Ask Gerry

I have recently brought back some mistletoe from France, 1. how can I keep it till Christmas and 2. Can I graft it on to one of my apple trees?

I planted a group of trees about five years ago. I burned the grass underneath them to give them a chance,now the weed liverwort is spreading .should i remove it and how or leave it.

Our sprouts are doing rather well (see pic). At the top are cabbage-size growths. Is all this greenery edible (leaves and centres). Sure seems a shame to waste it.

Is November a bad time to apply Iron Sulphate on the lawn to kill out the moss? And lastly When is is a good time to prune (Heavy) the apple trees?

I planted garlic cloves on Oct 18, and now, 3 weeks later, I can see 5cm shoots above the ground. Is this normal? I had somehow thought the cloves were meant to lie dormant over the winter.

I have a Golden Leylandi hedge about 30 yrs old, the back of which is completely bare. Can you recommend a replacement hedge that can withstand wind and heavy frost.

I want to remove concrete in my garden and replace it with a lawn. Would you advise just lifting the concrete now before the cold spell and spend the next few months over the winter preparing the ground for April or would I be better off waiting until the cold winter is over to start a job like this. I want a real high quality lawn so grateful for what you would reccomend.

Will a holly (Ilex aquifolium) hedge be suitable for planting very close to the sea and also be resistant to a heavy frost. How large are the plants available to buy from nurseries as I would like it to be as high as possible?

I have a Verbascum densiflorum and a friend wants some seeds. I have crumbled some dried flowers from one of the spikes (that grew to about 10 feet!) but I can't identify anything as a seed. How can I identify the seed or is it possible that there is none?

We have inherited an old bumpy (lethal for kids to fall on) porous tarmac tennis court and the cost of replacement with astroturf is too expensive. Therefore I'd like to replace with grass. Rather than completely dig up and re-seed, is it an option to simply put topsoil over the court and if so, how much is needed for grass to grow?

100ft long, 16ft high, lived through all the frost, Beautiful. But now we redoing paving on one side and the wall on the other side has no foundation and needs to be replaced. Hedge growing beside it. ? do we replace it and or take our chances that it will live another bad frost winter? or will it die and we will have to rip up our new paving?

Is it too soon to plant Allium giganteum? The packet says to delay setting as frost might get them if they come up too soon. also people tell me they are very hard to grow. Is this correct?

I had always grown Shirley tomatoes very successfully in a tunnel but last year my sister grew Moneymaker tomatoes and they developed a disease whereby shoots became mouldy and died back. This year the shirley tomatoes had it as well and a lot of the shoots died back early. i don't know what tis disease s. I had assumed that shirley tomatoes were disease resistant. How do I clean up the tunnel to get rid of this disease?

Problems with spots in the flesh of cooking apples from my tree. They are brown and the fruit is peppered, but the outside skins look perfect?

I have a 5 year old apple tree which has always blossomed but never produced apples until this year. Mind you the fruit was poorly. I recently noticed what appears to be canker on the trunk of the tree just where it branches outwards. I have checked previous questions and you suggest potash and also to cut the canker out. I was just wondering would it be necessary to cut it out of this tree considering it's position on the tree.