First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

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ConcreteJungle
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Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:07 pm
Location: Greater london

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by ConcreteJungle »

P.s the grass seed if anyone interested was from homebase. Qualcast premium grass seed. They do shade variety too.
fern Rob

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by fern Rob »

ConcreteJungle wrote:Thanks, needed grass for my little one, bosch verticutter made the difference... early to buy but already got some 4x fatsia, asian wonder bamboo, robusta palm, Trachycarpus, mule palm, sikki and 2x ensete, cordy burgandy spire. Trying to get some big plants out the way. Then fill in the gaps. On my list still is cordy charlies boy, some ginger, ferns including a 2ft dicksonia only, phormium, suitable self clinging climber for one part of my metal shed, astilbe for the wet part of garden and a dwarf willow.
Good selection of plants.
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ConcreteJungle
Posts: 73
Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:07 pm
Location: Greater london

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by ConcreteJungle »

Oops! Has this pygmy date palm survived???

In the growing point there is emerging fronds of both green and some brown aswell :( .... I love the spot for it in full sun in summer until mid afternoon. Due to spikes cudnt keep it indoors over winter. Was my first naive buy in homebase. One key point to mention - i never wrapped frost cloth around it (instead placing a massive 75gsm frost cloche over it which didnt touch the palm at all) Also, i forgot to put polythene cover over it until start of january , to stop excess rain entering at the top and freezing up! just hope it survives?????

Image
kata

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by kata »

Oh bless, I wish my lawn looked like that,

Leave it there, give it time to come to...maybe June time. Scrape gentle on the stem, if its green its living.

CJ...why did you not bag it in fleece?

icon_cheers
Last edited by kata on Mon Mar 10, 2014 4:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
dino

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by dino »

Doesn't look good, sorry :(
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ConcreteJungle
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Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:07 pm
Location: Greater london

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by ConcreteJungle »

Lawn I can do, but plants I'm very new at! I thought what I did was enough, I guess, next time, if survives I'll really wrap it up.
fern Rob

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by fern Rob »

Lawn looks very good, plants are easier than lawns in my opinion in most cases.
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The Codfather
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Location: Darlington, C.O. Durham

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by The Codfather »

Na lawns are a breeze...
AKA - Martin

Wish list - Big Palms or Dicksonia antarctica's but open to anything really.....Cash Waiting !
fern Rob

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by fern Rob »

The Codfather wrote:Na lawns are a breeze...
Im guessing you have well drained soil.
kata

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by kata »

Lawn, mine is in a shocking state,

With all the rain, its more like mud but I do see the very midges do Dicksonia antarctica of Improvement. It needs forking, sand, cutting and then Greenthumb to visit.

For the mud patches I bought grass seed yesterday.

:lol:
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The Codfather
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Location: Darlington, C.O. Durham

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by The Codfather »

fern Rob wrote:
The Codfather wrote:Na lawns are a breeze...
Im guessing you have well drained soil.
nope....far from it wet, heavy, compacted clay and water stands on it upto 6" deep at times.......But I have been working the ground and lawn for 4 years now and it is getting better......and the lawn's etc easily can be repaired.
AKA - Martin

Wish list - Big Palms or Dicksonia antarctica's but open to anything really.....Cash Waiting !
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The Codfather
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Joined: Tue Sep 07, 2010 6:02 pm
Location: Darlington, C.O. Durham

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by The Codfather »

i think in my blog....at the start you can see pics of the state of my lawn at the start and half way through you can see it after some TLC
AKA - Martin

Wish list - Big Palms or Dicksonia antarctica's but open to anything really.....Cash Waiting !
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ConcreteJungle
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Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:07 pm
Location: Greater london

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by ConcreteJungle »

Kata - when applying grass seed - ensure you have lots of grooves in the lawn soil and top off with top soil on top. Fern Rob - i think applying gypsum to the lawn helps drainage.... aswell as spiking in spring & hollowtining in autumn. Well that's what i did anyways! Codfather - cant find your blog, would be interested to see a before and after photo of your garden.
kata

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by kata »

Thanks CJ!

I turned down tyning because when I first had it done it was like parcels of poo and I hated picking them up.. :(

I may just accept that this autumn though.

How has my lovely lawn come to this?
grass1.jpg
From this
lawnimprv.JPG
Attachments
grass2.jpg
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ConcreteJungle
Posts: 73
Joined: Mon Dec 23, 2013 7:07 pm
Location: Greater london

Re: First time buyer house, with a second rate garden!

Post by ConcreteJungle »

It's not too bad, winter didn't help anyone's grass, just needs a good scarify and overseeding when gets warmer.
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