Live webchat with gardening expert Phil McCann, today, 1-2pm

Hi Phil - I'm new to Gransnet and this is a great opportunity to get some good gardening advice. I've recently moved to a house with a space called a garden that in fact was once an outdoor museum: the ground is compacted by vehicles and people that used to drive and walk over it and there are also areas of rubble and broken concrete, so you see that I've got my work cut out for the next few years! When we moved in some bamboo planted along a wall was 20ft high and I have repeatedly poisoned it with Roundup tree stump liquid, but it's still coming back. Even the parts that seem to have died off have enormous root systems. Please, please can you suggest ways of finally getting rid of it so that the land can be cleard for something less invasive!

Hi, I wonder if you can give me some guidance on walnuts. My daughter has just acquired three flourishing trees but we're all at a loss as to know when is the optimum time to pick and how do we know from the outside if they are ready to eat? Some are very light and I wonder if there is anything inside them at all. We were also warned that if we don't get there in time the squirrels will. Would appreciate your advice as there is such a bumper crop.

Hello Phil, I have a hardy banana (Musa Basjoo) which is at present in a tub. It has however got too big to move, so must be planted permanently in the garden next spring. How should I over winter it in future, do I cut the leaves off before wrapping it up etc. I live in North East Essex.

I live in Aberdeenshire and winters can be very cold. I have a polytunnel for the first time this year. I have grown a lot of perrenial flower plants from seed. A lot of them too small to plant out as it was quite late in the season before the tunnel was up and running.
What should I do to ensure that they survive the winter given that last year we were down to -20c at times?

I can see that in the future there is going to be more and more need of water conservation with climate warming and the cost of water escalating.We should start now with getting into good habits and watering at the right time when the plants need it, not too early and not after they have wilted.What is your best advice to pick this up? or is it just experience. Are there any other conservation suggestions you can make that can be used on the alloment and that will not cost an arm and a leg

Hello Phil,

I'd love to know if it is really possible to eradicate Japanese Knotweed from a garden. We've reduced it drastically in ours over the last five years (it had been left for over twenty years and had spread over a large area) but small shoots keep reappearing and we keep respraying with RoundUp. It never gets higher than about 40cm now whereas it was about 2 metres high when we first came. Are we doing the right thing? Will it eventually die? I had hoped to have a vegetable garden but of course I can't disturb the ground until I know the roots are dead.

Do you know how the experiment with the J.knotweed-controlling insect is coming along?