My tiered garden log.

I'm scouring gumtree for greenhouses so eventually it'll be going Erm... Somewhere. It may be nice in the front garden actually. I'll have to ask the boss!

My greenhouse is Erm... Not the best. But it's also on the bottom of the list for the garden unless I can find what I want for £100 or less (polycarbonate greenhouse)
then I can get rid of6foot of hedge behind the garage that's difficult to trim.

They make a massive difference to chilli production! Which reminds me. It's feeding week for the chillies and I might 're-pot a couple.

I'd do strawberries in them too but I dont seem to have much luck with strawberries, in our last house the kids on the street used to pinch the best ones! Grr.

So that rose is in the wrong place anyway.
last night I dug out the mini retaining wall for the hedges, needs to be deeper but at least I know I've got enough stone to span the gap two courses.
Erm emptied the gravel behind the rest of the wall for drainage. Built up the level with rubble.
but when I'm on my own I'm a little limited to lifting and moving soil etc. It moves along about 4x as fast when you have two people to lug a wheelbarrow up and down the walls, rather than by bucket.

 

Well well well, i have manflu!
And then the sun comes out!!!
ARGH! sods law, really!
I got a lot done this weekend, took the hedge stumps to the tip (never again! i'm burning them next time!) Using the shovel to remove soil from the car after.... whoops!

I hung my trellis! I didn't really know how it should be done, so I screwed and plugged a baton onto the wall, then used the wonkey "coasters" we cut when the trees first came down, as load spreaders, and screwed streight through the centre of the "coasters" to hold the trellis up.
It's nice that the wood originally came from the garden.

Oh, and the last pile of soil to get rid of!
Here's my little planted corner,
The trellis is spaced about 3 inch off the wall for airflow? This is right isn't it?
Oh and my ivy type plant, is that ivy? and the sunshine solar light which neither has the solar function or the light function, a homage to the last owners obsession with solar lights.

We also finished one layer... well, after buying a weed barrier and laying artificial grass, this is the perfect sun and wind trap for drying clothes, i know it's not exactly gardening, but it's got to be functional!

Obviously the artificial grass will cover that entire area.

Erm.. I took these pictures this morning, here's my breakfast!



Oh also, I dug and made my tiny retaining wall in front of the hedges, it's the only way i could think without digging up the hedges and re-planting them...
It'll eventually be about 3/4 of a stone lower (deeper underground) and obviously mortared up etc.
Do you think this hedge is worth keeping yet?

I hope it fills out over the little wall so i can trim the other side back to the boundary!


On the topic of roses from before too, here's a few better pics, i need some longer bamboo as that's just the offcuts i had lying around.
Is this rose worth keeping? It doesn't exactly scream healthy!




And finally, next on the agenda:
Flatten this to a final level.



Then hopefully payday arrives for the next instalment

 

The trellis looks good and yes there's enough space there for air. From what I can see the plant looks like ivy , you may regret that, it puts runners out everywhere and is difficult to control.....and kill! If you dig it out and leave a piece of root in it will re-shoot.

If you're waiting for it to grow it could take a while! Sorry! I couldn't resist that.

What species is the hedge?

Roses take a lot of looking after, they need feeding and watering regularly, so if you think that's to much hassle then I'd get rid of it. Right now it needs pruning to bring it back to shape and it has rust and black spot. These leaves should be nipped off and either burnt or put in a bin, don't compost them as the disease could be spread. If there are any diseased leaves under the plant they should be disposed of as well. To give the rose some protection you can buy a spray called Rose Clear or something similar unless you prefer organic treatments, in which case I suggest you check out the Rose forum for help on these.

Bamboo is not going to be any good as a support for a climbing rose which is why I suggested it be moved in an earlier post. Climbing roses could take over a long wall or fence given the opportunity and they need wires or similar to support there eventual weight.

 

Can i train it up an obelisk or something similar?
The roses will get cared for (eventually) I've bought some feed for them, the rose in question I've not seen any flowers on it yet, as when we moved in, it was in seed mode, so i'll see how it blooms this year, then decide if i'm keeping it. Then i can care for it a bit more, but obviously the hardscaping is coming first!


