WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

Your house and garden sound just like mine . Almost 6 years into ' the project ' and its not getting any less. In all truthfulness I get very, very fed up with the mess and chaos. Nothing gets put away, it just gets moved from one place to another. I need order and a clean house to be able to relax. You have my sympathies.

 

This morning I removed the final patio slabs and membrane. Began digging up top layer of soil that still contains grass/weed roots. And discovered that under the soil there is gravel . I think it may be for filtering rain water as the back and side gardens are prone to flooding and water logging. I hadn't really considered this possibility as there is deeper soil where the Cherry tree, bun run and septic tank are.

So deciding what to do now. Buy some top soil and make a rockery maybe. Returf the area, make another bun run and forget the idea of a flower bed - not my favourite option. I could buy plants that like stony soil but I have plants in pots to use and nowhere else to put them at present. Ideas/suggestions welcome

 

If you do make a rockery luciusmaximus it is worth taking time out to get right stone, to arrange it so it all "runs" same way, etc.
Too many rockeries are just a pile of dumped stone, soil and all swamped with ground cover plants
You need to decide if your soil is free draining or heavy and wet then choose suitable plants. Because there is a lining of gravel doesnt mean it is stoney soil!

 

Sorry I didn't mean the soil is stony. In general it is not. I just meant that plants that will grow in stony soil might grow here. I suspect the gravel layer is not that deep and likely there is bedrock underneath like in the back garden. We get waterlogged fairly quickly after winters heavy rains but it does drain away fairly quickly too.

I like the idea of rockeries but never built one. Looked online, lots of advice, lots of pictures. I understand laying down a layer of rubble as drainage but the advice given states laying membrane over the rubble. As a rubble layer will be uneven would not placing large rocks and soil on top of that cause the membrane to stretch and rip??

 

The most important thing is to get the rock right. All the same, mostly underground and looking really as if one large piece of stone.
Not sure about membrane luciusmaximus....I loathe the stuff. It is horrible, depletes the soil of life and air and does nothing for the environment. Thoroughly weed first, sort the stone then research the plants you want. Go for QUALITY rather than quantity.
What about a scree?

 

Spending some time out in the sunshine cutting back dead plant foliage and trying to cut back crocosmia foliage even though it is still green as I want to split the plants up later as the clumps are starting to get too big for the spots they occupy

Have also collected up over fifty + large slugs and a few snails from underneath a lot of my border plants and they are now in my recycling bin.I am trying my hardest to avoid using slug pellets as we have a visiting hedgehog but I am beginning to pull my hair out because the hedgehog isn't interested in eating the slugs so they have a free reign to breed and nosh a lot of my plants.We had a lovely purple flowered bulb that we waited days to see in flower only for the flower spike to be bitten through just as the flowers opened and I only caught the slug attached to the flowers

PS,for the aircraft people on here we have also had a Jet Provast,or is a Provast Jet? Flying round our village.Bit noisy but better than those bloody Blades that like to do their loop de loop acrobatics over my garden when I want a bit of peace and quiet

 

I haven't been around for a couple of days, so will catch up later. Gardening is minimal ( if I step outside an alarm seems to trigger the kids....MAM!!!! CAN I HAVE?.....WILL YOU...... )
To say I'm frazzled is true but its unfair to the kids!
We've had so much bad weather!
No 1 .- They can't play out but want to
No 2.- I can't play out but want to
Anyway I found some more potatoes
Enough to actually cook with

 

Chicken Caesar salad, with potatoes, is their destiny

 

Phew I'm exhausted reading about it, good luck with getting it all done