What are we doing in the garden 2025

Your organisation is so impressive @CanadianLori !
My excuse is that I had to be incredibly organised and systematic at work, so now I have thrown off the shackles...

 

It would have been an ideal opportunity to finish pruning my roses when my new Felco secateurs arrived at lunchtime but as I was awaiting a GP call back, I was tethered to the landline instead and he's only just telephoned.

Tomorrow we're forecast rain!

 

We've had drizzle in south Norfolk so no gardening.

Our NDN feeds the grey squirrels here, also the birds, pheasants and hedgehogs. She has big sacks of food delivered.The birds hardly eat my fat balls. The squirrels are well fed so they don't do much damage in my garden.

There are red squirrels in my garden in France and loads of birds on my fat balls. The handyman fills the containers when I'm away.

 

I clearly dont have a lot to interest squirrels but i do appear to be on a squirrel commuter belt. I have a conifer hedge at the bottom of the garden on which squirrels gracefully bounce along the full length of the top between my neighbours gardens on either side .Occasionally i see one in the garden . Where i used to live , i kept finding walnut seedlings growing in my pots brought from a neighbouring garden by some of those bushy tailed buccaneers. My son has enjoyed a battle of wits with them as his son is a keen birdwatcher and they have several bird feeders in the garden. After trial and error with all sorts of gimmicks and gizmos, all captured on video with some hilarious results- ever seen a persistent squirrel repeatedly slide down a greasy pole- he seems to have utilised a “slinky” and the squirrels are defeated. Or are they?

 

I wouldn’t count on it, @Robert Bowen. They are nothing if not resourceful.

 

I bought one of these to foil the squirrels and it has worked perfectly

 

I have one too Lori, just wait till they learn to jump on top close to the pole so they can balance. Then they are straight up the pole and onto your feeders.

 

Mine is half way down the pole and it wobbles so that it is not a solid platform. So maybe that's the difference? And it's been out there for only about 3 months so maybe they're slow learners

 

Mine wobbles too, worked for quite a while, t once one so and so worked it out!!! I put very hot chilli powder on the feed and a paste on the pole. The rain washes it off the pole. You have to be very careful when you fill or clean the feeders or you end up being the one with stinging eyes.

 

Just managed to prune six of my roses when the sun shone briefly, in between some quite heavt showers. Got rained off eventually, about a dozen left to do. Really enjoyed using my new secateurs, a remarkable difference, what on earth took me so long to replace them!

 

Are they grey or black squirrels that plague you @CanadianLori ?

 

Grey, black and the naughtiest and nastiest are the American red squirrels that hitched a ride up here. They are vicious and not at all like your cute red squirrels. Some chewed into my house and damaged things. I had to get nasty right back. I trapped them all, one after another, then gave them swimming lessons. It was the most humane way I could think of to get rid of repeat offenders.

 

This morning I pruned the 2 climbing roses on the house and cut down more honeysuckle, then it started to rain so I gave up. The garden bin is almost full again.

 

That’s puzzled me @shiney. What did you try, climbing up the feeder pole? .