Those are the two blooms on that rose so far, depending on the greenhouse situation, i might keep this one and move it in winter, it's quite pretty!

The three roses on the trellis (white-pink-red) my colour combination may not work that way, as the rose with the PINK label... is....

Red-yellow, but it's pretty! The label says "many happy returns" with a pink picture, BAH HUMBUG! Oh well!

I've had to attack some aphids having a party on all the roses and chillies this week, i've been too ill to go into the garden in over a week now, so they were taking over!
All gone now though.
So... pretty much it is what it is. Plodding away with what i can, my chilli feed and rose feed came yesterday, along with my new hose end so i can water everything without having to lug two full watering cans up the steps twice whenever i want to water.
Any progress is good progress recently!

 

Sorry to hear you've been ill and good that you're on the mend.

The climbing rose may be okay on an obelisk but not knowing the variety means it could grow to 20ft or more. Give it a try and see what it does, they don't like to be continuously pruned like other climbing plants, so if it way outgrows the obelisk then you'll need to move it at a later point.

Roses should be dead-headed when each flower is finished to stop them going to seed. Obviously this isn't always possible with a vertical climber but you can remove as many as possible. With other roses, if they are not dead-headed, then they won't produce more flowers.

It's so annoying when what you've bought isn't the same as the label. I've just had the same problem with a Clematis.

The new hose is a bonus, no more lugging of cans!

 

Yeah, oh well! it'll look a bit odd, I might swap them around in winter when they are dormant.

Definitely not the same as the picture.

The hedge is...


The size of some of the "trunks" are pretty ridiculous for a hedge! It just shows how high it was when we moved in.

There's a lovely gap :( but i hope it'll fill in, eventually.
I want it to be about a foot shorter, but seeing as though i've taken so much out of it recently, i don't want to push my luck and kill off some of the hedge.

The other side of it is nice, the neighbour has actually trimmed throughout the years.



But i'd like to trim that back so i can get over to trim both sides eventually, our neighbour doesn't mind, but he said once it got over 6foot he struggled to reach to trim it.

anyway, enough of the hedge!

I gave the apple tree a haircut, i don't know if it's staying or not yet, i want to keep it in a way, then i can train it into a shape i want it, but it's not exactly the best specimen.


Each branch is a "maybe keep" branch, the rest were, "don't keep" branches, crossing over, growing inwards etc etc etc.

we'll see, and i've given it a clear leader, apparently if you have competing leaders the tree does odd things, so that will be the main "trunk" eventually, its on the biggest sturdiest trunk so we shall see.

Oh and the chilli plants are coming on a treat!
A few of them are even splitting into more than one leader which will be great for the crop later this year


Mish mash of pots, i know, but it was what was available at the time!

A few of them are doing a lot better than the others, as you can see from the two beside the big one in the middle, i doub't they will fruit this year, they are "extra hot" chillies so i might try over-winter them for next year!
That's it for now, i'll open a new thread for some plant ID's as theres a few flowers out now to identify!


EDIT: i missed one!


Sambucus, something or other, Amazingly fast growing, and really pretty colour!
Even after i accidentally hit it with a piece of wood and ripped off a full 5foot stem (the tallest one!)
I might even buy another, but the green version, what's the green version of this called?

 

The hedge is Privet and you can hack at it as much as you like and it will bounce back, it's very hard to kill. If you take off a foot I'd add an extra six inches to that so that when it grows back you won't catch the thick stems with your trimmers. Pruning it quite hard will also make it produce new shoots to fill in gaps.

Sambucus......probably 'Black Lace' but could be 'Nigra'. They are fast growing because they tend to die back during winter. I bought one a couple of years ago and it didn't like my windy garden so I gave up and dug it up. I took a couple of cuttings from it, one I gave away and the other is now a young plant in a pot in a sheltered spot. Would the one you're after be 'Sutherland'?

