What are we doing in the garden 2024

The same here with a Caryopteris which I thought was dead and is now covered with new shoots.

 

@infradig I think I’ll pot-on my sweet peas so they can be as robust as possible before planting. They’ll have grit around and the decoy marigolds. I don’t use slug pellets. The area I plant them is flanked by loosestrife and lavender so unfortunately there’s plenty of hiding places for slugs, but I can’t really put the sweet peas anywhere else.

 

Had a real potter and tidy up day. Four hanging baskets have been assembled with my normal variety of plants (I know I should be more adventurous) i.e. trailing lobelias, white alyssum, a 'giant' trailing fuchsia, a begonia corm that's just woken up, and an ivy leaf geranium. The baskets are looking a little sparse at the moment, but they're in good compost with slow acting fertiliser, there's no good reason for them not to thrive so long as I'm vigilant about watering. I do have some Red Velour petunias to go into the baskets later, the seedlings are just a little too small presently, I'm not wishing to push my luck too far.

Five pots that hang down the drainpipe at the front have also been assembled with an ivy leaf geranium, a clump of trailing lobelia and some Royal Carpet alyssum.

Assembling the baskets and pots has tidied up the patio quite a bit, I was running out of space, especially for our Rusty, he's my best friend and has been so careful where to place each of his four paws in case he tipped over anything. Rusty can now relax.

The pole French beans are planted and staked. Roses have been fertilised and given a drink. It's surprising how the garden has dried out. I've got 4x 60cm pots containing a dwarf apple tree, dwarf pear, dwarf cherry and a rampant blackberry bush. The four pots had a good drink of water, although they weren't terribly dry thanks to a mulch of grass cuttings - it is amazing how the mulch holds in the moisture.

Tomorrow I'm planning on giving the pavers that are now empty of seed trays and pots, a good scrub down, they're rather stained.

 

Busy all morning so didn't get down to the polytunnel till after lunch. I almost melted on the spot!

OH has now put on the green mesh we use to keep it cooler without losing too much light and I have watered all the babies. Found 2 very fat snails had munched their way thru cuttings as well as tomato and chlli seedlings so they have been despatched.

Potted on my new rose and the 2 salvias and geum TT as I'm not quite ready to plant them out yet. Still weeding beds to make way for goodies. Have mentioned my new rose and clematis bed to OH but he's having a shock-horror-first I've heard about that moment.

Now if it was golf or rugby or cricket he'd remember alright.

 

With mine it has to do with guitars! I baked in the car for 30 minutes whilst he went and discussed with a guy (a very nice Italian man who came down to the car) a Musician who is selling due to Arthritis) ... T'other Half buys and sells, bought two, considering another ...

 

I bought organic soil for the tomato bed, 3 Calendulas, and 2 Cosmos (my ones never germinated) and OH bought some salad, which I all planted and watered.
I can’t do much now in the garden in the next 2 weeks because the tits got their youngsters and are nervous if I’m near the greenhouse. But somehow I need to plant the tomatoes. Will have to walk on socks so that they can’t hear me.

 

I spent most of the afternoon removing the tulips from the bank in my lower garden. They were disappointing this year due to some flowering later than others and some showing signs of a viral infection. I think I got the colour scheme wrong too . I managed to dig most of them out which involved cutting the flowers and foliage down first, then removing the bark mulch. I have replanted the narrow bed with some Rudbeckia, Salvia Amistad and a tall columnar grass, Panicum Northwind which should provide a colour contrast with the Heleniums and grasses in the bed behind. It took a while to decide on the order and grouping of planting. I was going to alternate all three plants initially, then had a rethink!

 

A nice quandary/problem to have though @simone_in_wiltshire
Hope the youngsters do well.
I'll hopefully get the handful of hedging plants in that I potted on earlier in the year. A few of the bare roots I got that were a bit poorer - they're now looking good. Some other loniceras I grew from cuttings, to plant on the boundary, and pond edging to do. Didn't get that done yesterday as there were some things needing doing that required a dry day. One of those being- fixing my Dad's pot. I got some glue from a site that someone on here had mentioned. The glue's called Stixall - and yes - it does seem to do exactly that! I'm hoping it will be ok long term, and I can have my feature back. It's very important to me - just as it was to my Dad, but for a different reason.
Other than that, it'll be bits and bobs and, and a lot of contemplating.

 

Came into the garden half past 4 and heard a hedgehog positioning itself in the veggytrog cover in the shed shelf. I was wondering if the hedgehogs are out, because I had so many slugs and snails that destroy the plants, I was pleased that the slug killing machine was looking for shelter in my shed. Started at 6, taking out quietly ladder, bicycle and other stuff. Made a cardboard box with entry and filled it with straw. OH grabbed the cover, hogy was almost falling out, I grabbed the hogy and it came into box and back to the shelf.
I cleaned the the shed, the house entrance, the front area from weeds, and my bike. After 3.5 hours, all done.

 

Did some weeding but it got too hot.

 

Weeded the area where the morning glory seedlings were going and then planted them out. Gave them another good watering. Weeded the area on the paths nearby and then carefully weeded out the narcissus bed. Sowed some black cornflower seeds there as well in the old wheelbarrow. Also sowed some "black" poppy seeds. Removed a lot of hypericum that is encouraging on another area and put down some weed membrane to slow it down.
Lots of plants are suffering through lack of water and while the forecast was for rain all day....nothing. Will have to do some watering unless the rain does come.

 

Sat in the greenhouse and thunk for 20 minutes, once warmed through planted chitted parsnip, peas, French and runner beans; stuck in home grown bamboo canes as required and now back to the weeding.

 

Trying to tidy up general mess. Had a pile of bricks so thought id tidy them and lay them on the ground between raised beds/fence. Had an after thought that I’ve just created a slug hotel right next to my raised beds ugh.