Hobbies- tell me your pass-times

[MyNameIsTerry]

I usually find either a seed pod, or very small cutting might accidentally fall off the plant into my pocket, only on the rare occasion though

"Excuse me sir, is that a daffodil in your pocket or..."

[Dazza123]

Terry, I'm sure you know a daffodil is a bulb so if mistaken for one I might be worried

I have managed a couple of garden centres in my short life so know how much plants cost, I also grew and sold a lot on ebay a few years ago, my garden was like a mini garden centre, it was great, but not a lot of room for my actual garden. Due to this I know when a plant is overpriced, and no matter how much I want something, if it costs too much I wont buy it, I will just 'borrow' some of it

Funny you should say that though as it was daffodils that got me started on my life long obsession with plants - Its a hobby that has cost me probably thousands. I used to visit a lot of garden centres in Cornwall and bring back hundreds of pounds worth of rare and exotic plants every year, which quickly died over winter due to the cold, so I bought more... I am now sticking with hardier types of plants, and not wasting so much cash however I do need some more Koi in the pond so will probably spend on those next.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Sorry Dazza, I should have aimed more for...



Loads of daffs out around my way as the council appear to have put them in near to the main roads.

My dad was a landscape gardener for about 30 years (a barber before that, transferrable askills I guess ) so we has a a couple of rockeries, a fish pond, and my mum loves roses so there are plenty of those in pots, troughs and in the garden.

I've stuck a couple of nature homes in to attract insects. The first one was quickly made a home by a spider though! The second is a butterfly box which I bought late last year so managed to pick up a reduced to clear phlox out of Tesco to plant near it.

Having a healthy garden to sit in is lovely. We get a lot of birds as we keep a good amoutn of food out so they are always nice to watch. Having a pond is a big plus for wildlife. We get frogs and the last couple of years we have found those salamander things and when I checked its markings online I was surprised to find it was an uncommon one.

[Dazza123]

You aimed high, I like it

Yeah one downside of a heavily planted garden is spiders. You know those giant black ones you get in the autumn, well between August and October last year I had 20 (that I was able to find and throw) they freak the life out of me, god knows how many more there were that I didn't see running around the house

For some reason I do not get frogs in my pond, but my garden is very enclosed so maybe they can't get in. Salamandas are great, get them in the local woods around the corner, and newts. There is a great little swamp there which looks great at this time of year.

There are sparrows nesting all around my garden so they hog the bird feeders, do get the odd blue tit but think sparrows scare them off. We did have a sparrow hawk in the garden last year which was a sight, and the local Heron is here most days, but he can't get anything luckily. My garden is lovely to sit in, but its high maintenance which can be a bit overwhelming when it really gets going, so I need to try and keep on top of it daily if I can

[blue moon]

You mention Frogs,you should see the size of Cane Toads here in North Queensland they are huge and good for nothing hard to kill to.I do not have green thumb I have tried to grow vegetables but to no avail maybe it is because of the heat.Cacti is about all I can grow.

Petra

[Dazza123]

Im not into veg, I have grown chili's but they didnt have any heat, which defeats the purpose. Also tried tomatoes and they never do well so gave that up as well. Cane toads look great, I do like them, even though they are ugly I have trailing cactus in pots on the outside of my conservatory which have survived 2 winters surprisingly, they should come into flower soon, one is pink and the other is red, and has really large red flowers, lovely plant.

[MyNameIsTerry]

You mention Frogs,you should see the size of Cane Toads here in North Queensland they are huge and good for nothing hard to kill to.I do not have green thumb I have tried to grow vegetables but to no avail maybe it is because of the heat.Cacti is about all I can grow.

Petra

Are they those things that were brought into the country and have been a bit of a plague on the ecosystem over there?

Is everything bigger in Oz, Petra?

There's always camels, I guess, loads of them out there.

---------- Post added at 08:32 ---------- Previous post was at 08:19 ----------

You aimed high, I like it

Yeah one downside of a heavily planted garden is spiders. You know those giant black ones you get in the autumn, well between August and October last year I had 20 (that I was able to find and throw) they freak the life out of me, god knows how many more there were that I didn't see running around the house

For some reason I do not get frogs in my pond, but my garden is very enclosed so maybe they can't get in. Salamandas are great, get them in the local woods around the corner, and newts. There is a great little swamp there which looks great at this time of year.

There are sparrows nesting all around my garden so they hog the bird feeders, do get the odd blue tit but think sparrows scare them off. We did have a sparrow hawk in the garden last year which was a sight, and the local Heron is here most days, but he can't get anything luckily. My garden is lovely to sit in, but its high maintenance which can be a bit overwhelming when it really gets going, so I need to try and keep on top of it daily if I can

I think those are what I refer to as "turbo spiders". They frequently run across the hearth and don't seem very bothered by the size of humans. One ran over the dogs face once when he sleeping by the fire! I can remember hearing a bit of a noise behind the fireplace last year, like a heavy lump of soil falling. For the next hour, about 7 of the things ran from one end of the hearth the other so I assume there must have been an eggsack behind there (its an electric blocking the old fireplace)!

We get about 20 sparrows, blackbirds, the odd thrush, sometimes a few starlings, always a robin, always some blue tits & great tits thesedays and always a jenny wren. Some local doves and pigeons too. We did get a couple of bullfinches last year and a coal tit.

We've got a couple of blackbirds nesting in the hedge right near to the back of the house at the moment. A robin has even built a nest between a couple of buckets on top of the ladder we have fixed horizontally to the backwall right next to the back door! We've seen 2 of them in & out of it and there are 2 eggs in there. My dad said he was once clearing an area to add some decking at the back of a house and there was a bucket on its side in the corner with a robin's nest in it. They turned around later and found her sitting on the handle of the spade they had left in the ground while moving some stuff. Resourceful little things and very confident. We had one last year that would sit on the washing line looking through the back window and it was the one morning we hadn't put the bird food out!

[Magic]

What a FABULOUS garden Dazza

[Dazza123]

Thanks Magic, been doing a lot of work in it the past week and have hurt my knee somehow, so resting it for a couple of days before trimming the pond back and doing a partial water change so I can get in and move some lilies around the pond, that should be fun cos it means getting into the pond and probably getting soaking wet.

[fishman65]

A lovely garden Dazza, are those Calla lilies I can see there? Yellow flag? And gunnera? I got my first greenhouse in February and its now full of seedlings, I'm trying to grow more native wildflowers. Gardening is brilliant isn't it, do you find it therapeutic for anxiety?