What are we doing in the garden 2025

There's a yellow Delphinium called semibarbatum. Used to be available from T&M and Chiltern Seeds.

 

Sorted the stored apples (loads this time needed to be out for the birds). Then we tackled the bay tree with all its suckers.

 

Cos I like blue! And very few hardy geraniums are actually blue. Purple, yes. Mauve with pinky tones, yes. Nearly blue in the right light or through a digital camera lens, yes. But true corydalis/lobelia/meconopsis blue, not so much.

Pelargonium shades can be just the teensiest bit extrovert for my taste.

 

Why not breed a true blue hardy geranium then.
Pelargoniums are finicky, prone to snuffing it overwinter, they smell bad and the leaves cause skin irritation.

 

I would not stand in the way of anyone wanting to breed a true blue hardy geranium.

Why not have both? Pelargoniums are great long-term container plants, can easily be overwintered, flower from March till Nov, and need very little care overall. They don’t all smell bad, though whilst they are fiddling with colour maybe aroma could be improved too. The leaves are attractive, slugs ignore them, drought is not an issue (though winter wet can be, admittedly). I think they have a lot to recommend them, especially in small patio gardens.

 

I quite like the smell of pelargonium leaves. Why are they called geraniums too? And you have hardy geraniums, which don't look the same to me at all. Have they got the same DNA?

 

I have just purchased a few small self draining plastic hanging baskets to hang from my fruit trees. Can you suggest what plants to put in them to attract pollinators. Thanks.

 

Not exactly the same DNA. Both Pelargoniums and Geraniums are in the same family Geraniaceae, where they are joined by Erodiums.
The Genus Pelargonium was first described and named in 1732, however Linnaeus lumped them in with the hardy geraniums and it was only 1789 when they were separated. Unfortunately the general public haven't yet caught up.
Apparently Pelargoniums name derived from the Greek for Stork and Geranium from the Greek for Crane and Erodium from the Greek for Heron.

 

Erigeron and Nepeta are long flowering and popular with bees. They will also tolerate dry conditions if you forget to water them! The Erigeron will cascade so I'd combine the two. Nasturtiums are another option.

 

@luciusmaximus is that the GC at Holland Arms? I've had some good stuff from there in the past.
Been out to check on my seeds; got down to 2.6 in the g'house last night. Everything (except lettuce, radish and spring onions) was tucked up inside the heated trays. The Gazania New day has germinated (sown last Saturday). No sign of anything else yet. The chillies will take a while; they usually do.

 

I have been out in the garden, pottering mainly. I repotted a patio rose, and moved a lot of containers around. Changed the head on the solar fountain in my new pond to a bubble - it was a vertical spray and was shooting so high in the sun that I was afraid it would empty the pond.
I was wearing a thermal vest and a pullover and I've just come in because I was too hot. It will probably cloud over now.

 

Just in after a morning waterlily wrangling. Took two of us to get the clump out of the pond and into a paddling pool. Then I spent an hour or so trying to disentangle it from a big bean we made the mistake of planting a couple of years ago. Absolutely rampant and we rarely get flowers so decided to cull it this year. We won’t have got rid of all of it but hopefully I can now keep on top of it. It has pretty foliage. Hopefully the waterlily, now about a quarter its original size (it was quite large) will forgive me.

Also started to tidy up some of our grasses. It’s amazing how much foliage comes off just two Molinias (Transparent). We are trying to compost everything at home this year but am already thinking I might run out of room. The compost bin was quickly filled with crocosmia foliage, big bean and some other bits.

Has anyone got any ideas on how I could repurpose all the Molinia (other tall grasses are available) leaves? If not they might go onto one of my various bug piles

 

my lupins are always covered in greenfly I would love to know how too solve that issue also

 

Easy, @Garden Novice! Let the slugs eat them before the greenfly have a chance to colonise!

Lovely out there in the sun. I removed 5 small Carex grasses. I started with one 24 yrs ago and I now have hundreds. The frogs love them, so I only remove a small amount at a time. Then I trimmed some dead twigs off the fuchsias.

That was enough for my back. Slow progress, but better than nothing.

 

Just sown some Quaking Grass seeds, never grown it before, only tried half a dozen seeds so have some in reserve to sow in a few weeks if necessary.