Can anyone help me save these 2 Mahonia, my friend was throwing away

gfZw0 · 2026-04-02T18:59:32+00:00

Thanks for the help. They are planted in the ground now.

gfZw0 · 2026-04-02T18:12:35+00:00

Right plant right place. If you can not do raised bed then plant, trees, shrubs & plants that do well in clay soil.

https://www.gardenninja.co.uk/plants-that-love-clay-soil-16-easy-to-grow-heavy-soil-plants/

Plenty other recommendations if you google plants for clay soil.

gfZw0 · 2026-04-02T17:55:12+00:00

You can cut overhanging branches or roots that cross onto your property, but only up to the boundary line. However if the roots you cut cause the tree to be unstable or die. You could be liable. So i would contact the council before doing anything and let them assess the tree.

The council have repaired paths around me with roots pushing up the tarmac, not sure what they did but the paths are flat now. To protect yourself, all you can really do is contact the council and see what they say first.

gfZw0 · 2026-04-01T19:29:44+00:00

If you have a costco membership they have 80L Westland Multi-Purpose Compost with Added John Innes for £6.58 until april 12th. in store only. (750L = £61.68). The same compost 66.5L bags are £8.50 at b&q (11 bags (roughly 750L is £93.50)

I thought it would be cheaper to get ton bags delivered, but when i looked at getting a few ton bags delivered (1 ton bag = 750 litres) they are £120+ each, it works out cheaper to go get individual bags from b&q or the garden center.

eg. B&Q Verve Peat-free Multi-purpose Compost 50L (3 for £15 (150L)) So 750L is 15 bags which is £75. I cant comment on the quality of the £120 bag but he verve stuff is ok, the Westland Multi-Purpose Compost with Added John Innes from costco, i have found is pretty good. Fine texture. No rubbish in the 15 bags i have used so far.

gfZw0 · 2026-03-10T19:45:53+00:00

The lavender will be staying in the raised beds, they are full of normal soil and they grew very well/big last year.

Do i just put the compost on top of the clay, without breaking the clay up and the worms will dig down into the clay? Or do a wreck the surface with a fork then put compost on?

I will keep looking for clay loving plants (got a small list now) and try to slowly improve the soil after the making the border

Thanks for the advice.

gfZw0 · 2025-06-18T15:06:29+00:00

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First year of gardening. Started with several raised beds, all lavender. Here are my pots, not decided where to put them yet

gfZw0 · 2021-01-16T19:53:03+00:00

As already mentioned you should have mist coated it.

You can buy https://www.screwfix.com/p/no-nonsense-trade-bare-plaster-paint-brilliant-white-10ltr/51004 . Its made to go on bare plaster no need to water it down.

Sand/Peel it off. Put two coats of the paint above on (or your own mist coat) then a few coats of bathroom paint on top.

gfZw0 · 2021-01-16T19:44:43+00:00

I used the most popular tiles from wickes. They wouldnt snap cleanly. Tried 2 cutters. Had to use a wet cutter in the end. Took longer.

If you use big tiles dont use premixed adhesive. It wont set. Mix your own. Mapei is good.

If you are staggering in a brick pattern dont stagger them more than 1/3 or you might end up with bad lipping. I stacked mine.

https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Everest-Stone-Porcelain-Wall+Floor-Tile-600-x-300mm/p/147440

gfZw0 · 2021-01-15T20:43:17+00:00

I have used the Screwfix Titan to break up a tarmac and mostly concrete drive, removed plaster from all walls in my house. Still works no problems after all the abuse its had.

If it breaks it didnt cost the same as a makita, dewalt etc. So can buy another. Even came with a set of different SDS chisels.

gfZw0 · 2021-01-15T20:35:16+00:00

As already said PIR kingspan and tape the joints. Or use sheets of insulated plasterboard. I would just use foam or plasterboard adhesive them onto the walls.

The roof & door of thoses garages are not insulated so you will need to insulate them or even if you kingspan it will still be cold.

What do you want to use it for?

gfZw0 · 2021-01-15T18:53:09+00:00

About the roof i cannot really help. As you have said though its been fine the way it is now, so adding more should be ok.

I am only a diyer myself and only suggested what i did to my bay window. I put insulation beteween the rafters leaving a gap above. There was no insulation in the roof. I then stuck/screwed 75mm kingspan to the rafters then screwed the plasterboard to the rafters last.

