What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

Male Wool Carder Bees defend these plants aggressively as they are so important to them. The females harvest the hairs from the leaves for their nesting chambers.

Nick

Plant lambs' ears and keep wool carder bees happy

 

Fascinating, @Nikolaos !

Well, not surprisingly, I didn’t get that much done yesterday. I did cut another 5m or so of the laurel hedge, and made up 6 bundles of cuttings, that were collected first thing this morning.

Then I did a poop-scoop (more fox than dog, as per normal), prior to cutting most of the grass. The wild areas have had their annual cut, so can start to grow long again... Frequent stops were made for frogs, and one frog was rescued from the bird-bath.

I also sorted out through the garage, after we did a tip-trip last Friday. Lots of floor cleared, and shelves re-arranged. I accidentally claimed some of the lawnmower space, but that was simple enough to rectify.

The chillies were inspected after lunch, with a view on what needs harvesting this evening.

Now I’m off to church to try to restore a little order to the birds-nests of cabling that have accumulated on the stage area. We are reluctant to handle cables, unless absolutely necessary, as it is impossible to properly disinfect them. But what happens, of course, is we have the standard set-up that we are all supposed to use (worship leader thinks we can “all use the same settings” - and then the following week asked for an extra keyboard, and two more vocalists!), extra team members have to be accommodated - see above, but the extra cables are not put away. Two months on since we first re-opened the church, and the stage area is a dangerous place to walk, never mind set up a band! Whilst I’m at church, I’ll weed the gardens a little, and see what spaces need filling with the plants I’m growing on for there...

 

Yesterday weeded one of the beds and planted tulip bulbs and wallflowers, watered them in. Dug up a lupin it was too close to one of the roses and potted it up, it's wilted a bit but will pick up. Today didn't do much it was too hot and muggy to do anything but tonight watered the polyanthus and wallflowers.

 

Trimmed a few edges, a bit more weeding. Picked green tomatoes off outside plants which have got blight.
Repotted a few things.
Planted two rubus and a summer dormant fern under the trees.

 

More weeding and edge trimming, also dug up a number of Scilla peruviana hughii that were popping up all over the place. This has turned out to be a bit of a thug spreading by underground roots forming bulbs. The Scilla peruviana is a lot better behaved.

 

Yesterday did some more weeding, every year it's always the same place. Can't seem to get rid of grass and the wild creeping strawberry. Didn't do anything today, recovering from the last few days.

 

Beautiful day on Anglesey , so decided I needed a break from resin. Spent most of the day chilling on a zero watching my , the birds and the rats. One of the rats discovered the bird food bucket I had left outside the back door. He very industriously removed 5 fat balls and lugged each one 30 metres along the path and across the side garden to the shed .

Spent two hours cutting the strip between the bun runs and the hedge and the grass in the disused bun run. I did a walk through first to check before cutting as I always do. I'm not sure what I want to do with this area of the garden. R suggested using part of it to make a catio. This either sounds like a good idea or a bad one depending on whether the cat has managed to offend me or not. At the moment I'm not speaking to him so it's a bad idea .

I discovered a smallish hog lying in a hibernating position half buried in the hay in one of my houses a few days ago. It could be the hog is having a trial hibernation before the big event (very common for them to do this ). I thought the house was empty and intending to clean it out ready for autumn. Two of my other houses have signs of being occupied too. The Goldfiches and their babies are still here . They are very nervous compared to the other birds, which is a shame.

 

Yesterday was a little disjointed, gardening wise.

I did a little deadheading and weeding before going for a socially-distanced walk with some church friends - lovely!

Then after lunch I did some more weeding, cut some of the taller sections of laurel hedge that are tapping in the top of the flat-ish single-storey roof of the lounge. That should stop interruptions during the evenings! The new neighbours’ gardener showed up, and started felling a big formerly-cop picked hazel tree, that is right next to the boundary. Poor red squirrel was yakketting away at him from the oak tree, but I don’t think he heard... we’ve still got a walnut tree for him to eat through!
I got “talking” to him. He doesn’t speak English or Dutch, I don’t speak much French - so there was lots of pointing and guess-work going on! (It started well though, when he spotted our elderly Weimaraner, as he also has an older weim girl). The new neighbours have asked if they can remove a sick conifer (I think Norway fir?) growing right near their house. It is the middle one of the group of three - the largest having fallen on the house 7 years ago during a local mini-tornado. He said that the tree has been hit by a beetle, that have basically killed it within months. I have to say, it looks like a larch mid-winter! But the third tree hasn’t been touched?
I’m reluctant to loose both trees, but wondering if the beetle will just move across? I’ve not heard of a conifer beetle...

Anyway, the neighbour has offered to pay for the felling, so we will see. At least the gardener has more of a clue on what he is doing than the builders - their idea of brick-work is appalling! Yes, that is how they left it!

 

Yesterday saw a rare after-work burst of energy, the 66 plug Pansies arrived so needed to be potted up. I'm quite pleased with my JParker order, I paid about £13 for the lot and every single plant looks perky and has a good root system.

On the downside, after filling three washing up bowls with plugs for planting into the ground when the Dahlias come up, plus several containers, I realised that 66 plants is a bit of an overkill for a postage stamp garden that is already quite full. I'll call it a "generous display".

Whilst potting the youngsters up I spotted some very hungry looking slugs so had to find slugproof places for the lot. I swear the slugs were drooling at the sight of tender young pansies.

And here is my ultimate slugproofing solution... ta- daaah!



The Teenager had some reservations regarding the human seat count reduction and the potential cost of setting up the solution for, say, 50 containers, but that's just a well meaning amateur speaking. In my eyes this is perfect, I challenge any slug to wriggle up the metal legs and navigate the slat system.

Tidied up some Erigeron and Geranium cuttings taken a month ago and had a little peek at the roots, everything looks just fine.

 

Hubby’s comment on seeing the photo “that’s challenging - it will take 48 hrs of the hive mind to work out an access plan...”

 

No gardening for me today.

Up early before the alarm went off. Then drive to London, to Guys Hospital. Parking is terrible. Eventually used a NCP parking lot. Cost over £6.00 Eventually saw the doctor. CT scan was good..............But after having a look around inside. Sorry but the cancer has returned. So I now await another op etc. This has been going on for six years now. No escape but I am getting a bit tired of it all. Never mind eh?

 

Cut down my corkscrew hazel today, been thinking about it for a few weeks now as a pretty handsome and pretty big black and white tom
cat has seen it as a perfect spot to ambush the birds, not a battle I think I'm going to win, plus side is it gives me a bit more room for a few flowers, may even turn it into a lily bed.

 

Wishing you all the very best Mike.

 

Dead-heading and watering all I seem to be doing on these warm September days.