WHAT ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY 2023

I went out onto the balcony to repot a Fuchsia cutting I'm training up to be a standard with a clear stem of 1metre. A few weeks ago it started growing a bit so I decided that it would better to repot it now than to wait for spring. I finished it but my hands were so cold I could barely feel them! So I couldn't put the Begonia tubers I bought last weekend in the hanging baskets as I thought I could do today

 

Thank you but i still like to sow them in trays.

 

Pricked out the eurigeron seedlings into cell trays, don't need a lot so i did 15 with 2 in each.

 

You're welcome, I just thought it might make things easier for you and less time consuming.

 

That's very thoughtful of you

 

Well there's always the walpini if you are in the doghouse!

 

Out in the front today - vacuuming up debris and raking over the gravel.

Our new neighbour - moving into the bungalow half way down the cul-de-sac - so not strictly a neighbour but you know what I mean - stopped and introduced herself. She started talking about gardening so I invited her to have a look at the back garden.

She looked like this:



I don't think it was what she was expecting. I'm taking it as a compliment...

 

Weeding around the front garden and cut back some more of the verbena bonariences.

 

I did some clean up before the wind started howling and the sky began spitting on me.

We are going down into real winter (freezing daytime highs) in the next couple of days and I am quite alarmed because the long run of mild weather we've had is prompting lots of perennials to pop up too early. Would cloches help or would the predicted three weeks of freezing temps render them useless?

I also did a little more prep work in the greenhouses so that when it is time to move plants out, they will be ready to welcome them.

 

I'm not sure cloches would be a good idea, a layer of snow might be better.

 

Or a bucket of compost/leaf mould or dry sand?

 

Depending how many you need to protect, I'd say cloches, upturned (white or transparent) buckets, pop-up rubbish bags @CanadianLori.....almost anything to protect new growth. A combination of zero temps and howling winds is a nightmare, but a rigid protection with a stone or brick on top works wonders

 

Thank you @noisette47 . I don't have any leaf mold or "natural" covers so this will help me as I have plenty of those plastic pot domes. I just wish the weather didn't play such games. It would have been kinder to just keep things cold until spring came instead of giving us a "false" spring!

And that said, today in the garden, I will be putting cloches over my plants with bricks to keep them in place.