 

I'm glad i can happily hack away at that poor hedge!
I even fed it, i may end up regretting that later in summer, but hey-ho!
Yes! Thankyou sambucus sutherland!
I'll happily buy one of those next year to go alongside the sambucus black lace/nigra (whichever one it is!) I think they are really pretty, and nice to watch grow so quickly during summer!
Yeah i found it doesn't like wind, but the wall is a lovely shelter for it, it's had two branches broken so far, which are the only ones that reach over the wall, so it's size is limited by the weather it seems!

A little update, still too ill to do anything other than "pottering" but slowly getting there.

Here is the start of my update- pottering!


I managed to make some "free" staging for the greenhouse, as the extruded aluminium staging was sagging like a banana, and the only reason it was still up was because of a big piece of timber holding up the middle.
Before:

(that's the best pic i could find!)

And after...

A couple of pallets later, a few screws and a cracked panel (bottom left) it's in and ready, much more headroom for the chilli's to grow.
I also re-arranged the corner shelf to the opposite corner, it gives me a bit more room.


A better close-up of the chilli's a few doing a lot better than the others!
All following the same theme, the hotter the chilli, the worse it grows in the uk!
So the back row is hungarian hot wax and chaianne and jalapeno.
yummy! edit- in the next photo the chaiannes are in the long pot on the shelf,

And the rose- that rose-. Bless it. I really need to sort some support for it when i've got the energy!



Also- the big piece of wood in front of the door, is to keep the door closed- the runners it used to run on have broken, so i'm just resting the wood up against the door until i can either A: replace the greenhouse with a bigger one, or B fit hinges to the door so i can open and close it. Effort!

 

I've never known anyone to feed a privet before, I think you're right, you may regret that.

That poor rose is doomed but against the odds it's still blooming.

The greenhouse, I think I'd be inclined to panel and paint the sides and turn it into a Tardis. Sorry, I'm being flippant, but to be honest as most gardeners will say, get the biggest one you can afford because you will fill it!

I know absolutely nothing about Chilli's. My other half and I can't eat them so there's no point in growing them. They do seem to be very popular for growing though.

I hope you feel better soon and at least, as you say, you can potter around for the time being. Perhaps this illness was your body saying it's time to take a break from the hard work.

 

Chillies are a strange fruit? Veg? The chaiannes from b&q are basically sweet peppers (to us now anyway) I've been able to eat a full one raw (red) without a problem.
it's all personal, but chillies you can grow them as hot or as cool as you want them.
I grew a chilli Willy plant for the last two years, yeah Google it, rude shaped chillies, but they tasted amazing, lots of pepper taste topped off with a zingy citrus tang and a very fresh after taste, but my gosh they were spicy!
if you remove the white bit and the seeds they can taste amazing. Without the spice, or pick them green and they will be very mild. Perfect for spag bol, lasagne etc,

 

Thanks! It's been a real effort so far, but i'm sure it'll be something like how i want it by the end of summer.... next year!
say in 5 years time when it's all matured i'll probably be happy with it, but at least i'm aware of the fact these things don't happen overnight!

I have a cabbage palm in the pot in the front "garden" its more gravel, the old owner loved their gravel! I'd like to include it in the back garden somewhere but I don't think it'll suit anywhere :(.
we are going to grade up the front garden into a driveway, while still keeping the borders (about 2' thick) on raised walls. (they are on the left hand side and bottom side of the photo, but you can't see them as they are weedy messes! but 10thousand times nicer than when we moved in.



Excuse the very moody image, it was taken just before bed.
I might even find a space for it in the front "garden" but i'd like to future proof it as a driveway so it's bigger than it needs to be (cars are increasingly getting bigger and bigger nowadays!) so i don't think there will be space.

 

The front garden in all it's weedy glory, the big gap on the rhs used to be home to an overgrown box hedge, overgrown to the extent it overlapped the gravel!
The wall should be staying (maybe a couple of feet shorter) but the level is getting dropped to create a driveway, while building a new wall around to keep the borders, so we can plant some pretty low maintenance plants

 

That's quite a slope you have there, is it possible to make it less of a gradient for parking on?

The side wall is ideal for a couple of climbers VC.