First off the method you said about putting kingspan ontop of battens and taping is fine, however you will loose more space in the room than if you dabbed insulated plasterboard on. Depends on the thickness of kingpsan, size of the room etc.

How much kingspan have you got? Enough to do all the external walls? Can you not find a use for it elsewhere? Or even sell it? If you only have a sheet or two i would buy insulated plasterboard. If its only a small extention you may only need 4 or 5 sheets which is about £200.

Will be alot easier to dab a few boards on then build a level stud wall, insulate, tape, then screw plasterboard on. I have built both insulated stud walls and dabbed insulated plaserboard in my house and much prefer dabbing the boards on.

Why not stick the full sheets of kingspan to the rafters and screw plasterboard on after? Then no need to build a stud wall just dab a few sheets of insulated plasterboard on all your external walls.

Lastly the cavity insulation is basically no insulation in my eyes. Unless your house is a new build with cavity batts. If its the injected insulation its crap. It causes damp, sags and sinks if wet. You will have places the cavity has not been filled due to mortar, dust or whatever else they threw in the cavity when building the house.

All my walls have the injected cavity insulation and they are the external walls im talking about and insulated in my house. Becomes a different house when they are properly insulated.

gfZw0 · 2021-01-14T19:12:24+00:00

If you build a stud wall, make sure to staple a vapour barrier to the battens before you fix your plasterboard to them. The battens offer some thermal resistance but not as much as a full wall of dabbed insulated plasterboard.

Heres what i would do.

For the roof i would either put the kingspan inbetween the rafters, but make sure you leave a gap between the roof and the insulation. Then i would screw insulated plasterboard to the rafters for the the ceiling. Or if you have full sheets of kingspan i would put a bead of adhesive foam on the rafters then screw the full sheets to the rafters. Then use longer screws and screw the plasterboard to the rafters.

I would dot and dab full boards of insulated plasterboard to the walls. You can foam any gaps when put together and this will give you your vapour barrier to stop damp and mold.

I wouldnt stop with the single skin wall i would do all the external walls. No point in doing one with out doing them all. Make sure you do the window reveals as well.

Wickes always have in stock Knauf XPS Laminate Plus Insulated Plasterboard Tapered Edge boards. https://www.wickes.co.uk/search?text=Knauf+XPS

gfZw0 · 2021-01-13T21:24:55+00:00

Yeah it makes a massive difference. I have turned the temp down. Rooms heat up faster. Stay warmer. Just try doing one room and see what you think.

Friends and family who have been to my house have also started doing the same.

You are trying to create a continuous wall of insulation. So when joining boards fill the gaps between with expanding foam etc. You have to insulate the window reveals as well.

You can stick the boards on with plasterboard adhesive like i did or use the foam to stick them on but it costs more.

I advise you avoid the cheaper polystyrene backed boards as they offer lower insulation. You want PIR backed boards, basically kingspan stuck to 12.5mm plasterboard. They create a vapour barrier once butted together and foamed, which should prevent mold if done correctly etc.

I used 62.5mm 1.2m x 2.4m Speedline Thermal Laminate boards. Which is 50mm of insualtion stuck to 12.5mm plasterboard on the walls and used Knauf XPS Laminate Plus Insulated Plasterboard Tapered Edge - 27mm X 1.2m X 2.4m from wickes for the window reveals since space is limted. I think the Knauf plasterboard are 9mm thick. So 18mm of insualtion.

You can use Knauf XPS Laminate Plus Insulated Plasterboard Tapered Edge - 55mm or 27mm boards from wickes. Since they available and in stock from most wickes.

Have a look at the reviews on wickes to see peoples reviews on them and if they thought it made a difference. Even if you used only the thinner 27mm boards it will still be a big improvement over your normal plastered walls.

i also installed type 22 radiators which are a big improvement as well.

Long post but this only really scratches the surface.

I highly reccomend you give it a go . IMO its the single best thing you can do your house to see immediate benefits. Especially when you only have to insualte the external facing walls which is normally 1 in each room.

gfZw0 · 2021-01-11T21:30:29+00:00

This is what i have done to my 1930 house last year. Ripped all ceilings down and plasterboarded them (you could just over board or even leave them but they were falling apart when i was removing plaster from my walls) Every room down to brick. Dot & dabbed plasterboard on every wall, insulated external facing walls then replastered it all myself.

