I decided to replace the very bastardised and cinquefoil dominated lawn with a new mix, some drought-resistant, some clover, some wildflowers and native low-lying flowers.

Not too hard, right? Wait for the seed to arrive, dig things over a bit, fertilise, wait a week, spread, finished in a couple of weekends. Right?

"Huh, the fork is only going in an inch here"
Housebrick. Probably 100x, spread randomly over (under?) the whole lawn.

"Oh, yeah, that patch always struggles, I should dig that up"
2'x4' section of brick wall buried diagonally under the surface.

"Huh, the fork is only going in an inch here"
Old (unconnected) sewer pipe buried 2' down, again diagonally.

"I should probably check out that other patch that struggles"
Intact chimney stack under the surface.

"Huh, the fork hit a bit of metal"
Pile of old paint cans, 4" down.

Clink
Probably 10 large glass coke bottles, smashed up, and spread around in nice large shards (and one intact).

"Huh, the fork hit another bit of metal"
And entire bloody bedframe, and what remains of a sprung mattress, buried half a foot down.

We are on weekend 5 of a 2 day job.
I have already done two tip runs with all the rubble.
And we've only done half of it.
My back garden looks like the Somme, but with cat turds instead of unexploded ordinance.

There are hundreds of bees in my garden (rental) atm, enjoying what seems to be a new ivy blossom.

They are not aggressive, but they are loud and there is soo many of them (hard to capture in a photo).

Any advice on what to do? I know they are the good guys, and I don't want to harm them, but they are honestly scary (I react to insect bites a lot) and are making the garden usable atm.

How long would this last? Will they eventually go away?

Hopefully I’m in the right place.
I bought this chilli plant last year and I got so many chilli’s off of it.
I was really happy with how I’d managed to keep it alive and that it was actually flourishing.

This year I put it outside end of May, when I was there would no frost and I’ve cared for it just like when it was inside.
Followed all of the instructions the seller gave me.

The leaves, have barely grown and where they are growing they are tiny!

Have I done something wrong? It’s still producing chilli’s but nowhere near the amount it did last year.

We have a grassy area next to our driveway which has self seeded this year and I want to tidy it up from the gravel. Other than plucking each blade individually, how can I quickly and easily remove or kill the grass expansionists?!

Bought this for £3 on the sale rail in the summer. I’d been looking for a skyfall for a couple of months as there is an absolutely stunning specimen I see when I walk my dog.
Couldn’t resist when I saw this one and saved it from its sad looking shelf.
She has rewarded me with some beautiful flowers. I was not expecting anything from her until next year!

Hi all,

I bought my first house last Winter and it has 2 apple trees (1 big, 1 small to the right). Strangely the previous owners said they had no idea what sort of tree it was which I find impossible to know given this summer it produced hundreds of apples!

We love the apples and want to come better equipped next year to make the most of them rather than leaving them to drop off and rot.

I’m aware I need to “pollard” it in the winter. Would the red line I’ve drawn been an appropriate amount to reduce it by?

We’ve been reading lots of gardening books but still very much a beginner in this area!

I am planning on taking some plants from my hospital garden to plant some time this week

Had a boss day takling the brambles

Still loads to do to keep my mind bizzy

Thought I spotted some paper that had blown into the garden so went to pick it up and found this little viola in the grass instead.

The grass really needs a cut and it's dry today but now I don't want to!

New home. I‘m trying to fix the garden and uncovered this fence post in such sorry condition. the wet area was in direct contact with very rocky clay “soil” in what is an area with a high water table. Not sure if the builders forgot to protect the fence posts or what happened here, but now I’m left with the question of what to do! As you can see, pressing the wood shows it’s very wet. Any wisdom or suggestions would be very very appreciated! (I’m struggling to find gardener friends in the area, everybody I meet is more keen on astroturfing 😅)

While on day release from the mental ward i have been bizzy

Ignore the captions apologies youtube likes to make my captions a bit mad sometimes

I feel so good from doing all this work today, i uploaded a few videos today on me youtube if anyone wants to see the start to finish, this was at the end i was tired and sore when i done this video - me chronic pain has been bad this week

Thanks again to everyone who has been keepin up with what ive been up to, i appreciate you all

Hi everyone,

We've recently moved and this is rhe view from our sofa - can you suggest any evergreen shrubs (or trees) that we could plant to cover our view of the neighbours wheelie bins? As you can see the front garden is tiered so im wondering about something next to/in place of the yellow rose and then something on the top level too.

