What are we doing in the garden 2025

If you do get rid of them I'm pretty sure after a while more will move in.

 

We have raised (on bricks) concrete planters, and we STILL get woodlice. The plus side is that even after 30 years, the planters remain intact (except for the odd couple that I have dropped). The downside is that they are difficult to move, even when empty.
As I get older, I feel less inclined to move them.
The wooden ones I have, I accept are temporary. When I buy one, I give it a life of 3-5 years, and if it survives longer, it's a bonus.

Edited to add.
When we moved house, I ensured that it was the removal men who lifted and shifted them.

 

Dug up another 2 currant bushes, not sure about the last one, it's very big and hard to get at the roots to cut them.

Just received the new ones so I'll have to heal them in or put in a big container.

 

I have definitely overdone it today. I've been working on my logpile reconfiguration project. When I removed all the old wood I found really nice soil underneath, where the wood had been rotting down. So I dug a lot of it out and distributed it around various beds. Had to pick bindweed roots out of it though! I'm sure I didn't get them all, but I'm used to dealing with the stuff.

I bought a new mini chainsaw to help with cutting up the larger branches - my existing one being a Bosch nanoblade which is excellent but tiny - it can cope with about 2 inches in diameter. I chose the Worx 12cm model since I already have several other Worx tools, and it made short work of the job. The only issue I have with it is that I struggle to press the safety switch and the trigger at the same time, having very small hands.

I had to call it a day at about 3pm because my back was complaining too hard, but I've got the main job done and there's just a bit of tidying up to do. Then I shall make a new leaf mould bin in some of the newly freed up space, to replace the overly big one that I've currently got wasting a lovely sunny corner.

The robin has already sat on top of the new logpile and had a good sing.

 

Mowed both lawns for the first time. The petrol mower started well with just two pulls of the cord. Smoke poured out for a bit as hubby had recently put a teaspoon of oil in somewhere, but not sure where. The back lawn was very bumpy as Mr Mole has lots of tunnels - they are a bit flatter now. I can see a fair bit of moss will need treating.

Then I washed the waterbutt, squirrel baffle and downstairs windows.

Finally I had to throw out some plants in the GH as they hadn't fared well over winter. I think it's lack of sunshine this year over winter. But the flower and hedgerow seeds in there have come up well.

Tomorrow I need to clean the GH.

 

Had a thought after I got inside - all those areas where I spread new earth are going to look like the perfect loo to the neighbourhood cats! So I had to go back out and put out lots of sticks so that they don't have room to turn around and put their bums down.
Then just a minute or so after going indoors again I looked out of the window and there was a big fluffy cat sitting happily on top of the new logpile. I clearly made it far too level and comfy - I will correct that issue as soon as possible.

 

I did a tiny bit out there, concentrating on one small patch. My back is not at all happy, but the weather was too perfect to let the day pass without doing any gardening.

The squirrels are murdering my fatsia. Five more big leaves on the ground today, chewed off and then dumped. It’s been growing there for over 20 yrs and they’ve never bothered it before. Weird.

 

I hope your back feels better tomorrow @ViewAhead It's annoying when you want to get things done, but also you have to balance that against the impact on your back. Mine has been a bit grumpy too lately. I had one of those back-supporting belts on while gardening today, especially while moving pots. It does help during the process (but you shouldn't leave it on after you are done, so that your muscles don't learn to rely on it).

For me today was one of those days that you feel you have done a lot but don't have much to show for it. I repotted a Phormium, moved around some pots, did a bit of mulching and then decided to water some plants. In most areas the soil is still saturated but that is obviously not the case next to fencing for instance, and I have some trees & shrubs that are not established yet. Considering it hasn't rained in a few days and the forecast is for dry weather until at least Thursday, I thought it was probably worth doing as the soil looked pretty dry. Then, as the sun went down around 5.30pm, I sprayed 2 heucheras and an apple tree with fungicide (I waited to avoid affecting pollinators - while obviously not as bad as insecticide, fungicide is not completely harmless to them apparently).

 

First day of gardening for about 5 months. I start to lose interest around September and then end up not touching anything until spring Sowed my first seeds of the year, eustoma/lisianthus Deep Brown and Terracotta, nicotiana Bronze Queen, calendula Sherbet Fizz, peony poppy Double Cream, callistephus Apollonia Chamois and matthiola Vintage Brown. All are now on the windowsill and fingers crossed, will germinate OK. The plugs of primula Balerina Cream arrived yesterday so I potted those up and was dead chuffed to see they already had buds on them, despite them being very small plants. I'm trying dahlias for the first time this year, Apricot Desire, which I potted up and have put in the cold frame which is covered by a fleece jacket. Hopefully they'll be OK in there I put some allium bulbs in that I'd left under a fern back in December which surprisingly have shoots, despite the cold and wet weather. I'm not expecting great things from them though. Finally got round to pulling up the nandina which has done next to nothing since I planted it in 2021. The plan is to move the sorbaria Sem over to its position but I need to get it dug up first. I had wanted to get it done this weekend but I injured my big toe at work so can't put a whole lot of pressure on it. I suspect it's going to be a bit of an ordeal to get the thing out.

Guess this kicks off the 2025 gardening season!

 

That sounds like blatant thuggery @ViewAhead. Have you got a long range water pistol?

 

It’s Lovely being outside again and seeing it all slowly look more tidy with little shoots of new growth popping up all over

 

We had something similar a few years ago. One particular squirrel took to eating the flower buds on a Rhododendron that had been there since we'd moved in 15 years or so ago. I saved the remaining flowers that year by smearing axle grease on the buds. They've shown no interest since.

 

I had quite a surprise today when I did a bit of gardening. I took off a protective mesh cage which had been protecting two ( fairly new) heucheras, turned the soil around them and found both plants “ fell off” the soil Both plants were anchored on the soil by some very delicate , flimsy looking new white feathery roots coming out at the very top of the stalks. Inside the roots I found three or four very small white grubs. They’ve obviously been having a field day on the roots lower down and had decimated them. I have never seen this happen before, a first for me.
I’ve potted up them up now so fingers crossed I have caught them in time.

 

@Februarysgirl from the names of your seeds it sounds like you're planning a cream, tan, brown border. Is that the aim? It could look luscious!

 

Those are probably vine weevils @Songbird. Heucheras are one of their favourite targets, unfortunately. The adults lay their eggs at the base of the plants and the hatched grubs eat the roots.