WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2018

Sunny afternoon here with only occasional earthquakes (!) so finished laying out the alpine bed and started to arrage the few plants I have for it so far. Part of me wants to get them in the ground as quickly as possible, but another part of me wants to wait until I have more so I can plan it all out more thoroughly first.



Really not a lot to work with so far!

Also hacked down 75% of the buddleias growing out of the back wall. Makes everything feel more open again, and will hopefully allow for a little more sun. Need to get round to the other side to finish what is left, but it's a private road to a nursing home and the gate is locked at weekends, so that will be a job for my next mid-week day off.





Now just have to sort out the mess...

 

Like the alpine bed 2nd bassoon........want to start growing alpines again myself so looking forward to seeing your progress

 

Just pruned ( hacked back) 20 metre of laurel hedging. First hard prune in 20 years. Thought id get it done before the birds start getting frisky. There must be enough bits lying on the lawn to create a thousand cuttings

 

That alpine bed will provide a nice contrast


Is that next door's ivy on the wall I can see?
It can become a problem.


It sort of "creeps up on you."

Mine grew through the fence from next door and "ate two fence panels"




The only solution was to dig it all out and replace the panels.

 

I sowed some seeds after trying to dig more of the border, it just wasn't happening my back and little legs put their foot down digging bindweed roots out of claggy clay isn't easy, and then add bl@@dy creeping buttercup, couch grass and nettles to the mix
Anyway I WILL get it done before it turns to concrete again, this year I WILL win the battle

 

Lots of Molehills here too - although I am actually quite pleased to have the Mole/s.

No gardening today but an impromptu trip to garden centre on mainland to buy pond plants. Bought four and will pot them up tomorrow. Have a hunt for my white worm too.

 

That sounds like a good plan Woo

 

Thanks @Verdun - the gravel stones are sightly larger than I would have ideally liked, but it was £7 a bag cheaper than the proper alpine stuff so no contest really! I'm hoping it will soften out with planting. I'm keeping an eye out for some larger rocks to give it a bit of structure but no luck yet.

To be honest @Doghouse Riley I'm not sure where the ivy comes from. The walls are very old - based on the markings on them I think at one point they made up part of an outhouse/stone shed - and I think the ivy is fairly integral to the structure at this point! At some point I suspect the whole wall will need either reenforcing or taking down, but one of the few advantages of renting is that won't be my problem to deal with My main battle is with the bramblebush that keeps sending suckers over from the garden to the left of ours; it's an AirBnB rental, so no hope of help in that quarter.

 

Bruise a sucker and bend it into a jar of neat glyphosate, cover to keep the rain out

 

It's done now, but it was a pain.
Every night before we go to bed, I turn on all the lights in the garden, just to check that there's nothing untoward, that they are all working and I can see the water pouring into our koi pool from the filter. If all that's working, so will the two table-top freezers in the shed with a lot of meat in them. There's always a possibility of either the pump, UV, or air pump for the pool developing a short and the RCCB will trip out everything and the freezers will go off.

Anyway, as I turned all four switches off again, I noticed the spotlight over the waterfall wasn't working. No problem, I'll change the bulb in the morning.

Wrong! A new 12v 35w bulb wouldn't work. So it was a case of tracing everything from the transformer to the lamp. My big fear (fear? That's a bit OCD) is that something might have gone wrong with the supply cable that goes through some alkathene pipe buried in the concrete collar for the koi pool, from the garage to where it comes up near the lamp. In the end I found a short in one of the connectors, (squirrel having a chew?) . But it took an hour.

 

Gave the greenhouse a good clean yesterday and disinfected with bleach . Tested my new Inkbird thermostat for the heating , works great . I use it from March just to stop temps dropping below 5°c on chilly nights.

 

Would that work on people?

 

If you hold their head down long enough, yes

 

... I have a cunning plan ... ...