What are we doing in the garden 2024

Yesterday got the greenhouse rearranged for sheltering the more tender or wet hating plants; moved some of these in.
Then tidied up a bit behind a pile of rotting branches cut the brambles back and cleared around a hawthorn that I want to move over winter, also began to dig around it.
Lost the spring out of the secateurs and whilst looking for this found the identical spring I lost about 5 years ago a bit rusty, but salvageable. Fortunately I already had a spare from buying a pack of two 5 years ago.

 

I know it's stormy and I couldn't swear 100%, but I think I've just seen a small bird flying backwards by the hill opposite the house!

 

Today no gardening; has stopped raining, just about, still breezy. Washed the gardening clothes this morning, they're in the tumble dryer and with any luck they won't be able to stand unassisted once dry.

 

@Plantminded That’s what I thought that you will give it a shape that it doesn’t interfere with the Acer next to it.
That I dismiss Mahonia is just my very personal taste.

 

It was raining, no outdoor gardening apart from empting a bucket of rainwater into the greenhouse. On Friday I managed to cut the grass. Today harvested achimenes rhizomes to store till next season. Plants flowered well (indoors) this year despite being quite neglected.

 

Nothing done out there yesterday apart from moving large pots into some shelter to avoid breakages etc. Had to re secure the sweet peas by the back door steps too. I'll see how it looks once it's light enough.
Not sure if I'll get anything done today. Most of the jobs I have to do need reliably dry conditions for a while.

 

Picking up leaves and “helicopters” by the bucket load. Last nights winds have brought 100’s down. What a mess it looks.

 

Grey day but little wind and no rain. Cleared yet another path of plantains, dandelions and ivy. Then we tackled one of the very unproductive veg areas. We have the national collection of weeds here so as it has been so wet and heavy clay soil there was no point (many will disagree) in weeding the area. So we have covered it with an old heavy duty tarpaulin to suppress the weeds and hopefully allow the soil to dry out so that we can weed at some point. Doesn't look pretty but then who else will see it?

 

Blue sky and sunny here today, with the overnight storm giving way to a more gentle wind. The storm had forced open one of the lids on my cold frames, but no damage. I went out to do some digging, until I realised how much Hawthorn debris was scattered over the observatory slates and railway ballast.

Before it got too wet and sticky, I used the leaf blower to clear the Hawthorn border, the slates and ballast. The leaves, twigs and small branches were blown and raked onto the lawn, where they could be scooped up.

I put some weedkiller and salt down around the stepping stones in the wood, to kill off any growth immediately along the path area. This will then be covered in chopped bark.

After that, it was just a little tinkering with my 1943 Jeep and doing some rearranging in the garage. Heading off to Washington soon, to pick up some new reading glasses. I can't complain about my last ones, which have lasted five years and are still useable, just not quite as sharp. They can go in the car as spares. It sucks getting old!

 

I gave my driveway a treatment of Patio Magic today to try to get rid of the rather rapid build up of moss over the past few weeks, probably due to all the rain and lack of sun. Block paving is a pain to maintain . I then set about clearing up all the leaf, seed and twig litter after yesterday’s storm. It was easier to use a leaf blower to blow everything onto the lawn and then mow it all up. I decided to remove three lavenders from the bank in my lower garden as they were never that impressive when in flower. I then dug the soil out to bulb planting depth and planted a combination of three different varieties of orange coloured tulips. I added some grit to the soil when I replaced it as I’m going to plant some thymes on top for some winter interest as it now looks a bit bare .

 

Weeding another border and cutting back the redcurrant and digging up a old lavender.

 

Spent a good few hours in the garden today pruning back some VB and picking up leaves and seeds. I turned /loosened the soil and replanted a lovely big fern into a more suitable position. It’s our last green waste this week until next Spring, so wanted to get as much cleared back as possible. ( we also have to start paying for the privilege of green waste collection next year and will get a lovely huge 240 litre brown wheely bin for the waste ). Also got some domes and mesh protectors in place over some plants ready for the winter months.

 

I managed to do a bit more adjusting of the waterbut round by the shed. It needed it to be a bit higher, so that I can attach some hose to the tap and then leave it tucked through into the outer part of the boundary which has a pine, rowan and conifers etc, as I won't really need any saved water until late spring/early summer. It'll be used mainly for pots.
That took a while, but I also did a clear up of all the fir/pine needles, and also emptied the 'daily' compost bin into the larger one that I emptied the other day. It was pretty dry, but windy, most of the afternoon, so ideal for that sort of job. Did some more pot painting and covered them both later on as it was to be wet. Replaced all the pots I'd moved for the rough weather, and also got a few more bulbs in. Today is to be fairly dry and windy, so I might get on in the front garden with removing the invasive geranium, and possibly planting some bit of hedging I've grown on.

They only introduced a fee for our [brown] waste bin a few years ago @Songbird, which I suppose is fair as we get ours collected every week, all year round. I've just read that they're considering doing it fortnightly though, but for the same fee. I think it would be better if they just didn't collect over later autumn and through winter. Most people will have more waste through the summer months, especially if they aren't composting. I only use mine for woody material that is more difficult to use without a shredder.

 

I've just come in from the garden and have my feet up and coffee in hand! It's garden bin day this week, so I wanted to get them both filled ( no point in paying for an empty bin! I'm way too tight for that ).

So I did some trimming of the Hawthorn behind the garage, then cleaned out the veggie planters of dying stuff and a few weeds. Next was raking up all the leaves that had been caught on the drive by the garage, where the airflow spirals them into a heap! Convenient for the wind to pile them up, but not great that it does it on the gravel part of the drive!

The bird box was emptied and then I did quite a bit of chopping dead branches in the woodland. The plants are all healthy enough, but these are dead branches that have been there for several years. It's only this year, three years and nine months after moving, that my "To Do" list has got around to the woodland. If you look at my garden thread ( Non-Gardener builds an Observatory, Garden Railway and even Dabbles with Plants! ), you'll see how much I've been up to and that excludes all the decorating.

Once the woodland was dealt with, I mowed the lower lawn and railway lawn on a high setting, just to pick up all the leaves I missed when raking up yesterday.

I always seem to show the garden from the house looking down, so for a change, here's a couple from the bottom of the garden, looking up towards the house.

 

Finished clearing one path. Weeded what we call the field poppy bed, but this year it was mainly corn cockle. Then onto the lavender scree bed. Finally we tackled the long grass in the orchard with the brush cutter (still too wet for the mower) and just managed to finish before the heavens opened again.