What jobs are we doing in the garden today 2016

@David E Peacock If you have a ph of 6 what is the slow release product for?

 

Yesterday I picked some more beans (they've recovered a bit), more cooking and eating apples (gradually filling the freezer with cooked apple), more plums (kept the firmer ones to eat and cooked the rest), pulled up the last of the courgettes and squash, took apart and cleaned the bird feeders and had a giant bonfire.

As the courgettes and squash had goner mildewed I didn't compost them and added them to the bonfire towards the end - couldn't get closer than 25ft whilst it was burning

I also rebuilt my winter cover for the propagator (nine large cloche hoops and 11ft sq plastic - plus a couple of 3ft canes.

Mrs Shiney, as usual, did a lot more than me and filled two wheelie bins with weeds and the results of cutting back.

 

I cut the front and back lawns and, looking at the fast rate the grass grows after each cut, knew it wouldn't be the last time this year. If I remember rightly I had to keep cutting the lawns into the middle of December last year.
I also pruned the height of the Spirea Arguta and the Blue Budleja from around 8' down to around 4'. The Spirea was getting lanky and smothering other plants while the Budleja had finished flowering a couple of weeks ago so I viewed the results of the pruning with some satisfaction. After that I brushed the Patio and paths, gave the Tomatoes in the Green House a light watering, marked out some plants in the border that need dividing, did a bit of dead heading, and decided to use the Hedge Trimmer tomorrow to take back the Jasmine/Clematis Hedge that surrounds the pond. After that I made an executive decision and sat by the pond with a mug of Tea.

 

Well, after yesterdays sortie into the garden and pruning of the Shrubs I got the Hedge Trimmer out and ambled down to the pond and the Jasmine Hedge. Power tools can be such a boon in saving time and effort and today was no exception. The Trimmer cut through the Hedge easily and exposed a lot of Ferns that had been hidden under the overhanging Jasmine and the 7 or 8 Clematis that were threading their way along the Hedge.
As always, one job led to another and I found myself pulling the Purple Loosestrife from the edges of the pond and laying it on the bank. While I was doing that I was also getting poked and jabbed in several places by the 11 climbing roses on the trellis at my back, so I have to redirect and re-route several spikey stems that were trailing in all the places I needed to go. I managed that without wearing gloves, which were in the Green House, and then did some awkward climbing over various Ferns and plants to get back to the other side of the Hedge.
The Trellis Entrance to the garden had been becoming more and more overgrown with the Clematis and Sweetpeas that were making me stoop and sidle my way through the narrowing entrance. So armed with the Secateurs I cut and sliced my way through until I could see through into the Garden The compost is big enough as it is but the addition of the prunings from the Jasmine Hedge and Trellis Entrance raised it another 2 feet in height. Luckily, it always seems to rot down fairly quickly and once I've cleared the borders I will take a lot of the black stuff and spread it onto them.

 

The 50+ year old Philadelphuses and Deutzia have been removed and the ground dug over. Now we have to decide on what to replace them with - but I think Mrs Shiney has a good idea of what she wants to do with the area.





Other areas along that hedge, in our shady bed, are being tidied up


One of our compost heaps has now been dug over and ready for spreading on the veggie patch when I clear the beans etc. The top of the heap was transferred to the next one before digging and this one is about 4ft deep.


As ARMANDII has said, power tools can be a boon and these shrubs have been trimmed back with the hedge cutter. I haven't yet decided what breed of dog this looks like. Any ideas?

That is made up of Choisya on the left, then a Hebe (Mrs Winder) running from top to bottom. Mrs Winder is also the centre part of the next section with the top and bottom areas being Lonicera Baggesens Gold (the Loniceras grows through Mrs Winder and I still need to cut those bits back. Next is a variegated Viburnum (was badly attacked by beetle this year but sprayed for it and recovered) with about 3ft removed. Then comes Hebe Pagei (the low one running out of the picture to the right) which is a low growing, small leafed Hebe with pure white flowers.


We also took the opportunity to cut these other viburnums back at the same time (also infested, but cleared, with beetle) . They had grown so quickly that they restricted the entrance to the driveway. We took about 2ft off each side. You can see the dirty marks on the driveway of where they came to So now I've got to work out how I'm going to get rid of the marks (moss and dirt). As it's tarmac I can't pressure hose it so it's going to be back aching work. I think I shall leave for the next visit from Michael which should be before the end of the month.

 

I spent most of today on my knees in the 40' border that runs along the central path, with a hand fork and garden fork, with the original purpose of taking out the Couch Grass and dividing some of the Hardy Perennials. That plan became even larger when I found that the Couch Grass roots were liking my light sandy soil, had grown to 2 to 3 feet in length as I dug them out and, as usual, intertwined with the roots of my border Roses and Hardy Perennials.
So I went on to Plan "B" which meant digging everything out extracting what seemed like "miles" of Couch Grass roots out of the soil and the root balls of the plants. It's amazing how a plan will change as you go along and so it was with Plan "B" because I decided to really cut back the amount and number of plants going back into the border and so the border now looks almost bare with lots of space between the plants. It's not a bad thing as it will rejuvenate the garden and the multiple layers of bulbs under the plants have not been disturbed and I can introduce some other Hardy Perennials that I've wanted to have for some time. All the Couch Grass roots went into a bucket which I filled over 15 times and dumped the contents into the Waste Bin.
All that has decided me to treat the other borders in the same fashion. So tomorrow I will start on the "walk around border" but, because of the size of it, [around 60' X 30'] it will take me several days to get that done. So, due to the fact that I'm back working 3 out of five days in the week it will be at least until the next weekend before I dig out the border, extract all the Couch Grass roots, divide the border plants and replant them. After that I will need to do the same to the West and East Borders but, as they say, all in good time When it's all done it'll be a drastic change to the garden without changing it's Cottage style, but it will look, perhaps, like it was when I first started to plant it up all those years ago. The only Hardy perennials to remain untouched have been the Clematis as they are doing the job I wanted them to do. One other job that will have to be done is to spread buckets of the "black gold" from my large compost heap over the borders which will, I hope, reduce the height of it. Autumn is a busy time!!

 

Would take me several weeks

 

I didn't do anything in the garden yesterday apart from fill up the bird feeders and get the propagator in the greenhouse working properly.

In the afternoon, after a drizzly morning, I had a walk to the village and about 500ft of the footpath has become overgrown with nettles, brambles, weeds and overhanging branches. So I took my new secateurs with me and cut it all back and then emailed the parish council to clear the rubbish and then do the job properly. I wonder how long it will take them.