grass, peonies and fuchsia
rosemummy
Posts: 2,010
Hello all, haven't been here for ages, been out adventuring all summer, hurrah! I have 3 things I'd appreciate advice on; peonies, I have 2 large clumps, one moved and temporarily in pot, one yet to be dug up, I know they need to be planted not too deep, but should I cover the new shoots that were uinderground?Secondly, one of my 2 new fuchsias in large hanging baskets is either dead or dying, it shrivelled ages ago, and any flowers that formed dropped off, I removed damaged leaves , trimmed back, kept watered and sprayed with seaweed, the other in another basket the same, only a few feet away is fine, what happenedto it? I couldn't see any obviuos culprit. Thirdly, the bane of my life... the lawn, I did add lots of drainage as advised here, and it is much less waterlogged, however seed won't seem to germinate on it, despite raking, aerating, watering, keeping off... I did it insummer before we went away with patch magic (rubbish, it was still lying there a week later despite plenty of rain and a good soak to start) I reseeded again 10 days ago and the same has happened, the garden is east facing, it's been 62 degrees most days so it's warm enough and there's been a fair bit of rain. Any suggestions what may grow ? Just while kids are little I feel we need grass, when they get bigger the borders will get much bigger and there'll just be a couple of paths but for now I am SO fed up of bare earth for a surface, will anything else do instead of grass? Thanks for reading I hope someone can help!
Posts
Scrape a piece of bark back on you Fuchsia, if it is green then it is still alive. If not sounds like Vine weevel to me
thankyou both, yes Verdun, guilty of not cutting grass enough, waterlogging definitely hasn't been a problem cince i forked most over and added grit..I'll check fuchsia tomorrow, think it's Annabelle? pale pink/white anyway, only had 1 flower that fell straight off!Thankfull I'd done the right thing with the peonies, haven't got a greatly sunny spot for them but they'll go back into a similar area of part shade and they've done ok, they were just too near front of border, having a big swap round, my poor husband nearly crippled himself trying to dig up a huge clump of hardy geranium that was very well establoished on our very hard clay..there's still lots left in i want to try to get out before I can plant, surprisingly enough... another rose!!
Rosemummy the tender fuchsia are starting to go over now, the hardy are still going strong. Glad your drainage is better although as Verdun says it's a bit late now. I can't understand why your patch magic didn't work, it's usually pretty foolproof, but we had a strange growing year so it !ay just be down to timing. I know you're on heavy clay, I remember from previous posts, so prior to trying to reseed next year I'd try some slightly deeper aereating. Sticking in the fork and lifting patches which lets air in and breaks up the hard pan that clay can suffer from. It looks a bit weird, like mini mole hills, but it helps dry the clay which breaks it up and creates a better seed bed. I'm not sure where you are but Mid April and early September are the best times for grass seed and I'd leave anything till then.
thanks Dave, honestly I nearly broke my back digging it up last time! It's all probably as I just don't have the time to look after the lawn properly, I am seriously thinking of artificial grass but it feels so wrong! Fuchsia is hardy I can't be bothered with anything tender and we only have tiny pop up gh,one other thing you knowledgable chaps can maybe tell me... where have all the birds gone?! I dutifully keep all my feeders filled and cleaned, and we haven't had a bird in the garden since spring! Actually. today I saw a robin on the kids swing, I wonder if there are too many cats? though there always have been and I've put the feeders just a branch higher..very strange, we had 12 different species last winter/spring, very strange year