WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2018

I took the seed spikes off the wallflowers (oops - my plants are 4-5 years old now, does everyone throw them away after their first spring flowering?!), and transplanted a few, as they were growing at the end of the original veg bed. Transplanted an apricot beauty foxglove, also in the veg bed, as we need to dig it over completely. Extended the top bed a little to take the wallflowers, watered the bedding plants, finished putting the new pebbles in the pond (found a "proper" garden centre that sold lots of different pebbles). Got the hose out, and topped up the pond, the water barrel, and watered the peas, beans and courgettes in the veg beds....

Then it was time for lunch, and the normal Saturday stuff!

 

I throw mine away after first flowering, only because i plant pot marigolds in the same place. But they do keep for a few years until they give up.

 

Funny enough I sowed a few trays of wall flowers today, and was thinking
the same, at my old house the wall flowers were tough as old boots, I used to cut them back hard after flowering and they gave a great show every year.

Also spent most of the day painting the double gates for the driveway
and still have to finish off tomorrow with the gold hammerite for
the fancy spikes etc on the top of the gates

 

Ive been painting put your sunglasses on


The grandkids love it that's all that matters i guess i am not that struck on it its certainly different ,

Like i said to the wife ive seen same colour cars driving around at least only us can see it

 

We had ours from one of the garden centre's and it's about 3yrs old now and ours doesn't go dull either and what I like about them is they clean lovely where the water goes...I think yours goes smashing with how you have your lovely garden designed...there's some hard work gone in to it and that climber is stunning

 

Martin...sunglasses more like blinkers ...what possessed you to do it mate ......pleazzzzzzzz i'm begging ya the other colour looked

 

Well, I like it Martin

I'm much more into pastel and complementary colours now but I once painted a bungalow a red/orange colour despite everyone telling me no. I remember the postie telling me, as I painted the chimney, that it looked "interesting". Painted pelmets....that dates me doesnt it?......purple and grey zig zags!!!

It is already very warm so watering containers has already been done and the grass will be cut later today. Not sure gardening will be on the agenda today.

What a glorious spell of summer weather we are having love it !

 

Removing sprouting broccoli as it's finished. Planting Runner and French beans, Planting a few things into a holding area as they are easier to look after in the ground than in pots. Potting up Fuchsias and Dahlias into pots suitable for the front of the house. Shading cacti that have just been moved to the greenhouse.

 

@Martin @Verdun I once painted the windows of my house green and yellow. Nobody was ever unable to find it.

 

Hi @martin-f , I think it's great. I love burgundy/maroon colours. Better than any fluorescent lime green or pink etc. I bet that it will mellow lovely.

 

^^^^ Thanks all ,
The way i see it is £22 and three four hours work and it can be any colour , i kind of liked it before i varnished it, its certainly different well protected from the elements and my grandkids love it, this is its third colour in as many years i might do it banana yellow next year ,

Ive been putting some play chippings down only temporary measure when time permits i will be putting Indian stone in this area with a small fence round it.

 

I started early today....around 10.00am and finished about 12.30pm.

I gave the "rabbit shed" a coat of Dulux Mahogany Woodstain. It's the replacement for "exterior Woodsheen," but £15 per 2.5 ltrs more expensive.

I built this shed for our seven year-old daughter. I used the back wall of the garage as one side and built it out of reclaimed roofing ply and 3" X 2" plus three wood frame windows, I pulled out of the skip when next door's had their windows changed for double glazing. The shed was a reward for her for looking after her one rabbit in its hutch on the patio.The conditions for letting her have the first one was that she had to clean it out and feed it every morning before school whatever the weather. The shed allowed her to have more rabbits and some guinea pigs. I was forever making more hutches. She bought her last rabbit at the age of fourteen. By the time she was eighteen and left home to train at GOS as a nurse, it was the only survivor. We had to look after it for another eight years before it popped its clogs!





This woodstain is very shiny, it's reflecting the glare off the path.



Anyway since that time, it has housed my garden tools. But we still call it "the rabbit shed." It's rather compact and bijou but I can get everything garden related in. My extending pruners have to be stored under the roof!
The two table-top freezers are storage for my wife's on-line bulk meat and pie purchases. There's a vent in the wall behind them and one in the bottom of the wall next to the door as it can get quite warm in there.






These old filing drawers are handy for all sorts of bits. I've taken some of the drawers out and use them in the long drawer under my workbench in the garage, to store tools, screws, nuts and bolts etc.,





The garage with a big work bench and more stuff than I can ever use is another story.


I have replaced the roofing felt over time, but there's no rot and is quite serviceable, considering our daughter will be fifty next month! (She never came home to live, she and her family live in Staines).



I also gave the pool pergola another coat..



The new wisteria is doing its best to climb over the pergola rails



It's a replacement we've had for just a few weeks. This one which was fifty years old died, well most of it,
one surviving branch runs round and fills half the pergola on the back of the house.
It was becoming unmanageable, far too much wood.




The pergola/pool rail has a history. When I built the pool, (thirty years ago) as it's five feet deep my wife said with her MS she would be frightened to walk past it to get to the bottom of the garden. So I built the pergola and rail. A week after I'd built it, I came home from work one evening to find her busy doing a bit of weeding on the rockery the other side of the pool!


Digressing.

I've been discussing on a koi enthusiasts message board, about closing pools down. This can happen when people either lose interest or it becomes too much for them. For some, it can be a problem as to what to do swith a big hole in the garden.

I've long accepted that at some time in the future my 32 year old-pool will have to go. But I already have a plan.
I'll fill most of it in and create a shallow sunken garden, with a dry pebble "stream" from the waterfall to what presently is the filter return under the imitation bridge.

I'll pave it and put some of the dozen or so ceramic pots with roses in it.

I'll break through the middle of the narrow bed between the pool and the patio and build a couple of stops down.

The rockery and perimeter rocks, pergola and rail will stay. I don't think it will look too bad.



,

 

Spent most of the day in and out of the garden pottering around, doesn't seem like I've done much to say I was out at 10.30am until 8.30pm with breaks in between, watch the chelsea flower show warm up and back out. Potted on a few plants and planted out some geranium patrica - agastache and moved some blue bells and others around, watered everything had the sprinkler on this morning. I did have a good sit down on the bench which I hardly ever use, enjoyed ice cream and cheese burger and cups of tea while watching the birds.

Was out in the GH last night as well nearly up to 10 potting on some lobelia and aimlessly wonder around doing thing was I walk past, no wonder I lose tools and forget what I was originally doing.

 

I understand Perki.....I get side tracked in the garden so easily and, yes, often spend time looking for the secateurs, trowel, etc. I had put down when distracted

Lawns mown, hoed veg rows, planted pennisetum rubrum, got a couple of new pots and planted them up, sprayed epsom salts on a couple of chlorotic looking perennials, liquid fed pelargoniums, top dressed other pots and put out for display, watered toms in gh.

A hot sunny morning and early pm but then became misty/cloudy for the rest of the day.....still feeling very warm though