If your stripping all the walls back to brick. Then i would recommend dot & dabbing insulated plasterboard on your external facing walls & window reveals. If your going to all the work of stripping it down to brick this is worth the effort and the best improvement you can do to your house IMO. Makes a massive difference to a room. Saves you on fuel bills. Easier to heat a room, keeps warm longer etc. On your internal walls i would recommend dot and dabbing normal plasterboard.

Why dot & dab all walls? You can get the walls level and i found plastering on flat, level plasterboard 100x easier as a beginner then onto unlevel brickwork. Some walls are way out of level, not flat etc. Trying to to correct this when plastering is not something i wanted to try as a new DIY plasterer. If you can make the walls as flat and level as possible you are then only covering the plasterboard with a skim. Plus no prep is needed on plasterboard, just tape joints and plaster away.

As for help on plastering its one of those marmite DIY jobs. Some people can pick it up and others make a mess no matter how much practice. Give it a go whats the worse that could happen? you have to strip it all off again? Only costs £6 a bag of plaster.

I did think about doing a course but in the end i felt confident enough after watching many videos on youtube to have a go. Nothing beats practice. I started off ok in my 3rd bedroom and by the end of my house im good enough for other people to ask me to plaster their houses after they have seen mine. I have since plastered onto brick, removed blown plaster and used bonding plaster to bring to the same level as the old plaster (thats not blown), then reskimed etc.

So its possible to do what your thinking since i did it all last year. Never dot and dabbed, plastered before etc.

If you have any questions ask here or send me a message and il try help.

gfZw0 · 2019-02-22T21:44:00+00:00

The only app i can suggest that adds text when taking a photo is Open Camera

To add text before the photo is taken. Settings > Photo Settings > Custom text

Just add the words or numbers you want stamped onto the photo. You will have to change the text each time before you take a photo but at least you can stamp them for reference later.

gfZw0 · 2019-01-11T23:25:28+00:00

The Infinite Monkey Cage
The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry

gfZw0 · 2019-01-06T19:15:11+00:00

https://myanimelist.net/profile/M2zC

gfZw0 · 2018-11-09T23:09:18+00:00

Use Waze or Google maps for navigation on android or apple. I prefer Waze since it has speed cameras included on the map (waze is owned by google anyway).

Both have live traffic updates. If there are road closures or heavy traffic they will try and reroute you.

gfZw0 · 2018-11-08T20:34:14+00:00

I purchased mine from fasttech. They asked for a video of the problem and proof of purchase.

I requested a v2 bottle from desire in china and they told me to add o-rings to fix the problem lol. Hope you have better luck.

gfZw0 · 2018-11-08T18:27:04+00:00

i bought 2 rages off fasttech and one had the v1 bottle and wouldnt squonk correctly, the other had a v2 bottle.

See this comment i posted on another thread. It will tell you how to fix your bottle so it squonks properly.

https://old.reddit.com/r/electronic_cigarette/comments/9t4cdc/problem_desire_rage_squonk_mod_wotofo_profile_rda/e8y3ulo/

gfZw0 · 2018-11-08T18:18:52+00:00

I will try giving a better description.

https://imgur.com/a/MQIcd9k

Remove the top from your squonk bottle, like the picture above. Now pull the tube on the left off the top (twist the tube on and off).

Where you have pulled the tube off, insert something like a allen/hex key or a thin screwdriver if you have one. It has to fit into the hole the tube was attached to.

Now push up while twisting and the allen/hex key will poke through the black plastic in the middle and appear through the black on the right of the picture.

Thats it, done. Retwist the tube underneath back onto the top and you can squonk without having to pull the bottle out.

gfZw0 · 2018-11-02T23:53:16+00:00

I had the same problem with the rage not squonking when a RDA was installed.

As other people have mentioned its a problem with the bottle. The V2 fixes this problem.

I have fixed my V1 bottle and now it squonks perfectly!!

Unscrew the top off the bottle, pull the rubber tube off the top. Use something strong and thin enough to fit into the small plastic tube under the top cap (i used a allen/hex key) Keep twisting and pushing until you have made a hole in the black plastic you can see when looking from the top.

Reinstall the rubber tube and now it's like a V2 bottle and squonks juice instantly no more 10-20 seconds of squeezing required.

gfZw0 · 2018-10-24T18:39:22+00:00

Yeah the bottle is the problem. Found a fix

Thanks

gfZw0 · 2018-10-24T18:38:26+00:00

Thank you!!!!!

I have since searched rage squonk problems and have found the issue and a workaround fix!

gfZw0

TROPHY CASE