WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2022

For once I've been able to spend a couple of hours on the balcony where I'm starting to ring the changes!

On Monday our son came round with his wife & 9 -year-old daughter. She likes to stick her nose into everything as well as asking 1,000s of questions! She tried to get me to change things around & kept asking me why I did this or that or the other! I told her that in a few weeks time it would look totally different as I would have taken down the mini-greenhouse & the big white table it sits on & I would have put out the growbags for the tomatoes & moved the hanging baskets from the interior of the balcony out to the edge, etc, etc.!

I love her to pieces but she was getting rather overbearing! Even her dad told her to stop asking so many questions & to stop trying to rearrange the balcony!

Anyway today I made a start, rather earlier than I was planning to but the day was so warm & with hardly any wind that I felt I had to make a start. So I potted up 16 Pelargonium cuttings! I also put all the Ivy Geranium cutting in the two black hanging baskets that hang on the walls at either end of the balcony. The pots that were freed up were used for the Pelargoniums!

I also repotted the Peony my son gave me last Monday. But later I also put a couple of small Marguerite plants in the pot as well. In a couple of months there will be no foliage & I can't afford the space for a pot with nothing, apparently, in it!

I also moved the big pots out closer to the railings. The bird dropping will continue to fall & the plants will get dirty but I can't have that row of plants where they've spent the last 6 or 7 months. I need the space for the tomato plants & the growbags I will put them in.

 

@Balc that's a nice gift I like giving plants myself ( and receiving them which is rare ) they are always a nice reminder who gifted them especially when they're in flower. Seen as the Peony is from Lidl its likely to be a common variety it looks like Sarah bernhardt .

 

@Perki, thanks for that!

 

Here is the Peony repotted.

 

Mowed the lawn and watered the shrivelling thirsty plants in the GH.

Found a Iris Siberica round the back of the shed in a pot so it joined the others in the bog garden , planted out the 3 rodgersia I bought a weekend in the bog garden . They were also some alchemillia mollis under a hebe I whipped out so I plant them around the edge of the bog garden just to edge it really and to stop people walking in it otherwise . I've had some echiums anmoenum in pots for a while so get them in the front garden next to some eremurus which don't look like they are going to flower , fed up of trying eremurus

 

...A day in the garden it is then !

We've been out somewhere every day this week and were suppose to be out again this morning but I've managed to convince hubs next week will work just as well.

This going out malarkey interrupts valuable gardening time!!

I'm off .....I'm on a planting out mission and woe betide anyone who gets in my way!!

 

Into the garden in the rain, the Snails are have a party, they are everywhere, I sorted out the ones I could see with a lump of wood, then went indoors to dry off

 

Planting out Japanese Anemones this morning. last week I took delivery of three Digitalis "Cherry Brandy" which I must have planted out. Spent half the morning trying to find where I planted them (didn't make a note) with no luck. I'll just have to wait until they come up.
I am trying to cultivate last Christmas's Poinsettia so after drying it out over the winter in the potting shed, today I trimmed it back, un-potted it, washed the roots, repotted it in a bigger pot with fresh compost and Rootgrow and stuck it out in the sun. I am following instructions I downloaded from the New Mexico State University Department of Agriculture.

 

Glorious afternoon so I cut all three areas. of grass. Whatever the roller did to the Meadow it must have worked because I was able to cut it on the second lowest setting of the mower.
A few minutes ago 9 Penstemon plugs arrived so this evening I will pot them up and then water my cold frame.

 

Its got to that time of year where I am wondering around the garden keeping myself very busy, tea time is long forgotten lots to do .

I've attacked a laurel with the hedge trimmer I don't really like laurel but this one help shelter the GH from winds . Went round putting in the metal plant supports . Had a wrestling match with the monster Eupatorium I chopped a clump off , planted half in bog garden and split the other half in three plants. Potted up some centranthus cutting I got hold of earlier today not sure they do anything but nothing to lose. Took some hydrangea Annabelle cutting. Also got a plant delivery this evening so I've been sorting them out .

 

Had a busy day in the garden on Wednesday. My Acer 'Garnet' was looking a bit odd, as I had simply edged around its canopy last week to avoid the mower catching the lower leaves. First I removed the lowest branches so I can hoe under it comfortably, then I extended the edge to form a large circle around it. Looks much better now! I'll be underplanting it with sweet violets and some other spring flowers soon. Wasn't happy with the way Hebe 'Midsummer Beauty' was growing, so I gave it to my mate Rob and replaced it with Hebe 'Great Orme', the latter is supposed to be far more successful with butterflies anyway! Before planting the hebe I had to remove a very silly cat called Florry from my wheelbarrow, who thought laying on my carefully prepared soil mix was an excellent idea!

Nick

 

I just love the helper. The Acer and Hebe look great too.