Hello everybody. I thought i'd better introduce myself and not just lurk away in the background. I am in the process of planting a garden from scratch and will probably have a million questions to ask. I live on the southside of Glasgow in a cottage flat. I am trying to get a cottage garden feel together and am mainly just using plants in the garden. There are 3 flights of stairs up to the garden so getting plant equipment or heavy materials up here is a no-no. I am awaiting a delivery of hedging roses -rosa rugosa red and queen elizabeth roses and some escallonia cf ball also for hedging. If anyone has any handy tips on planting these, i'd be grateful to hear your thoughts.
I am 32 years old and am interested in scooters, interior design and furniture, cats, greyhounds and ferrets and am a season ticket holder at celtic park.
Nice to meet you, Kerry

kerryo wrote:
Hello everybody. I thought i'd better introduce myself and not just lurk
away in the background. I am in the process of planting a garden from
scratch and will probably have a million questions to ask. I live on
the southside of Glasgow in a cottage flat. I am trying to get a
cottage garden feel together and am mainly just using plants in the
garden. There are 3 flights of stairs up to the garden so getting plant
equipment or heavy materials up here is a no-no. I am awaiting a
delivery of hedging roses -rosa rugosa red and queen elizabeth roses
and some escallonia cf ball also for hedging. If anyone has any handy
tips on planting these, i'd be grateful to hear your thoughts.
I am 32 years old and am interested in scooters, interior design and
furniture, cats, greyhounds and ferrets and am a season ticket holder
at celtic park.
Nice to meet you, Kerry

Hoooo! Glasgow!! I'm new too, so Hi! I wanted to go to The Hidden
Gardens as part of the Festival of light Fragran Glasgow but it will
take 5 hours to get there from Manchester ( Is the Celtic Park part
of the above Hidden Gardens? I think those gardens are just wonderful.
Have you been?!

"La puce" wrote in message
oups.com...

kerryo wrote:
Hello everybody. I thought i'd better introduce myself and not just lurk
away in the background. I am in the process of planting a garden from
scratch and will probably have a million questions to ask. I live on
the southside of Glasgow in a cottage flat. I am trying to get a
cottage garden feel together and am mainly just using plants in the
garden. There are 3 flights of stairs up to the garden so getting plant
equipment or heavy materials up here is a no-no. I am awaiting a
delivery of hedging roses -rosa rugosa red and queen elizabeth roses
and some escallonia cf ball also for hedging. If anyone has any handy
tips on planting these, i'd be grateful to hear your thoughts.
I am 32 years old and am interested in scooters, interior design and
furniture, cats, greyhounds and ferrets and am a season ticket holder
at celtic park.
Nice to meet you, Kerry

Hoooo! Glasgow!! I'm new too, so Hi! I wanted to go to The Hidden
Gardens as part of the Festival of light Fragran Glasgow but it will
take 5 hours to get there from Manchester ( Is the Celtic Park part
of the above Hidden Gardens? I think those gardens are just wonderful.
Have you been?!

Yes ,but dont go on a saturday as about 60,000 people visit!

hello. the light festival thing is on next month and i'll probably go. Celtic park is not part of it, but it is paradise : ) Celtic park is a football stadium, not an actual park. The grass is pretty well kept though! It may be worth the trip up as there are other lovely gardens in glasgow but it may not be the best time of year to see them. Shopping here is great though if you fancied a garden/xmas shopping combo. I think there is a german xmas market on in glasgow that weekend too.
you could check it out on glasgow city council's website and you could check out greenbank gardens at the national trust scotland's site.
cheers, kerry

kerryo wrote in message
...

