WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2022

Scalped! I finished scarifying my back and side lawns today, they were choked with moss.

 

I made myself a homemade Lawn Aerator (wood with long screws poking out the bottom, rope to pull it back up and a 19 stone weight to push it into the ground). Cost me £5. Today I tried it out on my front lawn. The hollow-tined one I bought barely marked the surface but my one worked great.

 

Are you still standing? A job well done!

 

Did a bit more weeding around the rhododendrons in the back garden, the robin was there watching me.

 

I'm repotting more cacti and succulents today, (just come in to make a coffee) ... the 'garden' is too wet but maybe if the forecast is right and we have some summer weather for the next while, I can get on with more tidying and cutting back.
I knew I had lots of cacti and succulents but it's taking longer to get around them all than I'd thought, and some of the 'clumpy' ones are falling apart so I'm ending up with even more than I started with !

 

Just been looking around at what's suffering in the dry spell and what's holding up. I've been watering things that really need it. There's a couple of casualties, next year will be interesting as the warm weather will have ripened some of the wood more than a normal summer; other things after this years stress may well sulk.

 

Did a bit more aerating, this time in the Meadow. Too much to do all in one go for my old bones.

 

After reading through all your work, guys, I need a rest!

 

I've done nothing more than a little deadheading of the Geraniums on the balcony railing & removing a few yellowed leaves from Fuchsia 'Beacon'.

I also had to get rid of a half shell from a pigeon's egg that was in amongst the Geraniums on the balcony railings!

Talking about pigeon eggs, a couple of months ago I found, more or less in the same place, a whole, completely intact pigeon egg! It must have fallen 4 floors as the only place the pigeons rest is on the balcony railings of the flat 4 floors above ours, (we live on the ground floor & our balcony is a little wider that all the 6 floors above us), & that is where their droppings fall from that dirty so much our balcony.

A couple of weeks ago I told our granddaughter about it & she asked me if I had kept the egg or tried to get it to hatch. NO!,I said! I just threw it outside into the grass! I don't want any more of them making the balcony dirty, dangerous due to their dropping becoming very slippery after a little rain.
.

 

Did air layering on a deciduous Azalea and did some watering.

 

Sowed seeds of Acnistus/Iochroma Australe Blue and Vigna Carracalla Snail Vine and watered my seedlings and plantlets for the second time. Sat and admired everything.

 

Thank you and only just, a day of rest for my back today @Victoria. It took five afternoons to complete even with an electric scarifier, a lot longer than expected and I could have filled five to six builders bags with moss. The front lawns will have to wait until next year.

What I need now is rain and some lawn food to urge it back into growth.

 

Deadheading, tidying, a bit of repotting, watering, also lifted the volunteer potatoes and eased the onions up prior to stringing up.
Onions like the garlic are small, not enough water probably. Potatoes not bad.
Elephant garlic lifted one had stoppedgrowing a few weeks ago and not flowered it produced a solid bulb the size of a cricket ball; the other kept growing produced a flower and the usual size and number of cloves.
A lot of plants are shooting through their flowering period very quickly.

 

Today just a bit of watering.