Hazel Pryce

Feeding is the lever most people miss. Black spot loves soft, sappy growth, and high-nitrogen fertiliser produces exactly that. Go balanced, with extra potash in spring and again after the first flush. Tougher leaves mean less to infect. Then look at what sits against the base. Fine compost or grass clippings turn every shower into a splash zone flinging spores onto the lowest leaves. Chunky bark or gravel does the opposite. Water early. Base watering is right, but mornings mean any leaf that does get wet dries before dark. Be honest about your worst bush, too. In Harvey's wet winters some cultivars will always struggle. If one plant gets stripped bare every year while its neighbours are fine, that's the plant, not your routine. Replace it with a resistant variety and you've fixed something no spray can. Wipe your secateurs between bushes as well.

Feeding is the lever most people miss. Black spot loves soft, sappy growth, and high-nitrogen fertiliser produces exactly that. Go balanced, with extra potash in spring and again after the first flush. Tougher leaves mean less to infect. Then look at what sits against the base. Fine compost or grass clippings turn every shower into a splash zone flinging spores onto the lowest leaves. Chunky bark or gravel does the opposite. Water early. Base watering is right, but mornings mean any leaf that does get wet dries before dark. Be honest about your worst bush, too. In Harvey's wet winters some cultivars will always struggle. If one plant gets stripped bare every year while its neighbours are fine, that's the plant, not your routine. Replace it with a resistant variety and you've fixed something no spray can. Wipe your secateurs between bushes as well.

I can't tell you what your ex is feeling or doing — that's not what I do, and honestly nobody can answer that from the outside. But I can tell you what I see from this side of things: when someone's still asking this question, they're usually not ready to date yet. And that matters for what I actually do know about. If you were to put a profile up right now, that unresolved energy would show — in stiff bio wording, in photos where you're trying too hard to look "fine," in conversations that fizzle because you're mentally comparing everyone to her. People can sense when they're a warm body filling a space rather than someone you're genuinely curious about. You don't need to know where her head is at. You need to know where yours is. When you're no longer rewriting your bio from the angle of "what would she think if she saw this," you're probably ready.

I can't tell you what your ex is feeling or doing — that's not what I do, and honestly nobody can answer that from the outside. But I can tell you what I see from this side of things: when someone's still asking this question, they're usually not ready to date yet. And that matters for what I actually do know about. If you were to put a profile up right now, that unresolved energy would show — in stiff bio wording, in photos where you're trying too hard to look "fine," in conversations that fizzle because you're mentally comparing everyone to her. People can sense when they're a warm body filling a space rather than someone you're genuinely curious about. You don't need to know where her head is at. You need to know where yours is. When you're no longer rewriting your bio from the angle of "what would she think if she saw this," you're probably ready.