Hello everybody. I thought i'd better introduce myself and not just lurk
away in the background. I am in the process of planting a garden from
scratch and will probably have a million questions to ask. I live on
the southside of Glasgow in a cottage flat. I am trying to get a
cottage garden feel together and am mainly just using plants in the
garden. There are 3 flights of stairs up to the garden so getting plant
equipment or heavy materials up here is a no-no. I am awaiting a
delivery of hedging roses -rosa rugosa red and queen elizabeth roses
and some escallonia cf ball also for hedging. If anyone has any handy
tips on planting these, i'd be grateful to hear your thoughts.
I am 32 years old and am interested in scooters, interior design and
furniture, cats, greyhounds and ferrets and am a season ticket holder
at celtic park.
Nice to meet you, Kerry


--
kerryo

Hi Kerry,

Welcome to the newsgroup and gardening. I'm afraid scooters and football
turn me cold, but your other interests sound fine. Glad to find another
gardener who is a cat lover.

If you ordered your shrubs from a reputable source, you should receive
planting and cultural instructions with delivery. The hedging plants you
have can be planted about 18" apart (2' if you've got lots of room and
patience). Don't try and dig individual holes for each plant. Dig out a
deeper, wider trench than you need and fork the bottom over to improve
drainage. Then cover the bottom of the trench with some of the soil you
removed, improved with compost and bonemeal. Then lay all your shrubs in
line so you can equalise the spacing. Once correctly aligned, begin to
backfill with your improved soil mix, firming the soil as you go. You
should aim to have the finished soil level at the same level on each shrub
as its original soil mark. Once planted, *water really well*. Continue to
water thoroughly (excepting torrential downpours) until you are sure the
hedge is established. Once most of the frosts are over, feed with a
general fertiliser. When your hedge produces flower buds, give it a high
potash feed, such as Rose Fertiliser or Tomato Food to encourage flowering.
You can repeat the high potash feed after flowering, but never give a
nitrogenous feed after the end of June. (Nitrogenous food encourages new
leaf and stem growth; if fed too late in the year the new sappy growth will
be vulnerable to early frosts).

N.B. Because I have local foxes coming into my garden, when using bonemeal
I always scatter some extra bonemeal on the soil surface. This seems to
satisfy the foxes that they haven't stumbled on a bone mountain! Since
doing this, I haven't had the problem of foxes digging up newly planted
shrubs.

The hedging plants you name are usually recommended for an informal hedge,
that is, not pruned/sheared to a formal shape. Nevertheless, you should
prune and shape your hedge as it grows so that it thickens up and makes a
solid hedge from top to bottom. You will find that your Escallonia, if left
to its own devices, will become rather unruly and top-heavy. I have seen
Escallonia kept as a very neat formal hedge, but you will need to keep it
trimmed tightly throughout its life. I suspect, because of your (also
informal) rose hedging that you will need to consider a semi-formal
approach. If you cut both these shrubs back to make a tight, formal hedge
you could find yourself cutting away all the flowering growth. Whichever
style of hedge you choose, it is best to develop an 'A' shaped hedge (wider
at the bottom, narrower at the top) so that the top growth doesn't shade the
hedge bottom, causing it to become open and spindly.

Hope this helps.
Spider

kerryo wrote:

hello. the light festival thing is on next month and i'll probably go.
Celtic park is not part of it, but it is paradise : ) Celtic park is
a football stadium, not an actual park. The grass is pretty well kept
though! It may be worth the trip up as there are other lovely gardens
in glasgow but it may not be the best time of year to see them.
Shopping here is great though if you fancied a garden/xmas shopping
combo. I think there is a german xmas market on in glasgow that weekend
too.
you could check it out on glasgow city council's website and you could
check out greenbank gardens at the national trust scotland's site.
cheers, kerry

Thanks Kerry. If the show had started during half term, perhaps I would
have been able to escape during the week. According to Keith it sounds
packed at week end (thought I survived Chelsea this year!). Perhaps I
give it a miss and wait until next Spring as you suggest.

The message
from "Spider" contains these words:

Glad to find another
gardener who is a cat lover.


We wouldn't be without our cat. Until finding the cat on death row in
the SSPCA we had a major problem with rabbits. Since he came on the
scene we have had no losses to either rabbit or other rodent nuisances -
although his habit of leaving the rabbits' back legs and sphincter under
the kitchen table took some getting used to!

--
Cheers,

Compo - Caithness

compo wrote:
We wouldn't be without our cat.

