What jobs are we doing in the Garden today 2015

Sowed some more seeds this morning- agastache and monarda. The window sills and bedroom are going to be bursting again in no time. Love this time of year!

 

so i thought i was finished gardening for the day as i went for a trip out the house. Got some alpines from homebase so i can do product photos of my new table top planters and then they will go to live around my water feature.

Came home went to clear all the empty carboard boxes and empty compost bags from the potting shed and found a box of 100 allium bulbs!

I didnt know i had them and planted hundreds of bulbs before xmas. All looked healthy there was no mould and all had sprouted so I have quickly gone and just thrown them and used my large dibber and planted them in hope.

if nothing pops up oh well but if it does yay. Although all my planting plans have slightly gone a bit off now as i was struggling to find space for these bulbs

 

Had this little idea when pottering around the garden.

Made this succulent planter out of an old price of wood from the garden, just used one of those wide drill bits to bore a planting pocket.

 

OH kindly brought me 4 barrow loads of well rotted horse manure from neighbour's old pile, and it's now spread in poly. Filled 25 Morrison's flower buckets with manure/soil/compost with an early potato in each one, also in polytunnel. Dug weeds from around raspberries and gave them some Epsom salts. Looked over pots in greenhouse, Salvias not looking very well:( OH went up the damson tree and clipped off loads of ivy which was shading the poly, now if I could only get him to cut down the old holly tree ! He says it's bad luck, though .

 

Sorry "M"........opened the back door and left it, it's been beautiful here today!

 

That looks lovely, what a great idea! I'm going to do the same, thanks for sharing

 

I've done quite a lot today:

• Divided our clump of Alchemilla mollis into three - had to give it a real slice with a spade, it was very tough! Then moved them. They're now the first piece of the puzzle in my border master plan muhwahaha. I also bought one more from the garden centre, chopped it in half and planted out the other side.
• Planted a Parthenocissus henryana against our shadiest North facing fence.
• Planted out some of the sweet pea seedlings into a pot with the metal obelisk.
• Hard pruned my three Salvias (the Salvia 'Cerro Potosi' has fantastic dark purple winter foliage!)
• Also received three Begonias from Dibleys today, so I potted them into 10cm pots.

It feels good to be able to do stuff again! Most of the plants here are shooting already. Quite a few weeks earlier than I had expected. Biggest delight was seeing the Echinacea 'Fatal Attraction' is alive and kicking. I thought it was a goner for sure.

 

Thank you @JackJJW so you planted your sweet peas outside then?

Do you reckon it would be alright to plant mine outside they are quite large seedlings now

 

With work by the electricity company progressing and a good weather day today I decided to move the Clematis' and a few other plants that were likely to get trampled. The Clematis' came out easier than I thought. One was only planted late last year so had only reached a foot in height, in fact the root ball was as big as the plant. The other one you see in the picture below (taken last year) had only been in three years and had just got itself established. The root ball on this hadn't developed very well and wasn't as big as the other Clematis, probably issues with my sandy soil, I'll do further work on the soil when both Clematis are ready to go back in the bed.

How the bed looked last year......


.........and sadly, how it looks now.


I've removed the stakes that were round the pole and the pole itself will probably be taken out by machine. I've also dug out herbaceous plants that were likely to be trampled by workmen's feet and hopefully the Choisya and Taxus will remain unharmed. I don't know how far down the base of the pole sits as I'd put the bed in at a later date which has brought the soil level up another two to three feet. I will be watching every inch of pole removal when the time comes and hopefully it will be in time for me to plant out my annuals.

This is at the top. I'll miss the light, it allowed me to work in the garden after dark.


The temporary trough home of the Clematis'. They look so pathetic now! Unfortunately the stems of the established Clematis were so brittle that most broke off. There were leaf buds showing so I trimmed them off and pushed them into the soil at the base of the plant. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, they might take root if I'm lucky. The canes are to keep cats off until I plant some annuals in there.

 

I did yes - the temperature dropped below 0 only twice all winter in our garden, but we have a sheltered London garden and my seedlings have been outside anyway in an open light box. And with most things now springing into growth, I think it's safe to say with temps on the up and increased light, for me it is OK to plant some out. I'm holding most back though to see what happens... You might be OK in Solihull - do you know what your soil temperature is like?

 

Ummmmm nope lol

I have a really warm sunny garden though as its dead south facing. The other day i could sit out in a tshirt and leggings it was that warm. My garden tends to feel more like spain come april/may and once its summer you cant sit out for more than 20 mins gets a tad too hot.

I may just move them out if the greenhouse into my now fixed cold frame for two weeks and then out them out as the weather people keep going on about a cold snap.

 

Did some serious pruning at work today. We have some very large laurels in one area, which haven't had much done to them for years.

Some of them must be a good 15-20 ft high and we needed to thin them out a bit as they were getting quite top heavy and we want to encourage them to thicken up lower down. Also, they were shading out a nearby Italian Alder hedge, which needs plenty of light to prevent it becoming too 'open'.

So out came the chain saw and down came several huge pieces of laurel. Tiring work, but quite satisfying. Think I'll sleep well tonight.

 

There was one here which we chopped as far back as we could and the fencing man, with our permission, chain sawed the rest of it.
Yesterday, I notice that what remains of the stump (a teeny weeny thing by now) was ... sprouting!
My thoughts are, if it is *that* determined to survive, I may as well let it.
But, it is the most sunny corner of my garden (and heavens knows it is the only, precious, year round sunny patch) I was really hoping I'd seen the back of it!

 

"M" if it was me I'd have that stump out. When it's fully grown again it'll be such a waste of a sunny area that you can make more use of with other plants.