What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

@shiney poor bunny, I hope he hasn't injured himself. Rabbits have very good memories. I've had rabbits for 35 years and it can take a bun months or even years to recover from a traumatic experience. I hope the wild bunny will remember his frightening experience and not try again but if he is desperate for food he may. The hot dry weather has affected a lot of our wildlife.

 

Past two days have been chilly, strong winds and some light rain, but not enough to be of much benefit to the garden. So dry everywhere and despite watering some of my plants have suffered. All three of my herb baths are failing and the willow hedging I planted is turning yellow .

A couple of days ago I cleaned out the pond a bit. Removed some of the oxygenator weed and its roots to make more space for the water soldiers to grow. Replaced the barley straw net with a fresh net and pulled out lots of blanket weed. The hole in the ground next to the pond is still a hole in the ground _ maybe have more time in the autumn to work on it. It does make a good seat next to pond at almost eye level though. So, I had a coffee and biscuits watching the water beetles scooting about. I've noticed two new beetles in the pond, a bronze coloured beetle about the same size as the black beetles. Whilst sitting there a blue Damselfly appeared and hovered around checking out the pond for a few minutes . Cut the paths through the long grass in front garden and swept part of the path.

 

Continuing with aphid patrol today. Everything is improved, but not yet completely devoid of the little pests.

Raspberry bush arrived yesterday so I need to find a spot for that and get it into a bigger pot.

 

Thought I would take a few cuttings too.
Now the toms are in the ground the marigolds have been added to protect them.

About to do some potting on in the herb area too.

 

A very overcast day, but the blessed rain stopped so managed to cut the grass. I have been putting that off as it hasn't rained for 12 weeks and the ground is parched.

Following my Nana's thinking, I dug out the Buttercups first and collected them into a jar to brighten the table. They are lovely!

Discovered a dragon skull next to my Climbing Iceberg


The sparrow chicks are having fun with my new water feature. It's not a constant spray but spits in intervals. The chicks like to do the "now-now-now-" waiting game but occasionally (deliberately) miscalculate and get wet which they seem to find a tremendous fun.

 

Collected my paving blocks from b&q today, happy with how they're going to look just need a few dry days to lay them

 

Tested my irrigation rearranging to see if it is adequate and am satisfied with it so then spent a bit of time sorting and labeling the components left over and son #2 can use them to set up watering at his place.

Moved two solar panels which run fans in one greenhouse to a location on one side of the railing above the back of it to make things look a little tidier. I really dislike heights so this was a job I'm glad to be done with. The greenhouse is 2 feet above ground and the rail is another 6 feet up, then there is part of my height. An 8 foot drop doesn't seem much to some but I have bruises on my arms from holding on like vise grips! There is no place to firmly set up a ladder there and that is why I had to crawl back there.

I weeded more of the lawn and used roundup in the driveway expansion joints. Weeds were taking up residence even though it gets pretty darned hot in the sun.

 

You're much braver than I am - I get terrible vertigo on ladders and refuse to go up them! Well done

 

Got the raspberry into a pot:



Spent a couple of minutes admiring my first courgette

 

Potted up some large pots with trailing geraniums, fuchsias,snapdragons and erigeron

 

Feeding the back lawn to try and improve the grass growth before I attempt to eradicate some of the weeds.

"pruning" large rhododendron ponticum/ trifid that was planted by the previous owners as some sort of hedge that is now engulfing the driveway. These things are enormous and have trunks that must be about 12" or so diameter. Were growing out into road and were getting very tall - about 15 foot.

Cut them back with the chainsaw and am going to have big bonfire. I need to get the things away completely, will need to get a mini digger and grub them out at some point but I need to find something easier to manage to replace with. Thinking about Yew? not sure whats best as Yew will take ages to grow and to buy larger plants is getting expensive.

 

Another bit finished, I'll let the cement dry for a couple of days then start putting the gravel back.

 

After the heavy rain, some of the roses are looking a bedraggled so I did some deadheading and weeding around them while my OH put up a new arch near our summer house. It's looking good and is far stronger than the one it replaces which will go into the cutting patch, along with two trellis panels for next years sweet peas.
We had our green bins emptied on Saturday (?) for the first time since lock down so it's a luxury having somewhere to dump the weeds. Before they were emptied they had been jumped on several times to compress everything and they were really heavy to drag up the garden. Thank goodness we're back to regular collections.