What are we doing in the garden 2024

Having a bit of a tidy up, weed and cut back today. Not too much as want to leave cover over the winter for the hedgehogs, but just enough to not look like a dying jungle!

Going to plant daffodil bulbs too I think. September is a good time isn't it? Tulips will wait till November

 

I cleared out a pot of cosmos which was 3 feet tall and has never flowered- I think it was planted too late. Also planted some bulbs.
I then decide that I don't have enough pots for bulbs so went to the GC to get some more - came back with one small pot and two more packs of bulbs!

 

After adding a capping stone to a garden wall, I started trimming. I cut the top and my side of the Laurel hedge and also trimmed the Smoke Tree to give a path through to the back of this wooded area.



Once inside, the rest of the Laurel was trimmed and the grass/moss strimmed and cleared away. I'm planning on replacing the grass and moss with a carpet of Creeping Thyme in the Spring.



I also want to make a stepping stone pathway through the wood, so I did some exploring to see if there was a natural path with less growth. This will help with maintenance in the woodland and make an attractive route through this area, particularly with some Bluebells and Snowdrops around the path. I think we might clear the path in late Autumn, when things have died off a bit.

 

Thanks, @NigelJ . That's what I was told, too, by the shoulder specialist - I'm 71, so surgery isn't an option. However, physiotherapy and determination (my family call it pig-headedness!) have improved strength & mobility. Gardening is good physio, I reckon.

 

Recommend you source some of these:
https://www.zoro.co.uk/shop/safety/...welders-sleeves-pr-grey-18-inch/p/ZT1177387X?

 

Now I'm back in OH's Norfolk garden. Left my French garden to the tender care of handyman CB, always a little worrying! The Norfolk garden is desperately dry, sandy soil though it's an hour from the sea. I did a load of dead heading this afternoon. OH cut down the huge dead ceanothus. It was going rotten inside its trunk. He filled the garden bin with it and will have to take the bigger branches and the trunk to the tip. Just lawn, roses and flowers here, no veg.

 

Emptied leaf-collecting dumpy sack into binbags, to make more storage for the stuff I've scythed in the meadow. Too many grass & wild flower seeds to put scythings on the compost heap. Lots of wild carrot this year - pretty, but takes up a lot of space once you've cut it down. My gardening jacket is now covered in wild carrot seeds...

 

Physio was what helped me @Liriodendron . Couldn't move my arm more than a few inches in any direction which made lots of things tricky. By the time I had that, it wasn't worth attempting the op, and apparently it isn't successful enough to mean it's worth trying for many people. It wasn't the best descent I've ever had from a hill...
I didn't do a lot outside yesterday, and mostly rather mundane stuff, but I did enjoy sitting more than usual and watching all the birds also enjoying themselves in the pond and at the feeders etc.
Cut, and brought the trusses from the single outdoor tomato plant indoors to finish ripening, and gave the little toadstool a bit more attention, and a coat of paint, and moved a couple of pots around. Spent a nice bit of time cutting up some fennel stems for the compost. It was very pleasant most of the time, and I quite enjoy doing that sort of thing now and again. Now that I've used the water from the waterbutt, I drilled the hole in the side for the pipe to go in.
I have some bulbs to put in, but I can't decide which pots to put them in. First world problems. It's a bit wet today, so I'll leave that for a better day anyway. I also have a couple of plants to move, and some Irises [sibiricas] to find spaces for.

I have a grass [Uncinia] that loves attaching it's seeds to my clothes Liri. I have to pick them off before I go back in. They're jaggier than the cow parsley or most others, so they love any soft material to hook into.

 

I'd guess your rotator cuff injury involved more than one tendon, @fairygirl , whereas mine tore only one, so was easier to cope with. I've had to teach my left hand to do lots of things it didn't think it could manage, like pouring water from the kettle, but that's supposed to be very good for your brain... and with scything, I now "swish" less with my right hand and pull more with my left. With a lot of these jobs, if I don't do them, we have to pay someone else - or leave them undone. Edit: not pouring from the kettle, obviously...

Seeds have amazing distribution systems. Cleavers must be one of the most efficient... but I now have wild carrot in places where I definitely haven't sown it, presumably because the bristly seeds have been carried around by cats, foxes etc. (Or by me, if I haven't noticed I've been "attacked" by a plant.)

One benefit of having to empty the leaf-collecting dumpy sack yesterday, is the amount of really well-rotted leaf mould I found at the bottom. More scything today! I'm trying to be sensible and do it in small doses.

 

Yes - mine was basically knackered @Liriodendron. It's the deltoid muscle that takes over the jobs apparently- down the front of your upper arm. It can be as difficult lifting a saucer from a higher cupboard as it would be lifting a full bucket of water, because it's the action rather than the weight of anything. I often just held my right elbow/forearm with my left hand so that I was still using my right hand. I even find myself occasionally doing that, 6 years on! I had more pain from teh broken ribs though, especially when trying to sleep.
I know what you mean about the kettle too! Heaven forbid that I couldn't make a cuppa...

Re seeds - I'm always careful when walking past the huge mounds of willowherb that invade every nook and cranny here. That's the last thing I want to encourage in the garden.

 

Today I am.. debating whether to do what I said I would do (aerate the lawn and add clover seed) or what I want to do, even though the circumstances are not ideal (divide a hosta and move to a different location, which should have less of an issue with slugs). I could do the former tomorrow.. And I am going to a garden centre later so I could look for a plant for the spot where the hosta is...

 

Everyone is so... busy
As for me , I have to take it easy re doctor's advice, but when my brains starts thinking on what needs to be done I kind of keep this in mind and as long as I rest in between jobs all will be well

So... this morning with the sun shining for the third day in a row, and met office mentioned that there will be more sunny days ahead, I removed a number of leafy stems from 6 outside toms letting more light and air in to ripen my green toms and then gave them a feed.

While having my cuppa on the patio I looked at my Gold King Holly Bush and was reminded that I was planning to do a little air layering propagation using live branches.
With that being my next job I then enrolled hubby to help me
I managed to do 4 using the plant air rooting balls off Amazon. I will wait now until I check-out the results in 4-6 weeks time (Another job done)

 

Easy day today. Just sprayed some weed killer around the patio, playhouse, railway and observatory, plus a few nettles under the Hawthorn.

 

The lawn can wait.

I have dug a hole, sieved out the many stones, and planted a cornflower that had been patiently waiting for a new home after I removed it from its inconvenient self-seeded spot a couple of months ago. Then I potted on a little Veronica Georgia which needs a home too, but I have yet to allocate one. It will be fine over the winter. I also cleared away a few terracotta pots and they are sitting in the garage waiting to be cleaned.

On a roll, I decided to wash the car (a once per season event ). Not exactly gardening, but it involved being outside and bending, so pretty similar demands on the body.

After all this exertion, I am now lying on a hot water bottle!

 

I managed a hour's tidying up in the garden after the window cleaner had finished, pulling up dean annuals, deadheading roses and cutting back other plants.
A lovely sunny and warm day which I spent indoors with the curtains closed!