What are we doing in the garden 2025

@Busy-Lizzie That was the problem i used to have , i had a long attractive viburnum tinus hedge which kept getting undermined and individual plants died leaving a gap and removing the dead plant revealed the trench below. Very frustrating to effortlessly take a 5’ dead plant out of a hedge

 

Well today I've finally got round to trimming the honeysuckle back on top of the fence between me and next door . Hopped over the fence and trimmed that side as well, its a mine field in there got slimy dog on my hands and the bin handles not impressed. I got some ivy at the top of the garden on the same fence line you have to go round the back of the shed I don't go round often once a year to trim things back , going have to make that a regular occurrence after today Ivy gone into world domination mode its gone everywhere in the shed on the shed and under it lost my secateurs for ages pulling out the ivy I managed to bury them oh and its rained a few minutes after I started . I'd take the honeysuckle and Ivy off the fence but its probably holding the fence up, I'd rather spend some money on Dahlia tubers instead which I am be doing latter probably peter nyssen this year they've got one I really want but I'll look at Sarah raven first while trying not to notice the prices .

Yesterday spent over 2 hours spreading woodchip around the garden and on the garage site . It does make the soil nice and fluffy after a good few years .


Only a little bit more to go that after tunnelling through to get round the shed

 

Ha! Mine does that! It sits there looking all innocent for the first few yrs, putting on a couple of inches per growing season, and then suddenly, whoosh, it’s away, galloping across every surface, horizontal or vertical, no obstacle in its path too tricky to be conquered.

 

@Perki Folks say gardening is a gentle , easy , relaxing hobby. At least the muck was on your hands , i have had the misfortune to put the strimmer through some slimy droppings on more than one occasion , very unpleasant. Ivy is awful stuff and i try to hoick it out at the root on sight , its on a par with bindweed. The trees around here are full of ivy but its a great source of food in the dead of winter , apparenly theres more energy in ivy berries than in a Mars bar , not for humans though, so the local wildlife are welcome to it and i will just try and keep it out of my garden.

 

@Robert Bowen I've done that many times with strimmers its hard to beat cat muck though . I put the Ivy there though it look well on a mesh fence which it does but blimey give it a inch take a mile plant . I believe the ivy good for bees as well

 

I'll dig out all the ivy I can and substitute it with mars bars then, much less invasive.

 

@pete Thats interesting , would you describe them as a half hardy annual or would they be better ‘ cut and come again’ ? I think you are on to something there!

 

A "cut and come again" mars bar would be my ideal.

 

Simple dissuader for moles is to pierce their run tunnels with bamboo canes, upon which you place inverted empty plastic coke type bottles 1 ltr size, which rattle and resonate in the wind.

 

I haven't exactly done anything in the garden as such, but I've put my seed potatoes in egg boxes to chit.

 

I am hoping the vibrating lawn mower will do the trick. They have really ruined the whole lawn, not with hills, but the furrows left behind. You can fall over suddenly when your foot goes down a dip. A previous neighbour did set traps and I saw him collecting the bodies. But I am hoping that will not be necessary. It was a green keeper on the golf course beyond our garden that said to use creocote, but that's only suitable for the hills. A neighbour's cat keeps visiting and sitting there listening to movement down below. I have even been by a hill when it was rising up. Cheeky things.

 

@cactus_girl That sounds like a serious colony . Its very uncomftable and a little dangerous when your foot unexpectedly drops into a hole. I must admit i was defeated i just kept removing the soil tumps when they appeared so i could mow and tamped down the furrows with the end of a sledgehammer . I could have done without it but running the mower through the tumps was not a good option and they needed removal before the ants moved in . Good luck in whatever you do to try and minimise the problem

 

I've been sifting some of my own compost, but where does the little pieces of plastic
come from? All I put in the bin is kitchen waste and paper, plus pruning's.

 

Stickers on fruit skins?

 

The rain eased up for about 5 minutes and I ran out to bail out rainwater. I poured about 4 gallons that had accumulated in various flexitubs and buckets down the drain. I know the amount because I had to use a pint jug to transfer it into another bucket, in order to be able to lift it. Rain is pelting down again but the flexitubs and buckets are upside down now. There's a final tub that was half full of soil and is now mud with a few inches of rainwater on top, which I will have to deal with tomorrow. Think I'll sow some flower seeds now in hopes of better times.