What jobs are we doing in the Garden today 2015

Just did a patrol of the garden today. All bulbs growing now and lots of buds fattening up. Very mild in London - some deciduous shrubs haven't even dropped their leaves!

After my first set of Coleus have all died with damping off I'm nervous about my main big seed sowing. My plans are scuppered :(

I have the second Coleus set on the go. I'm trying a few things different, first by sterilising with boiling water. Second, I'm going to leave on the heated propagator until much more established. I'm hoping the continued basal heat will mean there is no shock to get them through to their second leaves at least.

I've planted a second early 'spring' batch of sweet pea seeds too. I'm experimenting by not soaking. No signs yet so they're definitely slower off the mark without overnight soaking.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I did loads of tidying up in the garden today. Baldrick helpfully chews my canes and strews toilet roll etc throughout the garden, so it's like trying to clear snow off your path in the middle of a snowstorm. Am going to take pictures as I go, it's just a mud bath with a few shrubs just now, but I'm hoping it will be ablaze with colour come July. I read on the net today that if you want to plant flower bulbs In between shrubs or in bland spots in your garden, start them off in pots indoors or in the GH then just sink the pot in the spot where you're planting. What do you think folks - sounds like a fabulous idea to me, but will definitely heed the advice on here if you don't agree! Hope everybody has had a good evening. In particular, I hope our refuse collectors have had a good one - their morning won't be so good as I've got LOADS of bags for them out there - oh dear!

 

Monday was such a lovely day, that was my first day in the garden this year. Mostly just tidying, and moving my pots around. I have a container garden around the back, and a planted garden in front of the house, so I removed dead matter from both, and rearranged the pots at the back so that the plants with wintry interest are showcased. Unfortunately, there have been quite a few pot casualties from the frosts and snow this year, so I'll need to find replacements for some of my plant pots.
Yesterday wasn't such a lovely day, but I still did some pruning, and visited a local garden centre. Looks like I'm a bit too early for garden centre purchases though, as the ornamental grasses aren't on display yet, and I was after some of those. (I did purchase a cheeky magnolia anyway, I was attracted by its furry buds). I also bought a new hose pipe, and threw away the useless 'budget' one I bought last year! - What a false economy that turned out to be.
Today, the pressure-washer I had ordered was delivered first thing. So I have pressure-washed the entire front garden wall, and the brick pathway. (Last year, we went to great lengths to reinstate our front garden wall using reclaimed bricks. The only downside to using upcycled material was that the wall developed some moss and algae over the winter). The wall is now a lovely, bright orange colour once again, and has never looked better. So I'm pleased with the pressure-washer, which did the job nicely, and the new hose pipe has also proved itself fit for purpose in the process.
As soon as we have a little more sun, I have lots of re-potting to do, ideally while the plants are still dormant.

 

Delayed by the lack of water yesterday I managed to get my propagator underway today. The first seeds of the season are sown and it's such a good feeling to know spring is on it's way again. I also intended to move two plants in large pots into a bed but a visitor stalled that idea.

 

Bonfired some of the brambles and prunings, still a lot to go, more all the time...
Cleared up plastic pots and other stuff that had blown around the garden in a gale we had just before the snow
Dead headed the violas in the window boxes. It's amazing, they've started showing their faces now the snow has almost gone.
Pulled some romanesco and gave the stumps and leaves to the hens
Got rid of a few more brambles
Pottered into the greenhouse to admire my new hot bench and see if any of the seeds I sowed two days ago had germinated strangely they hadn't

 

Wishful thinking with the seeds Philomel! No one but a gardener or botanist would understand the delight of seeing the first one appear.

 

Did more clearing up out the back. It's never ending! Lots of pots and canes all over the place, now stored neatly. Pruned some shrubs, not sure if I should have done, but just cut off bits I thought were unruly and in the way, or encroaching on others (plants) space. Time will tell. Then the postie arrived with these. You hang them on your fence and they have 16 pockets each to grow things in. I like vertical gardening and the were very reasonable at only 11 dollars each (I think that's around £8.) They look black in the pics but are actually dark green. I can't wait to get them planted up!

 

Got my fence back up after the gale force winds we had in January

 

I'm now indoors as it's dark and sitting pulling the beautiful silky parasol heads off the Trachelospermum asiaticum seed I collected in the autumn. Next candidates for the hot bench

 

Nice purchase
Tip: check out your local cheapy shops/charity shops and buy shoe holders versions - cheaper and just as handy.
What will you plant them up with?

 

Managed to get my Chilli seeds sown last night, wife wasnt too happy with me doing it at the kitchen table though. I am growing Peruvian Yellow Chillis this year, I like to try things that you cant pickup at any old garden centre.

I am going to package up some of my collected digitalis ferruginea seed this weekend and see if I can sell them on Ebay.

 

Aaaaahh what a fabulous feeling when all seven little rooting baby brambles pop out of the earth at once from the same stem and just a gentle pull! SO satisfying
Got rid of a piled barrow load of the blighters this morning. Off to a specialist shrub/tree nursery this afternoon. What a treat... though there'll be a lot of spade work ahead

 

Did a couple of hours outside. It was windy and because of that quite chilly so even in the fake fur cossack hat my mate gave me courtesy of a Smirnoff promotion, I was still frozen. Sorted out my gravel trays and 1/4 size seed trays. Put the seed trays in a big plastic trug to soak in some JF. Stuck my plastic plant labels in a bucket with some bleach to soak. Tidied up the leaves, brushed up, got some weeds out. Did some tidying in the shed. Wandered around looking at everything - some of my daffs are just about to flower. It started chucking it down so I came inside for a hot mug of tea.

 

Pricking out , potting on and going to make an attempt to place some large stones at the edge of a border to stop the chooks from kicking soil on my lawn