What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

With you on labelling bulbs, tubers etc @Selleri ...it always ends up a case of 'pot luck' with me and every year I have the same good intentions!!

So love Dahlias, ours have been ( and still are !) absolutely stunning this year.....and I took a chance and left them in situ last winter. What do you do with yours during winter?

 

Labelling things is not my strongest points... or if I do, I leave the labels in place for years, regardless what seedlings I grow in that pot that year. So this spring my Cosmos were proudly camouflaged as "Blue Cereus cactus" etc.

The Dahlia bulbs are put in paper bags (theoretically) labelled as Pink or White, then placed in a cardboard box filled with those puffy things you get when buying something fragile online, and put to sleep in the garage carefully avoiding the spot where the roof leaks. Then in spring they are planted in pots (also colour coded), and when it's warm enough, in ground. Again, theoretically, the pink ones contrast nicely my white roses, and the white ones lighten the bed of pink hydrangeas.

Leaving Dahlias in for the winter doesn't really work up here. Firstly, they are very slow to get going, pot forced give a month or so longer flowering period. That is, if the slugs leave anything at all to flower- they love young Dahlia shoots.

Not labelling things combined with advancing years gives great surprises when suddenly you find 30 tulips in a pot you thought was just leftover compost tucked in the tatty corner.

 

Oh you sound exactly like me @Selleri ,I have plants growing 'undercover and with fake identities ' too.!!!


I took a chance last year and left the Dahlias in place as I'm so hopeless at storing them , need to move a couple this year so may try again with them......wish me luck!!

 

Inability to label anything definitely creates interest in everyday life. I'm an avid freezer so freeze any surplus, things like half a grated celeriac or cabbage... that both have an uncanny resemblance to grated cheese when frozen. Yesterday I stood with a box of frozen something, clearly labelled (by The Teenager who is into that kind of things) "double cream". The contents looked very much like Bolognese sauce so I decided not to risk the cake.

Sorry for off topic and good luck with your Dahlias Upsy!

 

I've been in the garden all day and it's been lovely. Frost on the grass this morning soon dried out so I could mow in the afternoon. Tidied the back garden and fed what was left of the flowering plants. Cleaned lots of pots and put them away. I still have lots flowering in the front garden so just tidied them up and it's a waiting game now before I have to lift a few.
Trip to the GC tomorrow hopefully

 

Mr Snorky and I spent the day up on the lotty again, cleared two of the big beds enough so we could dig out a new bed shape and also laid some weed suppressant fleece and relaid stones. Took us all day. Thank god Mr Snorky is good at digging (he is used to building mountain biking trails and jumps etc).

 

Last of the elephant and normal garlic planted out. Treeferns got a last feed of seaweed. Still pushing out new fronds. Theyve got a surprise coming soon

 

Cut back some of the Japanese anemones that have finished flowering and dug some of the roots up to make room for some tulips, filled the grey bin and now there's bags around it for when it will be emptied.

 

Raining today but did a bit yesterday in the garden for a change but not as much as I wanted, its just not quite ready yet to get stuck in cutting things back and moving plants I've still got to many plants in flower. I did dig up Astrantia Roma and divided it , re planted two large clumps and got 12 new plants . Took the cucumber plant down and some tomato plants and moved the eucomis pots in the GH to start drying . Planted my orange monach crocus, also hebe and a primula got planted out trying to make my plant hoard get smaller felt a bit guilty after adding 12 more plants to it .

Looking busy the Iris section @ARMANDII