WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2021

Clearing up glass. Shed loads of it! Part of the 'charm' of my antique greenhouse is that the panes have been replaced due to breakages etc over time; a lot has also fallen out since falling into disrepair. All this glass is strewn about the estate (site / garden lol) so I'm collecting it up, storing what is usable and binning the rest. Which is a lot.

 

Good morning its to wet in the garden so I have been baking for my comfort eating

 

It was only 41f today but there was no cold wind and it was dry so I got the Secateurs out to prune the Shrub Roses right back and it feels like a job well done. The oldest Buddleia by the Patio had been pruned back by about a half but today I got a long Saw out and reduce the old thick trunks down to about 3' and the old cut pieces and the Rose pruning's ended up in the Council Green Waste Bin. I've still got all the borders to clear out of all the old dead plant stems and growth but there's no rush. Some Couch Grass has returned and it showing it's head again so I gave it a good spray with Weed Killer.

 

More uprooting and transplanting of hedging, general clearing of crud

 

As we have so many trees we spend a lot of our time from November to February clearing leaves. The bulk of the leafing is done by Lewis who comes occasionally to give us a hand with the heavier work. He can also take away a lot of the leaves which are used by a farmer.

We have four compost heaps for leaves and grass (with some shredded paper and bonfire ash added).

This heap doesn't look quite so big but it goes down some feet from what appears to be the surface.


This is one of the older heaps that is now being used on the garden. To the left of it is a now empty one (spread on the veggie plot) and the top of this one shall be moved onto it. That is a job for Lewis as my back isn't up to it.


We have regular bonfires as we have a lot of garden waste that needs getting rid of and the ash is used in the compost or is taken by some neighbours to spread on the plots.

We've removed some of our privet to give us a bit more room and to access the fence for painting.







Some of our grasses have now been cut back but we have a lot more to go.


The long job for me is removing the inches of leaves on the pots in the nursery areas that have to be done by hand. There were also stacks of leaves between the pots, almost as high as the pots, that needed clearing out.

These are some of the pots and the area behind them is where we removed some privet. I put some old broken paving there and covered it with black porous membrane.


A couple of other nursery areas all deleafed




We have a couple of thousand small pots neatly stacked in the shed with a much smaller amount of larger pots. All the other pots are stored on a paved area that is used for a nursery area. This overflows onto what was the lawn alongside when people drop their used pots and trays off to us. Unfortunately, these also get full of leaves and the occasional shrew (very cute). So I carefully remove those leaves and put the shrews under the hedge.
There are still a few thousand left.




I have been extra fussy about what pots and trays I keep as we're not going to be able to open our garden this year, again. So even those that are slightly damaged have to go. As they are non-recyclable they have to go in our black wheelie bin - which I have filled twice so far -
and there is still all this to go, stored on the barrows and will fill another couple of bins.

You can see that the pots and trays have killed off the grass . So that's another job to be done.

 

I'm now working on clearing leaves from a triangular bed about 40ft x 40ft x 30ft in the front garden. This is very awkward as I can't use a rake in it. It is full of snowdrops where, at this time of year, there are loads of tiny bulbs sitting on the surface. So I have to do it by hand which wouldn't be too bad but the bed is also full of shrubs and dogwood. So it is bending work (ooh my back!) as well as trying to avoid the grasping branches of the dogwood.

I hope to finish this bed by the weekend and am transplanting the loose snowdrops in a bed in the back garden. This was made more difficult by Sarafi the cat deciding to investigate what I was doing and dug them out again.

 

Good morning @DianneW and @Hazel Twigg with the greatest respect your posts are venturing towards going off topic could I ask you please to remember that this thread is for"
WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY and just respectfully suggest that you start a new thread in "The Off Topic " forum ,Thank you

 

Could I respectfully point out that this thread main theme is about what the GC Gang plans to do or is doing in the garden and not about disputes with neighbours which can, because of the emotions being caused, result in large posts basically taking over the Thread. Problems such as disputes with neighbours might be better posted in the Off Topic Forum.