What jobs are we doing in the garden today, autumn 2016

We used to sell filled hanging baskets and used to take it from our lawns. I also used to bag it up and let people have the bags for nothing (could fill 100's of bags!). It's too much hard work for me nowadays so it stays in the lawn.

 

Because it was so mild and dry today I got the secateurs out and pruned down the 50 or so Clematis on the sides of the Trellis entrance to the garden. There were also some perennial Sweetpeas mixed in with the Clematis so they were pruned as well. After that I decided to continue the pruning and started on the Roses, so "Crazy for You". "Trumpeter", "Uncle Walter", "Kings Ransom", "Orange and Lemons", "Regensburg", and "Generous Gardener", taking them down to a third of their original size and any stems crossing over each other. Then I started on the Hardy Perennials that still had some dead foliage above ground level. There's was still a number of jobs left to do but I considered a mug of tea to be a higher priority, so the jobs can be done another day.

 

It all depends how low you want to prune it down, Snorky My Clematis are starting to show shoots now so I prune them down leaving 2 or 3 shoots after pruning. If it's a big old one that hasn't been pruned for a good while then I would be more cautious in the way I pruned it if, as you say, it's like wood/sticks to you. If you want to give it a light pruning then take it down by a third, or if you want to go lower then see if you can find shoots on the stems and then prune above the last three.

 

Then I would leave any thoughts of pruning it until you know exactly what it is, Snorky!!!!

 

After going for a leisurely walk in the forest I felt up to removing more moss from the flower beds. Filled another three buckets before my back told me to stop. Three wheelie bind full plus five buckets and I'm still working on the front garden . Not touched the moss on the lawns and they're looking as though we've had a moss invasion. I may have to succumb to getting a lawn man in