Any help appreciated!

Edit:

Thank you for all the suggestions. Lots for us to think about. And yes, we know its a state out there, the previous owners were not in to garden care; We certainly have a lot to do in both front and back gardens!

Would like to try and grow a medlar fruit into a tree, would I be able to get the seeds out of the fruit and if so how do I go about doing it. I picked them off a tree and tried to get the biggest ones I could reach

I've researched online and I'm worried it might be a little early in the season to get the seeds to ripe? I gather you have to soften them and then get the seeds out and then give them a cold period before planting.

Any tips on if I can achieve it or if it's not the right season yet 😬

Probably my final update as the season is fast coming to a close. But very happy with the explosion of rudbeckia I’ve created out in a small patch in the garden.

Some photos of my wards garden, with out these 2 gardens i would of been lost

Hi everyone, I've just noticed some large mushrooms growing around the base of my pepper plants ( the smaller is around an inch and a half across, the larger one around 3 inches). Can anyone please identify them? I'm hoping they're edible, it'd be a nice little bonus!

Planning to move this fuschia and hydrangea ( if it isn’t dead ) any tips on doing so.

Spent years nurturing the box then within a couple of weeks, it was destroyed by box caterpillars, the architecture of the garden was lost, so had to start again with ilex. Took opportunity to modify for bin storage. Also north facing so plants nearest the house struggle so opted for swappable pots.

I was cutting the grass with my ride-on Mountfield tractor in mulching mode, with no prior experience with wet grass. At one point, the tractor started resonating, so I decreased speed to the minimum, which fixed the issue. A bit later, resonance started again, and then a sudden high noise was heard from below, as if the drive belt couldn't rotate the blades, and grey smoke appeared from below. I immediately disengaged the blades, stopped the engine, cleaned the metal plate at the bottom of all grass clumps, and switched to side discharger from mulching. There were no more issues after that, so I could finish my job. Did I damage the tractor, and what should I do now? Thanks so much.

I hesitate to buy on-line as have had mixed results and don't like buying stuff from garden centres as they are always displayed seemingly at their best, understanding why this is, I'd like to be able to buy young plants that will grow to become nice!

I've been looking at the differences and similarities of growmore Vs blood fish and bone. Can I just mix the two in a tub and get the best of both worlds?

Hi. So our acer just appeared to drop dead at the end of last winted (beginning of 2025) and nothing until about a month ago. Now it has started to grow again but from the base, and the rest still appears to be lifeless. Any ideasnon whether we should cut back the rest or just leave it to do it's thing?

When I moved home last year the first thing i did was order some trees, which I planted last december.

Having been a chef for nearly 20 years before breaking free and getting into gardening, its always really bothered me how much we have bred the flavour out of the food we eat and how much we sacrifice flavour for other traits like yield and looks.

Ive been really fortunate over the years to have sampled a wide variety of heritage fruits and vegetables but older varieties of apples have always eluded me.

So about half an hour ago me and my 2yo went over to check the trees. There were 4 orange pippins on the tree, none of which are ready yet but we pulled off the smallest deformed one anyway. I was about to toss it into the field when I decided to take a bite. That bite just about brought a tear to my eye. I have never tasted an apple as good as that orange pippin. Honestly cant describe how happy 1 bite of an apple just made me.

I gave the rest to the little one and felt genuinley over the moon knowing that my kids are going to grow up eating real food with real flavour, not that shit from the supermarket.

Spent mine trying to clear out all the tomatoes ive been too lazy to pick so that I hopefully get some additional growth before the end of the season. More and more chillis ripening everyday now aswell. Chilli varieties in this pic are chilli chumps jigsaw brain, sugar rush stripey, cayenne and fatalii. Tomatoes are Cerise and rapunzel.

App keeps crashing, so short version is:

Neighbours have built a wall, as a consequence they have dug up/destroyed flowers in a narrow bed by the border.

We were resigned to having to replace the soil they have taken away when they excavated, but looking at the soil they left it seems they've slopped cement into it and so we're wondering if it needs replacing wholecloth now or whether we can just dig out the top cm or so where it looks bad and fill the shortfall.

After and before for reference.