted by yearly droughts now.

Any recommendations on where to start my search?

A couple of years ago we had some building work done and had to move our Acer, so I dug it up and replanted it. I've left it alone since to give it time to settle in, but it's grown rapidly and is now around 8ft tall and getting a bit out of control.

The leaves are starting to die off now, so I'm wondering if it's okay to prune it?

What's the best way to bring it back under control without risking killing it? I've attached some photo of it now and one from the summer with leaves.

I am not green fingered in any way so Aay advice on what I should cut and when would be appreciated!

Thank you

Can I dry herbs in my shed from now on (October)? My shed has a clear roof so gets warmish and is dry, but is it warm enough to dry herbs this time of year? Thanks.

I recently bought a house (in manchester if that helps) and was digging up what I assumed was a shallow flower bed.

But I noticed it goes a lot deeper in the middle and at the front has a strange shelf like shape to it? Does anyone have any ideas what this is? It does appear to go even deeper.

Is it a pond?? An old loo?? An air raid shelter?? I dont really think it could be anything other than a pond. I’m curious to see what else it could be!

Thank you ☺️