Gardening

Hadn’t thought of that, I know the balcony will be hot and I am planning for drought resistant plants . Some lavender and rosemary from my existing garden. Plus agapanthus in long thin pots.

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Purely on a gardening front, drought tolerance is a function of deep roots. Things in pots may not necessarily be.

Phil

Hi Phil,

I am thinking of something like these for the agapanthus.

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How about Lavender, drought tolerant, lovely colour and scent and pollinators love it.

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Exactly, and I will take some with me , along with rosemary - at least two plants . Possibly some hyssop and Korean mint.

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It’s all purely personal preference.

Any reason for drought resistant plants? Do you want the pleasure (or hassle) of looking after the plants?

All fair points - as a matter of interest, what do you do to sterilise each time? Currently I use disinfectant from Ark wildlife which involves dismantling, washing then drying the feeder all a bit tricky in winter. Ideas for effective but quick sterilisation would be very welcome.

I’m not sure there’s an easier way to clean a bird feeder properly, especially given that winter and wet weather are when infections will be most prevalent. My view is that it’s better to feed birds intermittently rather than make feeders permanently available so that they continue to forage for natural foods too. So if the feeder takes a while to clean and dry, that’s OK.

I dismantle ours and put it into a bowl of hot water, and brush it clean. I’ve used Ark-Klens but I figure that if it’s thoroughly clean and dry that should be enough to remove any deposits in which infections can survive.

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Yes I have a bee friendly garden at the moment , and I want to keep that whilst built around pots on the balcony

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Pretty much what I do - I suspect I’ll find a middle road and just leave out peanuts and niger seed, leaving a few gaps whilst drying. The intermittent feeding sounds like a good unless we have really harsh conditions which doesn’t happen too often down here.

@Ian2001 I was wondering whether some communal garden / allotment is an option in your new place. I the Netherlands typically all towns have such a possibility.

Good idea, perhaps Ian should move to Exeter and help @Isca_Dumnoniorum with his planting.

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Afraid not - my desire to have some measure of keeping a garden :potted_plant: was very instrumental in choosing this property.
It has a reasonable area of space for plants
An allotment is much valued , but quite scarce.
I was quite pleased that all the houses on the development have hedgehog :hedgehog: highways as well as solar panels
It seems that the property developers are ahead of our local council…

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… and perhaps some bat housing?

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My rambling rose, smells wonderful and the bees adore it . In the spring I dumped a whole pile of compost on it and now it is a riot of flowers.
Sadly nearly every mature garden in our village has been destroyed when the new owners move in

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This fellow is ready for a night scavenging

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2mm of rain in Exeter today! Nothing much in the forecast - extreme conditions on the Green. The trees are shedding their leaves early.

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Will ask today, but thanks for the heads up. I think keeping cool :cool_button: in the summer will be a big a priority as keeping warm in the :cold_face: winter

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You can get solar reflective film fitted, my hifi dealer has just had that done.

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An update on the biological control for treating the fuchsia’s affected with Gall Mite.

Since deploying the little packets we’ve seen a little grow back of distorted foliage which we’ve been cutting out but there hasn’t been very much. The only disappointment has been one of the baskets which is still showing signs on a few branches, maybe I will adjust the position of the packet.

As you can see the largest bush is growing well and we have buds forming now.

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