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Begonia Bumper Pack 21 tubers - 7 of each - £11.99 Fuchsia Giants Collection A 5 young plants - £5 Geranium Colour Carnival F2 Hybrid Mixture 42 plug plants - £6.99 Impatiens (Busy Lizzie) Accent Mixed F1 120 miniplugs + 20 Free - £10.99 Lily 100 Days Collection 10 bulbs - 1 of each variety - £9.99 Petunia Orchid Picotee Mixed F1 100 miniplugs + 10 FREE - £12.49 Verbena F1 Quartz Mixed 84 plug plants - £13.99 |
Q. I'm investigating the prospect of using scaffold boards to deck my garden and wonder if it would be a feasible idea , I would greatly appreciate any feedback that you may be able to give me? A. Yes you can use them. No I wouldn't use them. Un-textured slippery surface, untreated with preservative, too wide and they look like scaffold boards. Other opinions are available! Q. We are having a large sweet horse chestnut tree removed from our garden and would like to use the trunk to create a small deck size 11ft x 11ft can we do this and how thick should each slice be. What preservative will we need to use. We want to sink the sliced trunk into earth and sand and fill the gaps with plants and slate chippings A. I think you need to speak to whoever is cutting the tree into slices for you. Wood isn't usually used in this way until it's been seasoned for at least a couple of years, and then setting it into the ground would cause it to rot much more quickly. What you are proposing would probably need slices 2-3" thick to prevent warping (even then it won't completely) and wouldn't be that long lived due to rotting. You can't get a preservative to soak in properly until the wood has dried out and seasoned. An easier way to use the wood would be to slice it into discs 3 -4 " thick and use as informal stepping stones or similar. Large, flat untextured pieces of wood would also be likely to get very slippery when wet. Q. I have recently finished converting a Dutch barn into a house, and all the land needs to be turned from cow sheds, tractor sheds etc into a garden. Firstly I would like to plant a hedge that will attract as much wildlife as possible i.e. birds, insects, mice and anything else that needs to be protected from the elements and fed. Also I would like to plant a lawn, unfortunately the lawn is BIG, is there a grass seed that will grow SLOWLY? And finally, there is a very long and ugly wall that I would like to cover with the most attractive and fragrant climber I can find, I would like ideally to plant a mixture of Ivies again to attract wildlife. Any suggestions and ideas would be gratefully accepted. A. Hedge - the most
wildlife friendly hedge will be a traditional mixed hedge of native species. I suggest
you get in touch with a local countryside organization as I'm sure they'll be able
to get you in touch with a local supplier and now is a good time to plant. Q. I am looking at building a retaining wall out of round timber posts laid vertically side by side. They will graduate in a s shaped curve down the garden from ground level to holding back a maximum of 1.5 feet of earth. Because of the curve I can't use beams horizontally between the posts and am therefore having a few problems deciding the best way to lay them as a concrete base will obviously not join all the way round each post. A. I don't see what the
problem is with concrete? You'll need to get the whole thing prepared to do it
in one go, or maybe a few stages. Dig a trench and fill it with concrete and
then as you place each post in place, make sure you wiggle it around to settle
the concrete around it. They will be surrounded apart from where they touch. Q. I have recently acquired a small build it yourself gardening shed. The problem is that the instructions did not in anyway account for the foundation of the small structure leaving the means up to myself. I was thinking simply cinder blocks and some pressure treated wood, but any suggestions that are cost efficient would be greatly appreciated. A. You need to keep the wood of the shed out of the wet. The easiest way to do this is to level an area of earth the same size of the shed (don't dig any kind of an hollow in doing this) and then lay some kind of concrete/stone base. I use patio slabs for this, the cheapest compressed concrete sort are fine and also amongst the strongest - it doesn't matter what they look like under the shed. These are about 2 inches thick and do the job well. Cinder blocks are probably thicker than this and while perfectly acceptable may just raise the entrance a little above what you'd like. Pressure treated wood should be unnecessary as the slabs alone should be enough to make sure the wood of the shed is not in contact with the wet ground. Q. What is the best way to lay stepping stones once I have turfed the area running down my garden as I have removed the paving slabs there A. Drop (place) the paving stone where you want to put it and use a spade to cut around it. Remove the stone and remove the turf it covered. Dig down 2" + the depth of the stone and level the soil. Lay a 2" layer of builders sand, level as best you can and place the stone on top - it should be flush with the grass and stable. If it's not absolutely stable, then it will bed down after a couple of good soakings of rain. Q. Builders have left me with bags and bags of sand. Can I improve the heavy clay of my garden with it? A. Yes you can improve the heavy soil, but you need to dig it in well - a lot of effort. Take it a bit at a time and you'll get there. Whenever you're doing any digging anyway, incorporate some sand. |
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