WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

Autumn clear out v.1.0.

Held Tomato and Chilli funeral, harvesting the last handfuls and then ripping the plants out. The plants earned their keep with a heaped fistful of delicious baby plum toms every day since July



Emptied the "You'll get just one more summer to show if you are worth keeping"-pots of various plants and swept around. Did the first pond leaf duty and cleaned the pumps.

Deadheaded and popped perky looking stems into the now vacated soil after the toms, some may take, most will not but hey ho, at least they have a better chance in there than in the brown council bin. The Tarragon is there to dry out for our Degus.



I'm not entirely sure why I took Lavender cuttings, I don't really like Lavender and certainly don't need any more of it. I guess it's just a habit of propagating anything that looks even remotely viable

 

I planted some bulbs in pots.

 

Wow! it's a massive job. Can't they get a gardener and give that hedge a massive reduction in height? It's a 6th year I have a house, and from been excitedly happy to chop down the growth from the neighbours in a few years a I went onto being annoyed on doing it regularly every year . I work full-time and I'd love to spend more time on my veg and flower beds or just relaxing in the garden rather than fighting brumbles, ivy and holly tree branches. I have enough of my own ivy to not to let to escape over the wall.

 

Last week i planted up these tubs and pots with tulips, hyacinth, wallflowers and polyanthus.
Today i did this border, cleared the cosmos and snapdragons and planted wallflowers and polyanthus, tulips are already there from last year. Left the gladioli for a bit longer and keeping the Verbena Bonariensis and lupins.

 

Looking good, probably your wet weather has helped.

 

Thanks Victoria and yes the wet weather has helped. Yesterday finished the border and today it's raining, that was good luck.

 

Hi,

Very well done Logan full credit to you; the border looks excellent.

At the moment I can only dream of ours looking so good; I'm still fighting ivy and everything else thrown my way; I've found two conifer stumps I'd forgotten all about; will I ever break clear of trees/stumps/roots. Total so far 16 bags of ivy plus a pile of ivy rolled into an old bed sheet.


These were completely covered by ivy; I thought I'd got on top of stump clearing.

I also found the ivy had covered a shrub so more digging needed; there are also big stones beneath; it's a mess at the moment and needing lots more work.

Another load being gathered for a trip to the tip; this ivy is horrible. The bin bag on the right shows what happens to these flimsy bags if I don't use the bucket as shown below.

Years ago whilst collecting horse manure using a shovel to fill bags in a breeze it was highly frustrating trying to keep the bag open so I came up with the idea of cutting the bottom out of a plastic tub I'd been using for plastering and it worked; the diameter was a bit small but certainly stopped the bag being blown around whilst making filling much easier. Later I came across a YouTube video showing a bucket being used in the same way; I had a large plastic bucket so removed the metal handle and removed the bottom as seen above; the top of the bucket is on the ground; filling this way means the bucket releases easily; just force debris into the bucket and as the bucket fills raise it a bit each time bringing the bag with it; I can't take credit for the bucket idea. Ideally I'd like something much larger to fit inside a bin bag; I've got a large plastic pedal bin in the workshop I was going to dispose of; this might actually work even better. Things like brambles used to be a real pain to put into plastic bags the bucket helps a great deal if done with care.

Year on year ivy just spreads and it's easy not to realize how it takes over; there's lots more here.

There's lots more ivy here too; I've started so I'll finish but it won't be a quick or light job to do. Our Yorkshire weather is usually dire but now it's turning towards winter so this ivy removal might run over to next year; there are so many roots and stumps I'll do as I usually do and do it the hard way. It's dark and wet so I might force myself today into the studio for a violin practice; with all this constant heavy work I've almost forgotten what my violins look like.

Kind regards, Colin.

 

Still pondering what to do as we still have so much in bloom and I just can't pull up my bloomers!!!



I have plants and bulbs waiting to move in as soon as a space is vacated.

I think the drop in temps next week might slow things down and eventually blooming with cease and we can then knuckle down to getting back on track.
I have pulled up, begrudgingly, some plants that are either ones that are incredible selfseeders or some that I have decided I don't want in certain borders anymore.
Also swept the patios, collecting all the acorns in a separate bin.

 

I've also spent a fair amount of time walking around the garden with pen and notepad , listing what to move , where to move them to and what to replace them with. Also what needs to be dug up and overwintered too

 

Thank you @Retired
Ivy can be difficult to get rid of, it's nice if it can climb up a tree, fence or wall but it can get out of hand if left to itself. I did that on our back wall and it looked great when it flowered but we left it and it got worse.
I'm sure that you'll have yours under control soon.

 

Nothing today it's been raining all day but it will water in the new plantings that i did yesterday.

 

Oh, it is still looking so good Upsy ... but what will this cold spell do???