General Chat

no not the game :-) me trying to count the number of bees in the garden :-)

It's a very small garden but I have a patch of green alkanet about 6 x 4 ft ( not planted it just grew ) close to the back door and it is humming with bees of all sorts, I can recognise Carder bees, Honey bees and Bumblebees buzzing from there to the monarda and back and then on to the cranesbill geraniums. It's very calming :-)

I was watching 'Springwatch' last night and the gardener had dug up her path in order to make it more wild, I might get son to do that too ( he does not know this yet lol). We are somewhat surrounded by 'gardens' that are slabbed over, with marquees and barbecues and 'constructions' and not a plant between them unless it's plastic, so this very tiny "bee loud glade" is the best I can do.

This is just a ramble without a specific point, except 'look after the bees and they will look after you' :-)

I’m all for being bee-and-butterfly-friendly Rose. Our garden is quite small but we have lots of plants that the insects and butterflies like. Then at Christmas we were given a bee box for solitary bees with a pack of wildflower seeds. We’ve put the box up on the fence and sown a couple of troughs with some of the seeds Trouble is I never got around to thinning them and they are a tangled mass of green now and not much sign of flowers. Apparently we can expect Red Mason bees and Leaf Cutter bees, at the very least, to use our box :-D

I've got two buddleias for the butterflies Vera, and the two weigelas for the bees also but do need something for later on.Running out of room though.

We have a large rhododendron planted in a trough close to the house, it partly covers the front room window ..... I love the extra privacy from people walking past ;-)

It is in full flower right now, and it is a good year for them here ............. I sat in the front room yesterday afternoon watching the bees buzzing around from cluster to cluster.

I don't often see the bees, but we definitely have leaf cutters.

OH has planted a lot of native plants on one side of the front garden, between the house and the rose border, so quite a small area. I'm hoping that the variety of flowering plants he's put in will attract more bees and butterflies ............. both of which are in much smaller numbers than years ago.

This is regardless of the fact that several of those native plants are ones that you guys buy as for quite high cost but may not attract your bees ;-)

I heard a programme on the radio the other day ............. she said that BC has over 400 kinds of bees, most of them solitary ones that make holes in the ground to lay their eggs and build a honeycomb

Sylvia, the soil where I live is no good for Rhododendrons, well not much good for anything lol, all mining shale/clay and stones. but once the shrubs are in they do seem to cope, it's just getting a hole deep enough. So I have some big pots! I might see if a Viburnam or Hebe might take?

I love my garden
When the Butler drives me nuts
I go out there and chill
It only takes half an hour a day to keep on top of it
I love the Bees that hover around my Lavender and jasmine
and all the birds that come to drink from my pond :-D :-D

We've potted up a Thyme for culinary use. Its now quite large. The bees love it.

Rose ................ our garden soil was terrible when we moved in here, even though the house had been here since 1943 and it had been part of a nut and fruit tree nursery before that.

It was sandy and the hard pan was not very far below the surface. OH started a compost box immediately, and over the last 40+ years has incorporated that into the veggie patch he built. He also planted potatoes every year, rotating them to different areas of the patch every time. That resulted in lovely black soil, and the veggie patch rose higher and higher above the lawn. So he moved some of the soil into the two troughs up against the house at the front, and into the rose beds and borders.

Slowly we have this great soil in almost every part of the garden ............. which is not that big either at the front or back.

However that in the troughs has not been improved since the first time he put some good soil in there ................ the two rhodos on one side and the one on the other are too big to do much with!!


Use big pots for the Hebe and Viburnum, and you should be OK.


DET .......

We have Sage, Rosemary and Thyme growing in a small restricted area in the back garden close to the house ................ the bees love them.

I tend to cut only the sage and rosemary tips for use though .......... we dry them and use them during the winter. The thyme is just there!

We don't grow mint ............ believe or not, both of us can kill mint within a couple of years. It's supposedly indestructible!!!

don´t try :-D :-D head for the hills

How on earth do you manage to kill mint???? Even our black fingers haven’t managed that :-D

We also have parsley, sage, rosemary, (altogether now....and thyme!), bay, coriander, chives, parsley & a curry plant although the bees are more noticeable on the thyme.

Umm. I've killed mint too..... :-( :-(

I found it very easy to kill mint :-D :-D

Uzzi, I would head for the hills if I could and take the plants with me ;-)

I have killed mint as well lol, or rather I didn't, the soil here did, we grew lots of it in Wales, and it shot up everywhere but here it just won't. I have some eau de cologne mint and even that has only come up since I dug it up, put bits in water in the kitchen for a week until the leaves appeared and then potted it.

Sylvia I have a compost bin and last year emptied it out and top dressed round a very small ornamental cherry that was being strangled in a corner when we moved here, this year there was more blossom and it does look happier. :-)