WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

Perki
Black Adder, Blue Boa, the kudos varieties, Heatwave, etc. survive here over winter but I always take cuttings. Summer Sky much the same. A wet winter is not good and not sure many hybrid agastaches will survive further north.
Agree, I am "chuffed" too with Black Adder....all of them really....and I have several clumps across the garden. Never see slug or other pest damage either

 

Well, the sun didnt last long but the drizzle has persisted.
A clump of delphiniums is about to flower yet again...4th this year!....so I checked on the supports. A tall white delphinium is on its 3rd flowering. 2 tomato plants are over now.....produced for several weeks...so pulled them out. Looks like leonotis does have flower buds after all and the late.....here this year...salvia leucanthemum is beginning to flower too.
Shame about the rain....I wanted to water the garden

 

I googled the agastache too. What amazing flowers . Would like these too. We have a higher than average rainfall here, so guess they wouldn't like it very much . I'm not very good at taking cuttings, very hit and miss, and nowhere to keep them anyway.
I had a rough plan of action for my new flower bed and then I come on here and people start throwing new ideas at me and now my plan has gone out of the window

I'm a little disappointed with the Verbena. I believed it was a magnet for bees and butterflies. It is not. I rarely see them on it. I did think about removing it next year but I quite like the effect they create and they were fairly expensive £.699 per pot ( there are 4 ) around the tree.

 

Just been thinking about spring bulbs for next spring. This is part of the front garden

I was planning on planting Daffs, Bluebells, Fritallaries and maybe anything else I can think of. Around the base of the pine tree there is a thick layer of pine needles. Can I plant bulbs directly into this or will I have to dig them out first?

 

Ok luciousmaximus, if your rainfall is high go for acteas/cimicifugas, (wonderful purple/black foliage and scented flowers) sanguisorbas, astrantias, heleniums, astilbes, veronicastrums, anemones (Wild Swan) and a whole lot more Grasses like miscanthus, molinias, calamagrostis etc., would look sensational there
Ah! You posted after I did so, yes, you can plant bulbs directly there

 

Ditto.

G.

 

If I had the room I would love a woodland garden. With high fences all the way around, the animals would have a great place to play.

G.

 

Did a little weeding and general tidying up around the borders and the veg patch, plenty of newly germinated weed seedlings about after the recent rains, so I got in early before they had a chance to get going. Mowed and edged the lawn, watered and fed all the pots and containers.

Dead-headed some hollyhocks which have finished flowering (after first scattering the seeds around for next year).

Pruned a pyracantha to show off the berries, which it's producing in abundance this year. Also pruned a few ridiculously long shoots from a large forsythia, I'd already pruned it back in the spring, but it's put on another spurt of growth recently and was looking rather unkempt.

Don't know if we'll be here much longer, as we hope to be moving house within the next few weeks, but I'm keeping on top of things as I simply can't let everything go after tending this garden for so many years. Also it wouldn't be fair to the new owners, for whom the garden was a big selling point and it has the added benefit of keeping me occupied while we wait for a moving date.

 

I got the opportunity to have a very dirty rainbarrel for free. Threw it in the back of the van, brought it home.

Cleaned it up and voila, I now I have a second one to collect water off the little greenhouses. And it is nicer than the one I already had. It doesn't get better than that.

 

@Verdun Recommendations for long flowering Heleniums with an equal(ish) height to Agastache Black Adder, open to the multicoloured ones e.g. the ones in your recent pic, or just pure yellow for the contrast. Cheers

 

Mark, the longest flowering helenium is El Dorado. It is a sensation. I divided it in spring to produce 2 very large plantings here. Here it flowers from early June and never stops. It is a lovely vigorous yellow. Similar height to Black Adder.
For more orange or orange/red yellow Amber, Moreheim, sahins, feuersiegel, rauchtopas (forgive any poss spelling errors) are all excellent. I will need to check labels of others outside.
For dwarf heleniums Short n sassy, Waultraut and Chelsea are long flowering.
I am not too fond of the red varieties.....at the moment but that could change....preferring the orange and yellow ones.

 

Do the taller varieties like el dorado need staking? If I could get away with it, I would rather have plants that didn't.

G.

 

Afraid so Gary.
The shorter ones, the medium height ones too, are ok without staking.
Here El Dorado would be okish without staking because it is robust with thick stems but it would not look so good
If you want tall plants with vivid colour over a long period without any support at all check out persicaria amplexicaulis like Orangefield, Blackfield