Gardening

Front garden, not shown so often yet.

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Unbelievable temperatures in Devon at the moment. Planted 500 tulip bulbs this afternoon and it was 25c. Felt the need to sink a few beers after that (for medicinal purposes).

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Your walnut does look a bit spindly. As far as I can see the site is not really shaded from above, so I’m not sure lack of light is causing this. If the soil is too wet that might not help. Is there any sign of disease in the branches without leaves? If so you should remove them - now would be a good time rather than leaving it until winter.

If you want to restrict its height, cut out the leader. Shortening the side branches encourages bushy growth. The problem you have is that a lot of the side branches only have foliage at the tip, so pruning them would remove nearly all of the leaves.

What are the soil conditions like? Walnut doesn’t like acidic soils or too much water. Mulch the soil below it, and feed it in the spring.

The difficult choice is when to cut your losses and replace it. Try to help it, and you won’t know whether or not you have been successful until next summer at the earliest. If it doesn’t respond you will regret not having replaced it sooner, winter being the time to plant new trees.

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Roses are loving the balmy weather, especially my favourite ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’

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Not bad for the time of the year - will continue to flower for the next month.

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Lovely garden in a fabulous setting - enjoy the spring :+1:

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I assume that the wet soil is the issue. There was a small canal in this place hundreds of years ago to ship local products to the city (The Netherlands had up to mid 19th century more waterways than roads).

I’m going to consider to replace it by something else and replant this walnut in a different spot.

Probably a good idea, there are plenty of trees that are more tolerant of wet soil.

I’m not sure the walnut will like being moved. It will depend on whether you can avoid root damage, so try to remove it with a large rootball attached.
Walnut is one of those plants that release chemicals into the soil that are toxic to other plants, to supress competition. I don’t know how much effect this would have around a young tree like yours, but maybe take plenty of the soil away when you move it.

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It’s been a good year for bananas and elephants ears.

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The garden has been neglected for various reasons, the holly tree has doubled in height over the past couple of years, but I have never seen so many berries, so pruning will have wait until the birds have finished.

The anonymous clematis has burst into flower over the last week, looking good in thd sunshine.

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We planted this birch as a little sapling and as it’s grown it’s got more lovely. The big attraction is the amazing white bark in winter, but its autumn colour is always a surprise. It’s in the front garden; the standard birches are on the other side of our road. I took the picture from our bedroom window. It’s always lovely to see it out there.

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From my Facebook page

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Here here. :+1:

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My bro and sis in law just dropped off a Vibernum:

It was in their garden but since they have a small garden it dominated it too much. It has a very nice shape so I volunteered to give it a new spot.

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Took a snap at dusk this evening of acer ‘Jordan’ - a beautiful tree. It has acid green leaves in spring/summer and then it turns red/orange for a few weeks in autumn. Love the creeping change in the leaf colour.

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Picked this up at the weekend. Gymnocalycium mihanovichii variegata. Cute little thing. No two are the same and this pink/yellow with stripes looked particularly special. Nice gift for someone. Seems to be a batch hitting the shops/internet at the moment.

As usual, nearly all of the sites just copy’n’paste the info and they’re wrong. These are not grafted plants, they’re seed grown, on their own roots.


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The last of the grapes hanging on.

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Last of the apples hanging on.

The fence men cometh:

Higher than before, bit of a shame to lose the 3 foot fence but this taller fence will add much needed privacy, and more importantly will prevent the glare of occasional car headlights from the end of cul-de-sac road view beyond.

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I like that fence, you do have a knack for obtaining some quality items :grinning:

Tim

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Making a square raised bed/pot for a specimen plant. The specimen is so big that I can’t repot it every 4-5 years when it becomes pot bound. The idea is, as this pot is screwed together, I can remove the sides, trim the roots and screw back. I’ve chosen oak, because it looks good, suits the old plant and doesn’t really need preservative treatment, other than oil, which could potentially give long-term problems to the roots. I haven’t used oak before on this sort of scale and I’m very surprised just how heavy it is and extremely hard. It’s making things more difficult. Each piece is 23kg, the screw bolts that I’m using need to be A4 stainless and they’re costing £3 each (x 24!).

Typical Naim Forum user problem; I’m actually knocking them to hear what they sound like. Glad no one’s looking.

Lovely looking wood though.

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