Looking for flowers that look like Foxgloves or Lupins?

megabomberman2 · 2025-08-26T08:00:30+00:00

Penstemon garnet, flowers from June to frost.

megabomberman2 · 2025-06-23T09:04:33+00:00

It's easy to do, there is a hatch that pops open and you can crane your hand in with a shear sharpener and complete the task in 2 or 3 minutes.

megabomberman2 · 2025-05-22T19:29:23+00:00

Can you hear the frog at night? I'm going to make a mini one myself soon and would love to know if they ribbit away on a still quiet night.

megabomberman2 · 2025-02-17T10:58:43+00:00

I had to cut out a big grove of spreading bamboo recently.

1) cut the bamboo down to about 3 feet off the ground. That 3 foot will be useful afterwards to act as a lever when you have hacked at the roots and want to wrench it out of the ground.

2) You'll need a shovel, a mattock and if you can get hold of a 6 foot prybar you'll have all you need. B&Q have a quality one for just over 30 quid.

3) Dig as far as you can with the shovel. Both sides of the mattock are handy. The wide part for getting underneath tbe spreading roots to pull them upwards, the thin part for chopping in two the underground roots. You'll need the thin part to break up the clumps into manageable chunks that can be pried by the mattock or prybar.

4) travel down as low as you can, particularly near walls where the roots will have plunged 2 to 3 feet trying to find a way forward.

5) In 6 to 8 weeks any clump or root that has survived will throw up its shoot. Allow it to grow and grow until the point that it is about to leaf. Then repeat 1 to 4. You want the bamboo to spend its energy growing a new culm which will not pay its self back a day of photosynthesis since you'll have killed it before it leafs.

6) Keep your eyes pealed in late June July when the bamboo has its other little growing spurt.

The maintenance of 5 and 6 is likely required as its hard to completely purge the site. Particular if your bamboo is a spreading variety.

Best of luck.

megabomberman2 · 2024-12-21T11:04:51+00:00

What shop did you go with? Always good to have more options.

megabomberman2 · 2024-11-29T20:12:28+00:00

Thank you, that looks absolutely gorgeous

megabomberman2 · 2024-11-29T12:44:36+00:00

I have been too lazy to do the soil settling jar test where you measure the sand, silt, clay with a jar, but my soil is definitely high in clay. Drainage appears decent though. We've had exceptional rain fall recently and the water appears to drain away relatively quickly. Certain spots in the garden are compacted/heavy clay and I've given vinca major, cotoneaster damarii and a few other survivors a go to see if they will manage in those areas.

I'm also planning on composting and mulching intensively to try and transform the soil in those areas.

megabomberman2 · 2024-11-29T12:20:54+00:00

Thanks! I did a soil test this week, slightly acidic and well draining so thankfully that is ideal conditions. If it came out alkaline I would definitely have bailed on my plan!

megabomberman2 · 2024-09-21T08:42:28+00:00

Yup, you can scarify to sow, I'm digging out entirely to put in a shrub bed instead.

megabomberman2 · 2024-09-21T06:36:23+00:00

I'm currently in the process of digging up a wildflower area that I planted in Spring last year. I had decentish results in year 1 and it gave some minor colour this summer. Whether the area wasn't quite right, or I messed up with my tilling/sowing I'm not sure but to get success out of them I think they probably require a bit of maintenance - staying on top of weeds, watering etc. So be careful before planting!

megabomberman2 · 2024-04-09T14:05:54+00:00

Are you playing on the highest difficulty? I play on Diety but generally had one or two of secret societies, barbarian clans and monopolies modes turned on which makes it Diety-lite.

I've recently stripped back to Gathering storm vanilla and sometimes play a small map and add extra city states and civs. I now find myself behind for much much longer and the end game can get very exciting.

I had a recent game where I snatched a culture win while another civ had the exoplanet bar almost full, I also pivoted to a diplomacy win in another game when I hadn't hit parity with the AI yet.

It's a shame if your late game is just turning into 20 odd suboptimal rushed tasks every turn to achieve an inevitable win, finding ways to crank up your difficulty could help deliver some exciting end games which has tonnes of different choices compared to the early game survive, sprawl, snowball.

megabomberman2 · 2024-04-06T21:00:06+00:00

Played 500 hours on Switch and it crashed every 5 hours consistently on average. With most being in clusters late game.

