What jobs are we doing in the Garden today 2015

It looks a bit breezy out there but if it stays dry I shall start cutting back the lovely old-fashioned, single petalled, roses near our back door. They have a very strong scent and produce enormous hips. The down side to them is that they are covered solidly in thorns every quarter of an inch up, and around, the stems. It's not too bad as long as I'm careful and they only cover an area of about 15ft by 4ft. It's enough to require a number of barrow trips to the bonfire. So that will give me some of my exercise (about a mile)

We've tried to give our Echiums some protection for the winter (first time we've grown them) so have tried a simple, but not very efficient, method of doing it easily. We've taken some unused 16" hanging baskets (wire frames) and put them, upturned, over the Echiums. We have then used the cut down zebra grasses from the same bed to weave in and out of the wire frames, like a very poor version of thatch, and used some canes to hold the frames in place against strong winds. These are out in the bed by the footpath/road so hope the baskets won't be pinched. As the baskets aren't really visible it just looks like piles of old cut down grasses.

Haven't the faintest whether it will work.

 

Good afternoon all my friends also raining here ,tidied some flower beds,got wet so I thought I will take Tiny and Penny out for a walk across the fields got soaked, but really enjoyed it and so did my furry friends,now as the Kentish weather is so inclement I shall do some baking,enjoy your evening

 

We got a lot done in the garden yesterday.

Mrs Shiney filled two wheelie bins with raked leaves from flower beds (too much unwanted stuff mixed in for us to put them on the compost heaps - which are already almost full). She also cut back the leaves on the hundreds of hellebores that haven't yet been done, pulled the leaves of some more of the crocosmia and cut back more of the ornamental grasses.

I did something that @wiseowl (apologies) wouldn't approve of . We've decided that our rambling roses have to go. We're finding them too tough a maintenance job as our Nasty Neighbour (the other one is really nice) won't let us attach them to the fence.

The roses are 62 years old (moved them to their current position when we built the summerhouse 10 years ago). This is where they were originally.



Since moving them we put in heavy duty (3" diameter) wooden posts and stretched wires across to train the roses. Maintaining the roses, they're extremely rampant, and occasionally replacing posts and wires has become to hard for us. Three of the posts have broken in the last month and most of the wires (heavy duty plastic coated wires). So we reluctantly, decided to get rid of them.

I've just cut them down to 12" high, a few hours of work that involves a certain amount of bending that is not good for my back - but Ok after another few hours with my feet up - and shall now leave them until Michael can come along to dig them out.

Anyone living nearby is welcome to come and get them

Having cut them down I can now see a number of holes in the ground behind them that go under the fence. It's possible that they are rabbit holes but I think that they may be made by rats as Nasty Neighbour has his rubbish bins the other side of the fence.

 

Hi Shiney sometimes in life a @shiney's got to do what a @shiney's got to do and 62 years old is a remarkable age my friend enjoy your day