Homeowner Forum / Lawn and Garden / March 2007

I have been chiting my seed potatoes - have 3 varieties of early/second
earlies and 3 varieties of main crop.
All have been chitting fine in a cool light environment.
On inspection today all of one of my main crop varieties have gone very

I have ants appearing from beneath my skirting board in the kitchen. There
is the odd 2 or 3 accompanied by some bits of earth that they have dug up,
so can anyone suggest anything to stop the buggers from 'massing' ready for
a breakout sometime soon? Figured I could seal along ...

This is probably a silly question, but I'm trying to grow some Chilli
Peppers on my window sill this year.  Is ii true you need to keep the seeds
warm to get them to germinate, and if it is, how warm and how long does it
take?

I went to Lowe's to pick up some leaf lettuce seedling.  That's all I needed
and wanted.  I wandered through he greenhouse and spotted two new phals!  Oh
I'm a sucker for phals.  One was yellow with some small purple petals around
the center-bottom of the flowers.  The flowers ...

I have an ant problem that I ignore every summer, but I am about to
have my first child and am taking care of loads of things around the
house that I have been putting off, so I figured I would take care of
this too...

Fagg0t rudy loves c0ck but he also loves buttsex... with him on the
bottom getting penetrated.

This is a pretty neat idea.  And apparently it works well, too:
http://www.thisgardenisillegal.com/2006/03/making-seed-tape.html

On GQT some months back, they gave the results of a trial where they put
1, 2, 3 or 4 tomato plants in growbags. To their surprise, they got the
best crop from crowding 4 plants into a bag.
I'm therefore considering planting my outdoor toms in the soil at much

Advice, please!  I am about to buy sweet pea plants. There seem to be about
five little plants in each pot. Should I plant the whole contents of each
pot "as is", or separate out the five little plants and put them in
individually? I have seen advice in Amateur Gardening to ...

Does anyone have experience, hopefully positive, using systemics on
orchids? I am at my wit's end spraying Neem and insecticidal soaps for
scale. Now mealies are beginning to show up as well. Getting very close
to making a large trip to the compost heap (if the snow ever melts) ...

Sorry, but I just gotta talk.  I probably won't even post this, sometimes in
writing a solution becomes clear or I get my thoughts in order (yeah, right,
remember my thoughts resemble Wendy's tags, except she has a better chance
of straightening hers out.)

I have been given a present of a blue hydrangea because I do not like
pink and the donor says there is a way to keep it blue but cannot
remember how.  Any help is appreciated and the plant is to survive in
North of Scotland.

I've got a Flowering Maple:
Abutilon pictum 'Apricot'
It's not too old and has never grown more then about 1' tall. It gets
sun and is outside in the summer. It's guess it to be about 2 years old.

I'm afraid I don't remember who recommended this but I'm in their debt!  Ray
had to go down to the Duchy Nursery the other day and he brought me back a
Prunus incisa Kojo-no-mai.  It's a gorgeous plant and a good one for people
looking for smaller trees as it's slow growing to 3 ...

I'm asking this on behalf of a friend who is engaged in an art project and
she would like to know what plants would have appeared in Victorian public
parks - well actually in one particular public park (Peel Park in Salford,
opened in 1846). From what I can see the Victorians were ...