u/SapphireSky_

I don’t usually buy merch, but I’m a massive Olivia Dean fan so made an exception and spontaneously splurged on this. I was going to chose one of the opening frames with her standing in front of the green background, but I work in video production and am used to being on sets, so I went with this one as something a bit more industry related.

Can’t wait till it arrives. Has anyone else bought one yet or planning on buying one?

I’m unsure what these two roses are, but I’m thinking the first is probably a David Austin. I think these are numbers 2 and 6 of my 19/20 inherited roses.

Number 2 is a beautiful yellow with peachy centre. This rose has been a dream. Generally fuss free, and seemingly pest and fungus resistant.

Number 6 is a gorgeous fuchsia rose, but this bush has honestly been such a pain. I swear it hates me. It’s had a terrible bout of black spot and been attacked by aphids and some kind of black fly. I had to trim off more than half its leaves due to black spot. It’s also the thorniest rose I’ve ever seen. My poor arm is scratched so much I worry someone will see it and think I’m a self inflected cutter. After the second flush I deadheaded quite hard, and this is one of the stems it’s rewarded me back with. All these gorgeous pink blooms are from one long stem. 😍

After having to trim off a lot of leaves due to a very wet spring and a lot of black spot, some of my roses are looking quite bare of leaves. When deadheading it’s impossible to tell where a 5 leaf stem (or any leaf stem) had been. So I’ve had to blind cut. I’ve also had to trim off a lot of spent blooms and infected leaves together.

As a result I’ve got a lot of stems that look like this - bare with no visible leaf stems that are basically straight stems or ‘Y’ junction stems. Will these grow with new shoots?

If not, what should I do?

I put a bunch of soil in a brown paper bag, saturated it with water, formed the bag into a ball and covered it in chicken wire to maintain the shape. Then I took the live moss I’ve been saving (along with some that had dried out for use on the bottom) and covered the ball with the sheet chunks of moss I’d collected and kept damp. I wrapped wire all around it to keep the moss layer secure.

But now what? I’m thinking I’ll put the moss ball back in the bed under my rose bushes (where I gathered the moss from), but the area is quickly overgrown with weeds and geraniums so I’m not sure if they’ll get into the moss ball as well.

What do you think? Any tips?

For anyone familiar with my gorgeous inherited rose garden (20 rose bushes in total!) I have recently removed a load of overgrown perinials and weeds from the beds clearly exposing the bases of each rose bush for the first time. I was over the moon when I discovered that the lady living here had left the David Austin tags on the bases of a few of the bushes. But Desdemona is causing me a bit of confusion. What do you think?

Photos 1-3: the bush has the Roald Dahl tag on it. Yay! Someone had guessed this was the Roald Dahl before when I asked for ID’s.

Photos 5-7: the Desdemona tag is attached to it. But the description doesn’t line up with the flowers blooming on it!

The two rose bushes above are side by side very close to other and the branches of the Roald Dahl are sometimes crossing over the Desdemona (?) and they are very difficult to tell apart because they look sooo similar. When I took these photos I kept getting confused which blooms belonged to which bush. I actually had to go out and check twice!

Photo 8: Gertrude Jekyll

Photo 10: Still unknown, but is there a possibility this bush could be Desdemona instead? I’ve checked the David Austin website and it looks similar.

Photo 11: (view photo at full size) some of the roses in the main bed. Roald Dahl, the tagged Desdemona and the GertrudeJekyll are towards the middle back. The potential Desdemona at the front.

Photo 12-13: English Roses ‘Laura Ford’ Chewarvel. I just discovered the ID tag buried yesterday!

I was out this evening tending to my roses and noticed a bee stuck in the middle of one my my roses. I pried open the petals to have a closer look and noticed she wasn’t moving.

Out of no where a big white crab spider came over to see what was going on. No idea if it will eat the poor dead bee (or if it was the cause of the bees death), but I couldn’t help but take a picture of the two.

The poor bee looked so peaceful nestled in amongst the petals. And the spider (I call them ghost spiders) looked rather sinister.

*editing to add that what made this moment and photo even more poignant was that I had no idea at the time when I posted that at the same time the news came out that David Austin had passed away. This is a David Austin rose, but I do now know the name of it yet. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cedj9377wdvo

I’ve come across a few posts with people sharing photos and cursing the Tree of Heaven. Apparently they are highly invasive in the UK and extremely hard to get rid of.

I pass this property (photos 1 & 2) daily and have noticed these plants that are growing outside their fence getting larger and larger as spring has passed and the summer heat is with us. I took a closer look today and can see that they do have quite sturdy looking trunks. More tree like than shrub like.

I’ve also noticed several smaller plants that look like same in the ditches along the road.

Are these the dreaded Tree of Heaven? Do I need to inform the owners of the home (they’re an older couple) or notify the council to get rid of them?

This is rose 9 out of my 19 inherited roses. This is my first summer with them. Up until I moved into our home I’d never owned a rose or gardened much.

