Lilyanne

Houseplant SOS from complete novice!

I have a plant with one stem, but a bit of a gap between leaves. Do you think iIf I cut off the top of this one,I could cultivate it and generate a new plant - and also, the original plant would survive and produce new leaves?

too late to re-pot acer?

It will live in the pot you have it in - mine have lived for years in the same pot. it sounds like you need to tie it down. get it into the right size pot that suits you and put some weight into it. I have pebbles on the surface but this doesn't always work and it does fall over........maybe the weight needs to be at the bottom of the pot.....I need to follow my own advice....get some weight into it......!

olive tree

I was tempted to buy an olive tree recently, but didn't have the confidence to keep it alive. Thought it needed a lot of heat. Can anyone advise?

courgettes

could be it is too cold for them.  mine have just gone from a windowsill to the greenhouse and will probably stay there for a few more weeks.

not an expert, but from all other posts on this site, we need to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing at this time of year. i love that we can all learn from each other

Gardens devoid of life

What you will find with trendy gardens, is that they are pretty much very quick to put together. The gardens that you and I love will take many years of attention and hard work to establish. 

The way I feel about a great garden, is that it is somewhere you can relax in your spare time or potter when you have 30 minutes, or stroll through when you have not much time at all. It doesn't matter how that garden is constructed, so long as you get pleasure out of it.

Houseplant SOS from complete novice!

Really feel for you Ellie (although I was entertained with your description of Bob's decline!). I hate losing any plant. Best of luck with all of this advice. Hope he survives. Keep us posted.

I have a couple of these and they do tend to be very tall and "leggy". I assume that is how they should grow?

Privet Hedges

I have not grown a hedge from scratch, but I do think privet looks best when it is dense. I keep mine very closely clipped and it always looks good, so I expect that the cuttings should be planted quite close.

I do find that most bushes will propogate in this manner, as per Gary's advice. Just stick them in the ground and stand back!  Much of my garden has been filled in this way.

Choosing a greenhouse

I ordered a polycarbonate 8x6 greenhouse from the company below, on Tuesday evening on-line. It arrived Thursday. The two of us started to construct it on Saturday morning and had it finished by Sunday evening. By Monday evening, all my seedlings and young plants had been removed from every windowsill in my house into the new greenhouse.

The service from this company has been really good.  I received a courtesy phone call the day after my order to ensure that they had my instructions correct. All parts were delivered intact. Instructions were very good, although we did rush some stages in our eagerness, and had to go back to re-check what we had done!

I am really pleased with the greenhouse and I think I am definitely going to "spend many happy hours" there.

http://www.summergardenbuildings.co.uk/

Poorly lilac tree

I was give a rooted lilac sapling years ago by a neighbour. It has grown well and produced other saplings which I have managed to pull up (with roots) and re-plant elsewhere in the garden.  I now have 4 lilacs, but none of them had ever flowered.  This year 3 of them have flowered (one of them being the "mother" plant). I can only put this down to the pruning, as the un-flowering one was cut back the most.  This makes me think that I have been pruning too much, or at the wrong time of year. When is the right time to prune or should they just be left alone?

spuds

The main reason for earthing up is to protect the newly formed potatoes being exposed to the light. This would turn them green which is poisonous.