We couldn't either without our 2 cats. They keep our two dogs in check
)

(snip)

although his habit of leaving the rabbits' back legs and sphincter under
the kitchen table took some getting used to!

Yurk!! Rabbits bits?! You've got a panther or something?! The most
carnaged we witness was the offerings of 3 lil' mice, which we found
lined up on the step in our house. The funny thing is that we could
touch them. Lilly, our she cat and top hunter, was growling when we
approached them. We had to distract her to gather the bits of rodents.
There was a woodpigeon once, cornered in our back garden by my tom cat,
who as soon as he heard me tapping on the window, jumped on the poor
bird, grabbed it and lep over the fence. I was a bit upset about this.
Rats and mice is one thing. But woodpigeon is a real shame.

Hope it stays dry this weekend

La puce wrote in message
ups.com...

compo wrote:
We wouldn't be without our cat.

We couldn't either without our 2 cats. They keep our two dogs in check
)

(snip)

although his habit of leaving the rabbits' back legs and sphincter under
the kitchen table took some getting used to!

Yurk!! Rabbits bits?! You've got a panther or something?! The most
carnaged we witness was the offerings of 3 lil' mice, which we found
lined up on the step in our house. The funny thing is that we could
touch them. Lilly, our she cat and top hunter, was growling when we
approached them. We had to distract her to gather the bits of rodents.
There was a woodpigeon once, cornered in our back garden by my tom cat,
who as soon as he heard me tapping on the window, jumped on the poor
bird, grabbed it and lep over the fence. I was a bit upset about this.
Rats and mice is one thing. But woodpigeon is a real shame.


Hi Compo and La Puce,

Yes, cats are great little helpers, and they *can* be trained to respect the
garden.

I have far fewer bulbs lost to squirrels since Cheetah and Panther have been
patrolling their territory. Other rodents are kept at bay, too, although
the other evening Cheetah brought me a live mouse. This morning I found the
tail and hind legs of a mouse in the kitchen .. delightful! Sadly, a bird
is occasionally killed, but most prey items are rodents.

I've also known cats capable of 'managing' dogs .. spit and claws usually
does it .. a great demonstration of who's boss. Oh well, best get back to
gardening or we'll be in trouble for hijacking this thread *and* going OT.

Spider

Spider wrote:
Hi Compo and La Puce,
Yes, cats are great little helpers, and they *can* be trained to respect the
garden.
I have far fewer bulbs lost to squirrels since Cheetah and Panther have been
patrolling their territory. Other rodents are kept at bay, too, although
the other evening Cheetah brought me a live mouse. This morning I found the
tail and hind legs of a mouse in the kitchen .. delightful! Sadly, a bird
is occasionally killed, but most prey items are rodents.
I've also known cats capable of 'managing' dogs .. spit and claws usually
does it .. a great demonstration of who's boss. Oh well, best get back to
gardening or we'll be in trouble for hijacking this thread *and* going OT.

That is so sweetly put. It's so cozy in here. Perhaps too cozy ... But
I don't think we've been *that* bad. After all the thread is called
'new member'. Lets just say the welcome are really warm and long and
friendly )

kerryo wrote:
kerryo Wrote:
Hello everybody. Thanks for the friendly welcome and the good
advice,
especially regarding the escallonia. Glad there's a few mog fans
here. I have 3 of the beasts.
I'm off to order the fungi things now there are two kinds, one for
shrubs and trees and one for everything else
Kerry

Hope it stays dry this weekend

Whoa! I really wouldn't bother with "the fungal things" if you mean
mycorrhizal inoculation. Your soil and any plants you buy may have
quite enough already, and it won't matter anyhow. See another thread,
and save the pennies: in general practice, it's a con.

