Joe_the_Gardener

hedge ideas for privacy

Christine,

How far is the conifer boundary from your house? Is the neighbour's house on the same level as yours? How wide is the garden? What's in the rest of the garden? Is there a fence as well as the row of trees? Which way is south?

Sawfly and willow trees

Like all insects, sawflies probably have good and not-so-good years. This might be a good period for them (but bad for you). I think you will either have to live with it or start zapping everything in sight, which seems a little unfair on the already depleted insect world.

There are many different sawflies that are hosted by different plants or groups of plants. Willows wouldn't have survived all these thousands of years if the attacks were fatal.

Tree/Shrub identification

Or possibly a Viburnum

Border edging

If the curve is only slight you could use inch-thick tanalised board screwed to 2-inch square oak pegs.

Butterflies

Small Tortoiseshell, I think, Bob. You can see a bit of the blue border on its hindwing and the black and cream shapes on the leading edge of the forewing seem more typical. As you say, not a great example.

What is this?

Looks like Arum maculatum, or possibly Arum italicum.

Just moved into an old house... huge ANT nest in flower bed :)

I wouldn't recommend Frank's petrol answer - quick way to burn your hair off, or worse.

Monty Don

"talking down the season"..........  Round here you couldn't have got to the garden centre even if you'd wanted to, and if you'd bought plants you couldn't have set them in the frozen soil. I haven't seen any skips full of jettisoned plants, nor any discounted plants. Our local garden centres are well managed and have obviously made sensible decisions about ordering from wholesalers. I suspect that undue influence from some of the big names has led to this story. And the newspapers are well-known for making a fuss. £50m is about one small pot-plant each. What is the annual turnover of the garden centre industry?

cut away conifers

?

Plant identification

Pearlwort?

Hedging shears

Malvern