What are we doing in the garden 2024

I took time to mow the lawn. Such a lovely day for being outside and embracing all that the garden offers.
I then shredded confidential documents, and mixed the result with the lawn mowings and mowed leaves into the compost bin.
I spent the remainder of the afternoon clearing an area of ivy.
My garden waste bin is overflowing, and there's still more than a week until it gets emptied.

 

Both of mine were full the day after the council emptied them!

 

I'm only allowed to have the one, and I really jam it in.
This first year here is proving to be a challenge. Hopefully the garden will be easier to manage after a couple of years, when we have it "our way"!

 

We are three and a half years on from moving house and while most of the landscaping is done, the quantity of cut vegetation needing disposal is crazy. Just mowing the lawn on Friday, filled one garden bin to over-flowing!

 

All my mowings go into the compost. Next year they'll be strewn across the garden. I need to buy another compost dalek. We certainly have room for one - or three - more.

 

Obviously I don’t know what type of garden you have @ArmyAirForce but sympathise with the amount of grass clippings needed to be disposed off. I use huge amounts as a mulch round my potatoes instead of earthing up which works very well and if cutting the grass when not too long and a dry spell is forecast, fat chance this season!, I cut the grass without the collecting box. The resultant cut grass if it is allowed to get dry just disappears pretty quickly and maybe also feeds the grass?

 

I have decided to have 2 green bins next year as we always have a surplus pile of bags. Hubby refuses to take them up the tip because of the slugs. Well, just as I had refilled ours out came 3 whoppers. I can see his point. The car boot could be full of them.

I leave the grass cuttings on the lawn too.

 

We have a large bungalow on a half acre plot, with 275 feet of Laurel hedge, 100 feet of Hawthorn hedge and a small woodland. Mowing the lawn is a 1.5 to 2 mile walk! I wasn't a gardener until I moved here. Despite the plot size, we don't have the space to compost the amount of greenery the garden makes.

 

Our garden bin was full the day after it was emptied too. We rarely use it for lawn mowings, OH puts the mulcher on the mower. Our garden in OH's cottage isn't very big, about 700m2 but we always fill the bin when we are here.

In France where my house is there aren't garden bins. You have to have a big compost heap or take it to the recycling. Gardens tend to be much bigger in the countryside. I have over 2 acres but some is meadow that the farmer cuts and some is orchard, though there are only a few trees in it. I have wild places where I put garden rubbish that can't go in the compost, bindweed etc.

 

I always use the grass box on the mower. It would just lie there, soggy and manky if I left it, and 'looking at me accusingly'.
Nothing done outside yesterday as it became increasingly 'damp' and wild after I had a walk. Could have done some stuff in the shed but decided to start on some indoor/household jobs that I'd been putting off.

I doubt much will get done today unless it's things in the shed, as it's looking a bit iffy for anything outside. Supposed to be reasonably dry through the morning though, so I may plant a few things, as I'm walking later on today.

 

I spent more time than usual working on the front garden yesterday. I don't use the front door and can't see the garden from the house so it's usually just a quick mow of the small lawn. I tidied up the borders, cut back a Salvia and some ferns and noticed that a Pittosporum that I thought I had annihilated by severe pruning has bounced back to a nice shape. New work ethic - severe pruning and neglect .

In preparation for misery in the garden as everything starts to demise and turn brown, apart from the evergreens, I planted up three containers with some autumn and winter colour. I used some red mini Cyclamens, some small leaved ivies, a heather, a purple Heuchera, some purple and yellow Violas, a couple of Carex, a small Hebe and a small Choisya. They should bulk up in time for those dark, short days!

 

It is rather depressing at the moment isn't it @Plantminded. I still have some buds on dahlias and roses but I have begun to take out some of the annuals, especially the cosmos as I was fed up of deadheading them. Your containers sound lovely!

 

Thank you @katecat58. Yes, today's rain and grey sky don't help but sun will be here tomorrow . I don't usually plant mixed containers because they get out of control quickly but slow growers over winter should keep tidy .

 

I found a pot with a small clematis in that was trying to be a mini pond. As I was just going out I have tipped it over on it's side to drain most of the water and will have a better look at it tomorrow. It's pouring down today but due to be sunny tomorrow.
Also popped into B and Q on my way home and bought 2 Heucheras and a very large pot (56cm x 50cm) which I hope will be big enough for the standard rose that I have ordered for November. It was reduced from £56 to £36

 

We were out clearing a path through our little woodland this morning ( as discussed a few posts ago ). There were a lot of brambles and nettles to clear and a few branches to trim back. The plan is to have a series of stepping stones through the wood and plant snowdrops and bluebells each side. We'll still probably have to add some shrubs to fill in a few more open areas.

There are three entrances/exits, with one at each end and one in the middle. These and the path will give us access for ongoing maintenance in the area. The video below enters at the bottom of the garden, pauses at the middle exit and continues to leave by the exit closest to the house. The conifer by the middle exit was already bald and dead in the area of the exit, caused by a much larger conifer that we felled. Being half dead, it made sense to cut back the dead branches for an exit.