If you saw the Wollemi pine being planted at Kew, then that was a
very special case. This was a hardly-studied plant worth ten thousand
quid and from a parent growing in an extremely limited range, being
asked to grow 12,000 miles from where any of its close relatives had
grown since before man evolved, and top experts were using carefully
selected belt and braces. None of these conditions apply to anything
you and I can get to put in our gardens, and Kew almost certainly
didn't actually _need_ to do it. You may have noticed a slight smirk
on the face of Kew's tree man as he said what was in the envelope.
Glad to see he dropped a coin into the hole, though: I find that
always works.

--
Mike.

The message . com
from "La puce" contains these words:
compo wrote:

We wouldn't be without our cat.

We couldn't either without our 2 cats. They keep our two dogs in check
)

(snip)

although his habit of leaving the rabbits' back legs and sphincter under
the kitchen table took some getting used to!

Yurk!! Rabbits bits?! You've got a panther or something?! The most
carnaged we witness was the offerings of 3 lil' mice, which we found
lined up on the step in our house.

I had a cat which caught rabbits. Once pounced on a dog fox and rode him
away like a jockey on a norse, clawing away at its mask as it went. Came
back still bristling, with that 'gunslinger' walk a riled cat has - she
had kittens at the time.

Next week (to the day) she spied the fox trotting along the path and
made for it like a little black exocet. Fox saw her coming and lit out
like a sensible beast.

Yet, she was *VERY* wary of a black rabbit I had...

A friend phoned me to say that he'd rescued the thing from a whippet, in
his father's garden. Haing made inquiries locally, no-one seemed to own
it. Knowing I was to be farming rabbits later in the year, he thought
I'd like it.

Well, I didn't really, but I reckoned I could knock-up a hutch for it
until I could find a home for it, so I put it down in the kitchen (lino
floor) and offered it some porage oats and a dish of water.

Rabbit spied the coal scuttle and thought something along the lines of
"Coo! Camouflage!" and hopped in.

Meanwhile, kittens (aforementioned, but just a bit older) came in
demanding to be fed, and skirted the rabbit warily, noshed their grub
and disappeared into the garden again. Cat came in, looking neither to
the right nor to the left, after all, this was *HER* house, innit?.

Meanwhile, as the cat was noshing her grub, Rabbi was getting curious,
and smelling something pleasant from within a digestive biscuits
wrapper, stuck his head in.

Unable to reach the crumbs at the bottom of it, he tried to withdraw his
head - however - the long red tube was nicely stuck, and Rabbi panicked,
and bolted.

Bolted straight at cat as she was innocently enjying her tea, and out of
the corner of her eye she espied rushing at her, this big black furry
thing with a red cylinder for a head.

Cat leaped vertically in running mode as the Redheaded Rabbi passed
harmlessly underneath, and when she hit the ground running, did a wall
of death round three walls and using the working-surface as a
springboard, leaped on my back and climbed up so she was looking over
the top of my head.

She never trusted that rabbit ever again...

The funny thing is that we could
touch them. Lilly, our she cat and top hunter, was growling when we
approached them. We had to distract her to gather the bits of rodents.
There was a woodpigeon once, cornered in our back garden by my tom cat,
who as soon as he heard me tapping on the window, jumped on the poor
bird, grabbed it and lep over the fence. I was a bit upset about this.
Rats and mice is one thing. But woodpigeon is a real shame.

Mine didn't go after birds, her one joy in life was slaughtering rats.
Mice would do, but rats were The Thing. She also killed stoats and
weasels.

--
Rusty
horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co full-stop uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/

Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
I had a cat which caught rabbits.

(reluctant snip)

How could you Monsieur Jaques! Carry on, BUT CARRY ON! My sides split
.... It's priceless, especially the 'black furry thing with a red
cylinder for a head'. How wonderful. My glass of Rivesaltes never
tasted so good.

ps. Can I put a 'c' in your first name? That is if you don't mind. I
thought between the 'a' and the 'q'; 'Jacques'. Looks better don't you
think?

La puce wrote:
Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
I had a cat which caught rabbits.
[...]
ps. Can I put a 'c' in your first name? That is if you don't mind.
I
thought between the 'a' and the 'q'; 'Jacques'. Looks better don't
you
think?

As You Like It.
Boom, boom!

--
Mike.