WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2018

Wasn't expecting to do much today, apart from tar washing (it's not called that any more) the big acer in the front garden and some leaf collection.

I started to strip some of the dying leaves off this wisteria in the bed at the bottom of the garden.

This one.



It climbs around with some help of some wires an old 8ft stump of a tree that died over ten years ago and we took down.


This one.






It had rotted away below ground level and was a bit wobbly. So I detached the wisteria and rocked it until it fell over and I was able to drag it round to the path.

It took a whole bag of my compost to fill the hole. fortunately I remembered we had an old tall bird feeder that the birds didn't like so it ended up on the rafters of the garage years ago.

So I sank it into the ground and tied the wisteria to it.



Job done.

Well not quite, will have to get youngest son to come round with his chain saw. It won't go in the green bin!

 

Advertise it for free on the likes of Gumtree, someone will be more than happy to take it off your hands. With the price of electricity and gas going through the roof, more and more people are using wood burning stoves as a way of keeping the fuel bills down.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, but it's likely youngest son may want it, as he has a wood burning stove.

 

@Doghouse Riley what is ' tar washing' please?

 

Boring but enjoyable day today, clearing a mound of sycamore leaves,cleared the moss from the slippery pavement because the councils inept, checked on the garlics,tidied up the plants overwintering in the garage,set two mouse traps in there,and then went out where I almost ran into two horse riders on a blind bend who thought it wise to go out in the dark on dark horses with no lights on ?

 

It's a pest prevention treatment for trees, that you spray at this time of the year. its mainly for fruit trees. Originally it was creosote based, but that got banned by elf n' safety.

 

Sympathies @WeeTam . We may have been heavily involved with horses for many years but not all equestrians are complete morons. I all but ran over a dog 2 nights ago. The idiot owner of the dog from the village often walks up our road at night. It's single track and absolutely no lights anywhere. The black lab was off the lead and I only saw him at the very last second. It was my headlights reflecting back off the dogs eyes which alerted me otherwise I would have run the dog over. I got 1 hell of a fright and was furious with the idiot and told him so. He looked at me as tho I had 2 heads and couldn't see why I was so angry. He perhaps is not all there and certainly doesn't drive so clueless as to just how well drivers can see small dark objects at night. I'd have been less upset if I'd nearly run him down

 

Nice sunny day again. Got some bulbs planted today, didn't go as planned got the three fritillaria persica ( black ) planted. Started to dig the hole for the white ivory bells fritillaria and hit some concrete / stone, didn't think much at first I just dig that little bit out the dam concrete just kept going had to dig up the helianthus lemon queen, got the big iron pole thingy and smashed it up fortunately it wasn't to thick, I didn't get it all out it were going under the fence.


Bulbs in hopefully they come up next year and put on a show . They got more sand on top of the bulbs to help against rotting.

Also got the allium summer drummer planted and allium purple rain, I use the bulb planter for these, a allium bulb flew out the top of the bulb planter after standing on it whoops I don't know how it didn't damage it . Planted 100 crocus bulbs and got back inside for the second half of England.

 

Spent yesterday filling a skip up with the prunings from the hedge. Had the skip exchanged today which means that I can start filling another up with more prunings.

And so it goes on …...

 

Had some bad news. The chainsaw is busted. so when I came home from golf this afternoon, I used a bow saw, to cut the tree trunk into three pieces so I can get in my car tomorrow and take it down the tip. Took a lot of effort as, being as it was a prunus, it was very hard wood.

This is it in all its glory in 2004.



I've no idea why it died. All the old kitchen units, mostly top cupboards, with a cut down worktop (and the fridge/freezer) in the tea-house, had to come out when I bought the jukeboxes. but they got recyced for the second time, they're now on the garage wall.

 

Lawn mowing today plus more daffodils to plant or pot up.
Beautiful day to be outside
My kniphofias arrived today......potted on for planting later, prob in early spring
Nico decided to break a branch off one of my favourite azaleas.......annoyed but then how cross can you be with a mischievous, fun loving fluffy white retriever puppy? Besides, the azalea will still look good.....hopefully

 

Just took the logs from the tree down to the tip and bought some silver sand and some concrete mix. I use silver sand to make a cement mortar which with a bit of yellow dye is a reasonable match for the York stone of the patio and paths, for whenever they need pointing.
I went to the local small Travis Perkins. I've not been there for a few months. They've just thrown up the steel for a massive new warehouse next door to them, which they will move into next year.

Hopefully, their range will expand as they don't stock some stuff I've needed, like yellow cement dye which earlier in the year meant I had to travel several miles to get some.

Too wet to do anything else today. It'll have to wait until tomorrow afternoon or Thursday.

 

What are you having done ? Anything fancy