WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2022

Oh @Perki ! So sorry to hear that! Have you had all your jabs?

Our eldest and his girlfriend have both had it twice too but a while back now before the jabs were rolled out for their ages.

 

@Upsydaisy No I haven't had any of the jabs I have a big dislike of needles . I had it last year June which I think was probably the Delta strain I were far more ill with that strain. Felt a bit weary / feverish Friday night and Saturday morning, you wouldn't know I've got it today unless I told you I could count on one hand how many times I've sneezed / coughed today. You've just got to get on with life looks like its going to be a annual thing like the cold / flu .

 

I know what you mean..I'm not keen on needles either. I had a Covid and a Flu jab at the same time in the same arm last week. I was too shocked to say no as I had only booked for the Covid one, but glad now that I've got them both done and out of the way.
I know that if I didn't get them done then I would put my brother at risk as his immunity is very low. Thankfully I've never had Flu or Covid.

Look after yourself.

 

The last couple of days I've continued to make - small - changes on the balcony. I've removed the 3 long white plastic troughs inside till I can empty them of the few remaining Sweet Williams & the compost (which must be 3 years old now!). I've been moving around pots of plants to take the place of the 3 troughs. I really need to get rid of the troughs as soon as I can as they are taking up a lot more space in the interior of the balcony & making it difficult to move around.

I've continued taking a few cutting of some of the plants that I would rather not lose over winter as I can't take them inside the flat. While we don't have a very bad winter the few precautions I take with the plants I want to preserve should be sufficient.

 

Made one of the borders wider and start planting today.

 

Finished this border with wallflowers, tulips, foxgloves and polyanthus

 

I have given up on the garden. it is too wet, cold and miserable now. The garden now is for looking at from the window. You cannot see the weeds and deadheads from there. I dare say I will get a brighter warmer spell before next summer but until it comes along I will keep warm and comfortable indoors.

 

Yesterday I spent most of my day getting rid of the 3 long white plastic troughs that I have had for nearly 21 years on the balcony. In the morning I started by looking for bags to put all the Sweet William plants from the 3 troughs in.Nowadays that we don't have 100s of plastic bags lying around that has become more difficult. I thought there were several of these bags that you can have replaced once they are worn out. I only found 1! But what I did find - though I didn't remember they were there - was 2 very big raffia bags! These were much more suited to what I had in mind, namely taking all the Sweet Williams out to take to my church & plant them there in the gardens.

Once I took the plants out & put them in the raffia bags I was still left with a great deal of compost! Having found a few plastic bags I filled them up with the compost with the idea of doing the same as the plants. i.e, take them & empty them in the church gardens. After I had done that it was a case of tidying up the balcony, sweeping, moving plant pots & containers around. By then it was lunch time & I didn't have time to take the plants to the church.



As I had to pick our granddaughter up from school I couldn't go till after 4pm. Eventually I got there & put the plants in the ground alongside the foot path to the main entrance. AS I only had a trowel this was very hard work but I kept at it for over an hour & managed to put in all the plants which covered about 3/4 of the length of the path.

Several years ago I created a bed alongside said path & filled it with Daffodils, Tulips, Anemones, Alliums & Crocuses - all from the pots & troughs on the balcony. All except the Anemones have reflowered each year! Though I must admit they are getting poorer each year :( I added Geranium cuttings in early summer which at first seemed to be doing very well. But along came those weeks of very hot weather & no rain for months & the poor things didn't make any further progress. When I started to water them it was too late to make much difference & so they barely clung to life but each cutting still managed to put out a flowerhead or two a month! I pulled them all up yesterday to make way for the Sweet Williams.
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Potted up some fuchsia cuttings that i rooted in water and potted on 4 rose cuttings into their final pot for the winter, pity that they are all same colour so only took a pic of one. It's a bit out of focus because it was windy.

 

@Logan How often have you rooted Fuchsias in water & after potting up how did they do? Do you have any that are still growing? I ask because this year I rooted a lot of Fuchsia cutting in water & all except one have since died! I used to get them to grow like weeds years ago but for some reason I'm now finding it difficult to root them! It's only really been this year that I've tried rooting them in water before I always rooted them in compost. I only tried in water because it seems that very few now root in compost for me!

 

Today there was a break in the ongoing bad weather here so I decided to take advantage of that and give my back and side lawns the last mowing of the season. Fifteen minutes before finishing a looming black cloud opened and down came the rain. Not deterred I finished the job.

Tomorrow is supposed to be dry too so I'll attempt the front lawns.

 

Plant garlic that arrived this week, plant Tropaeolum polyphyllum, small tuber, needs to go 2 ft down. Move tired dahlias from front door, continue to tidy and empty greenhouse, plant freesia bulbs for next spring, dead head, remove weak fresh growth from bamboo, weed leeks and brassicas, take salvia cuttings.
That should keep me busy today and tomorrow.

 

@Balc , funny you should mention it but I don't have the success rate with cuttings that I used to.
I used to use hormone rooting powder, but I think the stuff you get these days is mostly rubbish and not worth buying, they took the fungicide out a long time ago and since then it's never been as effective IMO.
I often root things in water now and read a long time ago that the roots formed in water are different in some ways to normal roots and they need to adjust when potting up.
I find that after potting up the water rooted cuttings it's best to keep them very wet for a few days while they get slowly used to dryer conditions.
I used to be able to get roots on a broomstick years ago, but not anymore.