WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2022

Moss attack with the scarifier and sacrificing bits of the lawn to create more room for plants.

 

Maybe, just maybe, the mistletoe has taken hold this year. Three months on, and there’s some green showing.

 

Pricked out more of the Snapdragon seedlings.

 

Planted out the Bunyard's Exhibition broad beans
Pinched out my resown sweet peas
Replanted the Blue Storm agapanthus which were in cracked pots
Found frogs in the pond "holding hands"

 

A bit more weeding. It is the casual weeding now. Just moving about the bits that sprung up since the serious weeding earlier in the month.

 

Washed out diy bird bath, discovered a leak in the liner of our newly finished wildlife pond, very grumpy with that! OH wants to pull it up and start again, I am determined to stick with it, a puddle is better than nothing!

Watched the birds and insects while watching the first sunset since the clocks went forward, still chilly, but have to remind myself it’s still only March and the temperatures are dropping next week too.

Did the okey cokey with the seedlings between the greenhouses and the workshop before calling it a day. Now Monday work prep time, dinner, Horlick and bed by 9pm.....ohh...it’ll still be light(ish) lol

 

Put preservative on shed, weeded, pruned Cornus and Buddleja.

 

I potted on some tomatoes:

 

I've not done anything on the balcony the last couple of days other than a little watering today.

 

Got a lot of polyanthus seedlings out of the border and put them in a seed tray, got 115 altogether some very tiny.

 

Not much actual gardening as such, checked the seedlings in g'house, made sure to cover them tonight as the temps are due to drop drastically and my g'house heater has packed up, should have checked it weeks ago but its been such a mild winter I hadn't needed it before now, can't really grumble as its donkeys years old..
Turfed mower, tools and chairs out of the big shed and helped hubby to erect a bench along the back wall, that basically means I'm the" General Dogsbody " then I put everything back again, don't really like those sort of jobs but its being done to help me, so I was good and just got on with it..

 

Haven't got up to as much as I'd like to in the garden recently I've been renovating the hallway , it seem one thing after another working on the house.

I have been having to go out and water the pots and tend to the seedling , I sowed a few extra pot over the weekend and pricked out around 50 petunia seedling this evening . Might get more done now with the clocks going forward , I wished they'd just leave the dam clocks alone now .

 

Not done much today either! With the cooler temps no sun & dampness from occasional brief showers it wasn't exactly encouraging to go outside! I did a tiny amount of watering (4lts!) & took a few, very few, photos of the Daffs flowering on the balcony railings.

I also ripped out the dead & dying Violas in the pots on top of the balcony railings. As often happens, & the reason I stopped growing Pansies for winter flowers, is that they had collapsed & were slowly rotting away in their pots. This isn't a case of overwatering but something else. Perhaps some virus that affects the Viola family of plants.I can't see what causing it but it's been going on for some years now. I start with vigorous strong plants that seem to grow fine during the winter & produce flowers & then as soon as spring arrives they start to look bedraggled & go downhill from there. Not all the plants are affected but this year all the 10 pots on the top of the railings have had this happen. I even replaced the first plants that seemed to be dying & put some others that had been growing all winter in pots on the balcony table but they have succumbed as well.

One year I commented on this to a seller in our market & he assured me that wouldn't happen with his plants! Guess what ... I remember him telling me all his plants are treated with insecticide & fungicide & I thought perhaps the following spring I might get a good display - but I didn't!

We live in a block of flats & there is a green area around it with a flowerbed in one corner & it's planted up twice a year by the council gardeners. They put lots of Pansies in one year & at first they really looked great & I was looking forward to their spring display but about 80% of them died. They slowly started to collapse & turn brown before finally dying. Exactly the same happened on our balcony! I pulled a few of the plants up to see if there was something eating the roots or if the roots had rotted or something. The rootballs all looked nice & strong with plenty of roots & no sign of any trouble. I broke open several of the rootballs but they were healthy & there was no sign of anything in them eating the roots. So it seems it must be some virus that affects Violas.

 

We had a gross of plug plants arrived last night so this morning we cleared as much as we could from the cold frames then potted them up in seed cells and put them in the frames. We could get snow tomorrow so no point in putting them outside. And that was it. TV and a bottle of Champagne took precedence today.

 

Champagne on a “school night” @Jocko !!