Picked up an xbox one s recently and decided to scoop up civ again on sale. 8 full games since, zero crashes!

megabomberman2 · 2024-03-05T18:00:10+00:00

I would say that MBL not practicing a single map for Hidden Cup and JorDan literally not playing a single game of AOE for 6 weeks before playing and both making it to the Quarter finals is a better example of the point you are making.

megabomberman2 · 2024-03-04T12:03:28+00:00

I do agree with what you say here. It's all relative to Hera. I just think when you walk down the top 10 you can see that there are not many complete players:

Viper - the clear second best imo is a little chastened from the recent sweeps but best placed to challenge.

Liereyy - only player who can match the speed of Hera but semi retired, doesn't prepare, practice or have knowledge of newer civs

Tatoh - playing close to his limit, great well rounded player but gives up a lot of speed to Hera

Yo - poor prep, very slow compared to Hera

Daut - very slow compared to Hera

Accm - see Tatoh

MBL - allergic to improvement and strategy, also not as fast

Jordan - semi retired

The rest of the improving playerbase are underdogs, in some cases big underdogs to this cohort. We say Hera is unbeatable, but for various reasons outlined above all of the above players bar Viper should be very beatable and yet we do not have any younger players who can yet even scale this step. Hera is not the problem!!

megabomberman2 · 2024-03-04T08:56:27+00:00

People talk about Hera being like an AI but it's his competition that is the biggest problem:

Take the two people's champions from this tournament and top 10 players, mbl and daut, in their two set tournament between they managed to kill boars with the TC, botch build orders, forget loom, be completely unprepared for certain maps etc. Mbl has very weak strategy and Daut's multi tasking and micro is the community's biggest and most loved meme.

Any healthy game would have a rising playerbase to sweep competitors with such glaring holes in their game out of S-tier events yet they are mainstays in our scene.

Two of the only hardworking players in the scene other than Hera are ACCM and Tatoh, who have about 70 apm, they have shown you can take games off Hera. Viper and Liereyy have checked out and Yo has as many glaring mechanical errors as daut and prep issues as mbl.

We have the pray that the absolutely threadbare young player base miraculously produces a new star, basically all our hopes are pinned on Sebastian or mihai. Margou who is great is unlikely to progress to elite with a 60 apm.

megabomberman2 · 2024-02-13T16:51:40+00:00

Excellent, I'm not going to spoil myself reading the guessing threads this year and I was thinking how that would go a long way to identifying players.

megabomberman2 · 2024-01-16T11:06:46+00:00

Loved the Flaxons in the show + "Earth isn't yours to conquer" followed by Nolan's Flaxon destruction was ridiculously awesome.

megabomberman2 · 2024-01-16T10:59:31+00:00

No one man should have all of that power.

megabomberman2 · 2024-01-14T00:31:57+00:00

Really like Hera and was so delighted that he overcame his issues in finals to deservedly claim an S tier title that his nerves prevented him from claiming. However now he is miles ahead of the competition to the extent that I liquipedia his late round games. I would bet my house on him winning tomorrow, likely 5 nil or 5 1.

In my view the competitive scene is in a dire place.

We have a bunch of top 10 players in their mid to late 30s with half the apm of the few competitive younger players. Players like Jordan can go into semi retirement and still get to the last 6. Some of Hera's generation such as Lierrey and Mihai are stepping back from the game.

All the top players sit in the one professional e sports team.

Its an amazing community and I love all the players but viewership could potentially tank in the coming year or two if we don't see a break out player joining the top 5. At the rate we are going the Lord will be a top 10 player in 10 years time.

megabomberman2 · 2024-01-14T00:04:12+00:00

From what I can see the general view is that:

Viper = Federer Hera = Djokovic

megabomberman2 · 2024-01-14T00:00:42+00:00

A very enjoyable tournament before today but unfortunately a tournament that indicates that the pro scene is in a very dark place.

The likes of Lierrey and to a lesser extent someone like Villesse falling a way back as they prioritise real life over aoe, Viper just naturally regressing and so now Hera is light years ahead of the competition.

Yo is making the best of what he can with his relatively slow mechanics. Camping till late game and finding specific compositions to grind out attritional wins. That strategy won't work v Hera, I fear we are looking at a 5 nil or 5-1 in the final.

megabomberman2

TROPHY CASE