I assumed this little one was dead. She’s the smallest of the bunch, but pretty sure she’s more established than a couple others I’ve got in the back.

I was surprised to see signs of life on her in May (photos 1 & 2) with a single stem (cane?) and bloom. She did bloom but didn’t last long. We had AWFUL weather in the UK and all of my roses really took a battering. The stem turned yellow and died (I’m assuming?) shortly after she bloomed. I cut the bloom off and assumed she would die.

BUT yesterday I returned from holiday and much to my surprise she’s got a sturdy new stem with several new buds on it and another stem sprouting from the bottom. I’ve tried to get some photos (3. 4 & 5).

My question is - should I be doing anything with the dead stems or leave as is? How can I encourage more new growth? If a stem yellows, should I cut it further down or cut just below the bud?

I’m thrilled to see she’s come back fighting with more buds and would love to see her thrive. 🥰🌹

I purchased this to cure peacock spot on my olive tree (which requires a copper fungicide). My roses have a lot of black spot and the Rose Clear spray I’ve been using doesn’t seem to help. Powdery mildew looks like it’s now effecting some of the leaves on my rose bushes as well.

I’m new to roses (I inherited 16 gorgeous rose bushes with my home), so I’m not sure if the Vitax Copper Mixture is a suitable option to treat black spot and use on roses. There is one review on Amazon that says they used it and it worked. But I’d rather check with people here who know roses better. 🙂🌹

I’ve got a raised bed I’d like to dig out so I can build a wildlife pond. Because the raised bed is brick I’m limited to size. This one should fit. The reviews are pretty positive and it appears many have used it for a wildlife pond, but they’re initial reviews that were provided before the pond was established.

Before I invest my money and time I wanted to run this one past people in here for thoughts, advice and feedback. I have some slate tiles from an old roof that I was planning on laying around the top edge, along with some rocks and of course old branches to stick in the water. What about plants? I have 2 large rain butts full of water I will use to fill it.

I think it’s too late in the year to assume frogs and newts will come to visit and lay eggs, so to avoid mosquitos I was also going to include a solar fountain. Then maybe remove it once it’s established and there are critters in the pond that would eat mosquito larvae?

I’m located in the South of the U.K. We’re in the middle of an extreme heatwave now. Is there anything I need to consider when building my pond? Is now an ok time to do it? Should I add gravel or some kind of aquatic soil to the bottom of the pond?

I know it’s live on the UK website right now. But I hate paying for shipping and I’d like to see before I buy so I can choose 😍

Inherited rose number 11 of 16.

Although it’s got beautiful blooms, this one is very different than the others I’ve inherited with my house. It’s so tall (about 5.5 - 6 feet) and looks like it’s been a bit mangled at one stage. It’s just got the two tall main stems tied to a stake with one bent towards the stake and the stem / branch tied at a connecting point (picture 4) so that one branch shoots straight up and the other veers off at an almost 90 degree angle to the right with the blooms down low (shown in picture 1).

Once it comes time to prune (I believe this should be in February once dormant?) should I cut the rose way back more towards the top of the stake and attempt to re-tie it so that everything points upwards?

Also in an attempt to identify all 16 of my inherited roses, if anyone happens to know what this one is - please do let me know. ☺️

A gorgeous bloom on one of the 16 inherited rose bushes that came with our home. I’d like to try and ID them all. For the sake of it I will number them so I can keep track. This one is number 13. It’s a much smaller rose bush than the majority of my others. This one is up against a side fence and only has the flowers shown in the pictures. The bloom in the first picture is from today, and is the same as the buds shown in picture 3 which I took a few days ago.

Any idea what rose this could be and why the plant is so much smaller than the others? Could be the variety, shadier spot, or a younger rose in general?

This is the first spring / summer we’ve spent in our new home. The previous owners were very keen gardeners. I’ve never really had a garden with any plants or flowers in it, so owning all of this is a bit intimidating!

The roses are gorgeous but I have no idea what they all are or how to take care of them. And these are just the roses in the front garden. There are more in the back! I think there are at least 11 or 12 different rose plants in the front.

I don’t know a single thing about roses! Aside from dead heading and picking out bind weed on a daily basis I have no idea how to take care of all the gorgeous roses.

I noticed a lot of aphids so I have sprayed using an aphid spray that seems to have worked quite well. I bought some liquid rose feed but haven’t used it yet. I see a lot of the rose bushes have yellowing leaves and black spot. Potentially other issues as well.

The flower beds are also very overgrown with other plants. I have no idea if they’re weeds or intentional ground covering plants with flowers.

HELP! What do I do with all these beauties? 😍🌹

Looks like the Experience are a metallic blue & pink combo 😍

Edit to add full line up of pics and packaging are in the Loop press release https://www.loopearplugs.com/blogs/press-corner/pleasing-x-loop-earplugs-the-limited-edition-collab-redefining-how-you-experience-live-music

More pics on the Pleasing insta page!

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYWpFr9nI5n