What are we doing in the garden 2025

A dandelion’s leaves are not its best feature, for sure, @CostasK. I find self-heal and chickweed a bit of a pain. I allow the self-heal to flower as the bees love it, but then try to remove it before it seeds. The chickweed tends to smother other things if left to its own devices so I do pull it out though I never manage to eradicate it.

 

I like them , the leaves and flowers are great food for tortoises , plus if i leave the seeds to develop in a quiet part of the garden the goldfinches enjoy them too.

 

I think it might just be background noise for them to fill the gaps when they are not hammering or otherwise creating noise while working.

 

This is the Camellia that I uncovered when I removed the bamboo yesterday. The flowers are white with a slight pink flush. It's surprisingly healthy, considering it has been starved of light, water and attention (that could be the secret .)

 

Lifted a couple of leeks, repotted Polygonatum vietnamicum; lives in the greenhouse as not fully hardy, also molluscs are great fans of it, it's already got a 15 in long shoot and will propably reach 6 ft before flowering.
Watered a few things on the decking and noticed that 3 seedlings of Tulipa vvenskyi had popped up over the weekend; seed was sown last Feb and must have been harvested the previous year. I confess it was in a group of pots due to be emptied and reused.

 

Cut the first vase of daffodills for Mrs B over the weekend , perhaps a little later than usual but hopefully more to come. I am not a big fan of cutting flowers and prefer them in the garden but i planted these against the boundary wall several years ago so its a good mix of colour for the house and still plenty outside.

 

That's a good looking tulip @NigelJ - where did you get the seed please?

 

Didn't do anything today, it's too cold and i was feeling lazy.

 

I think its warmed up a bit this afternoon, hopefully the end of this cold spell is in sight.

 

Planted 16 spinach and 16 rocket seedlings in two of the squares in the veg trug. Covering th with a propagator lid for a couple of nights then (hopefully) off they go!

 

@CarolineL I got the seed from the AGS seed distribution.
I also got some cyclamen seed from there and one lot turned out to be a Heuchera although the C mirabile appears to be as labelled.

 

Had a busy weekend in the garden
Edge what left of the lawn doesn't half make a difference .
Tidied up a pile of woodchip
Removed spent compost out the GH tomato bed and spread that around the garden and topped some pots up .
Weeding
Divided up the Helenium sahin early that been sat on the GH floor for over a week, just throw a bit of water over it now and again to keep it alive just
Pricked out my first lot of seeds Pelargoniums
Pulled Dahlias out for potting up they have suffered quite a lot of damage but most will live on , I packed them away to fast not drying them properly .

Today I've done some prep on the lawn for reseeding, got the scarifier out and running and churned it up a bit . Got the a mower out up and running aswell.

Noticed I've got a few casualties looks like I've lost a meconopsis, and Penstemon Garnet we have a love hate relationship I am rather fond of it but it hates me it likes to die every year

 

I got out today, clearing out raised beds, planted some peas and made frames, planted some fruits hoping they survive any frosts that might still be greeting us in the morning and did some general tidying. spent equal amount of time trying to defrost my hands when I came in. ready for some sun now

 

@ViewAhead so agree about dandelions. You give insects some food, you can make dandelion wine from the flowers, you can (though not to everyone) use the roots for "coffee" and then the young leaves are great in salads. A great plant and much ignored.

 

We worked this morning in the garden and polytunnel. Cleared another area in the veg area, planted out some globe artichokes seedlings that were suffering by still being in pots. We lost the original plants outside for the first time in years.
Sowed carrots and pak choi in the tunnel and also some cucumbers in pots . Will see how they do. Some kol rabi plants that didn't do well in the tunnel last year we cleared out the little ones and left the others as they are showing signs of developing. Another experiment.