ChapelGirl2

Something is eating my lavender

I think I may have found my lavender eater.  There was a tiny bright green caterpillar (about 1cm long) in one of the pots this morning. It's not there any more!  I didn't think lavender had many pests, but you live and learn. I'll keep an eye out for any more.

Something is eating my lavender

We've been in France permanently for about 3 years but we only bought our house here just over a year ago.  Still lots and lots to do, and it's only a tiny and very plain house compared to many, but we love it here.  Is your parents' rodent a coypu or ragondin?  We don't have them here, I don't think, but they are an escapee from fur farms in certain parts of France.

Creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum)

Fair do's.  They're nice people, so they might be able to suggest someone closer to home you could buy from, if you give them a ring.

ID Request

It could be a solanum of some kind, though the leaves suggest a heliotrope.  BUT the flowers (although blue) are not at all heliotrope-like. The flower shape definitely looks more salvia-like, so my money would be with Leggi.

Mysterious plant

I sowed borage in my garden in Essex once.  I also fell for the 'good with Pimms' story.  Well it probably is, but how many times a year do you drink Pimms? Be honest, now?  I found it to be what gardeners call "an invasive plant", as in, it keeps growing even when you don't want it to.  It does have quite pretty blue flowers, but the 'cucumber-flavoured' leaves are only edible if you boil them so they don't cut your tongue with the nettle-like spikes.  I'd rather buy a cucumber.  I agree that the bees like it, but if you're short on garden space I'd look for a plant which YOU like as well as the bees.

HELP

I agree with Dovefromabove.  It sounds like you have fed and watered too much and they have caught a fungal disease.  It's now a week since your last post.  Did you stop watering?  Give it a week or two more and let us know how things are progressing.  Good luck!

tea bags

I mostly use loose tea in tea-balls, which works out much much cheaper than tea bags and the tea leaves go straight in the compost bin.  We also grind our own coffee beans for the Bodum coffeee jug, which is much more economical than any of those dosette thingys, tastes batter, and gives is grains we can put on the garden to deter slugs (not that we have found that 100% effective, I have to say!).

I'm not that bothered about the odd teabag ending up as "little papery skeletons".  I recycle ALL my brown cardboard boxes as garden mulch (dig out weeds, apply 2 or 3 x layer of cardboard boxes, then apply 10cm minimum layer of stuff from garden shredder) and when I have to weed that section again there is frankly not a lot left of the cardboard, so a few teabags isn't likely to worry me much.

pruning holly

How tall is to start with?

I have a garden I have recently bought which has 3 hollies on the boundary, all in the shade of a mature tree, and all looking pretty sickly.  It's a bit like the "daddy bear, mummy bear, baby bear" scenario, with all in various poor states of growth and health.

I'm guessing your holly is on a boundary, which is why you want to shorten it.  My personal vote is 'go for it'.  If it sickens or dies you can always replace it with something else.  If it doesn't, then 'job done'.  If you leave it, it will become an irritaton to you, and possibly also to your neighbour.  There is much truth in the old saying "good fences make good neighbours".

ribes

We recently bought a house with a garden which had a couple of true blackcurrant bushes and an ornamental ribes.  i severely pruned the fruiting blackcurrants and this year I got enough fruit to make a respectable pie, but I had to abandon picking at one point as the plant was covered in angry black ants.  Today I took the loppers to the ornamental currant bush and decided it is coming out.  It is in the wrong place and has been allowed to get too leggy anyway, so unfortunately it is not pulling its weight and has to go.  We had ornamental ribes mixed in with the privet hedge when I was a kid, and although they have quite nice pink flowers the main impression was the awful smell of cats' pee.

Creeping thyme (Thymus serpyllum)

My husband is a very keen cook, so I like (or rather NEED) to grow lots of thyme for him to use in his cooking.  I kid you not, he uses a large sprig of fresh thyme if not every night, then every other night.  As 'head gardener', that is quite some pressure!

It is very easy to grow from seed. Thymus vulgaris is what you would normally look for.)  I've got some coming up right now in a half tray.  The best thymes for cooking tend to be those that produce little or no flower.  If you're not fussed about using it in cooking you can get varieties with purple, pink or white flowers.  If it's purely for decoration it would pay you to seek out a specialist grower. If it's for a path you need the 'creeping thyme' varieties that grow low.  Have you looked at the specialist seed growers such as Nicky's seeds http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/ ?

I don't know where you live, but if you're anywhere near Laurel Farm Herbs  http://www.laurelfarmherbs.co.uk/ they are very good with herbs for culinary use.  We bought a rosemary from them once which had fantastic flavour and had the most amazing blue flowers, but we left it behind when we moved house, more's the pity.

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Something is eating my lavender