What are we doing in the garden 2025

I finished my veg bed, dug and bordered. Neighbours were going to rebuild the wonky brick fence wall, but it didn't happen. I already skipped a couple of years waiting for them. Will use it this year. Not a perfect spot, but should be ok. The border is 2.4 meters long.

 

I've been gifted 2 two year old Honeysuckle plants and a pot of Forget-me-nots. . Spent afternoon planting the Forget-me-nots and also one of the Cotoneasters ( also gifted ). I will need to put the Honeysuckles in large pots as what ground I have is too shallow, even with my raising it a little. Not sure if the Cotoneaster will like the shallow soil either and it might end up in a pot, too. Did some watering.

 

It's been a sunny day here in Dordogne. OH has mowed and I've made a start on the vegetable garden. The pea bed is now weeded, dug and composted and the raspberries are pruned. The summers are long here so autumn raspberries fruit twice, once on old wood and again on new wood. They just need trimming and dead canes cut out.

 

Still haven't found my ball of twine but today bought a new one. As Butterfly6 says, I'm sure to find the original tomorrow.
Taken it easier today and met a friend for coffee and cake at a GC. A slice of cake is now £4.49 there which we thought was a bit steep so we decided to have Hot cross Buns instead. Very nice. Had a very good natter and put the world to rights. Back home middle of the afternoon, had a potter in the garden, removing more dead canes from a climbing rose and tying in a clematis Alpina.
Later still, after dinner I decided to water the pots in the back garden as it's so dry, came in when it got too dark to see.

 

Cut my grass, first time this year, what I have left doesn't seem to be growing much.
Was surprised to find the mower started on the first real pull, I gave it a couple of gentle pulls just to get things moving first along with some fresh petrol.

 

I haven't really done much at all in the garden recently , I pulled some pots out of the shed which has canna and salvias in . the canna may return but I am not hopeful on the salvias . Went to the garden centre the other day but nothing to be had for myself , Went into the cafe and got a brew and a scone that were steep enough , all the cakes there @lizzie27 were £5 for one not big enough slice every GC cafe I've been in are £5 for piece of cake .

 

@luciusmaximus, Cotoneasters are survivors. I wouldn’t worry about the soil being too shallow.

Went to a GC I had never been to before. Always a thrill. Actually, it was very nicely laid out and the plants were reasonably priced. Not often you can get a 10 cm pot for £2.50 these days. I will definitely try to get there again.

 

Planted a couple of shrubs to replace losses over the past two years, also planted a hellebore and a couple of herbaceous planst, watered thoroughly; also watered the large hawthorn cutting and then spent the rest of the afternoon digging up weeds.

 

Expecting delivery of a bare root rose sometime today so will prepare for that

 

Not so much 'we' as 'they' at the moment....l've found a gardener to come and keep things under control He strimmed the lawn edges and started tidying up old foliage while OH mowed. What a transformation!
Pascal is coming again on Friday for a whole day, so hopefully he'll remove the only casualty of the winter....a 'Yankee Point' Ceanothus by the pond. I suspect it died of old age. Then there are the Alstroemerias to plant. The poor things have been languishing in pots since November

 

Might go to GC to get a bit more mulch to finish the last border. The Ton bag I got in Autumn wasn't quite enough. I was trying to get the gardeners that do the occasional job for me to do it but I'm not sure they really want to do it. The guy that comes regularly to ND keeps saying he'll remind his brother, but I think they just have too much on. The same guy does one of our daughters garden but she's moaning at the moment, as in spite of giving them more hours they are not keeping on top of it. Even though SIL still cuts the grass himself.

 

The ground here is still frozen hard and the nights are still going below freezing so I can't do much work in the garden. I do have a load of top soil in the back of my van to bring around to the back so may do that today because it is not predicted to snow again. They say there will be freezing rain tomorrow so best get on with it.

I also brought up 6 flats of seedlings from the cellar to put in the greenhouse. The heater kept it up to 4c 40f over night so I know I can trust the current setting to maintain the plants through the wee hours.

Also, I will be sowing some trays of cosmos and cleome this afternoon and place them in the greenhouse too.

 

We pulled out/trimmed a load of Pyracantha and Pittosporum from a mixed border hedge over the last week so I’ve been cutting that up - dividing between stuff for the tip, stuff to chip and the rest to go in bin. I have a blister on my hand, a few scratches and a bruised toe - just from that! No more hedge pruning now as it’s bird nesting time.

I’m still waiting for my second garden waste bin… I need it!

 

Yesterday I put out the bundles of laurel we cut last week, and it was collected this morning. to the garden waste collection team!

Yesterday afternoon and this morning I tackled the dead cherry tree with the chainsaw. It died about 10 years ago, but remained standing and was trimmed back to be a bird-feeder stand. The woodpeckers loved it! Then around 18 months ago it started falling down, and for the last 6 months has been pretty much on its side. I cut off all the side branches, and started on the main trunk, but the battery went flat. All cut bits tided, and I’ll finish it tomorrow.

Did some weeding out of grass and shepherds purse from the herb bed, before coming in for the day. Chesty cough not liking the cold wind…

 

Sowed beetroot, spinach and swiss chard outside this morning. We went to cut back the verbena but had to tackle the ivy growing on a nearby pear tree. While we know how good ivy can be for the wildlife, this has really got out of hand. So a load of cutting back has taken place. Too difficult to try and dig it all out so will have to try and keep on top of it.