What Jobs Are We Doing In The Garden Today 2020

Changing the flowers in the windowbox. The variagated pelagoniums are still looking good so I'll overwinter them although they were bought as annuals for their foliage. Winter pansies going in.

Cut flowers for the house - altromeria, phlox, lobelia and coreopsis. All autumnal colours.

Yesterday I went blackberry picking with a friend and made 4 apple and blackberry crumbles for the freezer.

 

Hmmmm.... not the best of starts!

I just went up to set the steps into the slope on the bed extension, to find that Mr Foxy had dug up one of the allium bulbs, and then pooped next to his digging hole...

 

Planted some more wallflowers, that's 150 so far.

 

Today I've been smashing up paving slabs down the side and front of the bungalow - ready to chuck in the skip are replace with gravel. It was great fun . I did have goggles on - safety first people .

 

Cannabis? The hallucinogenic herbal remedy type...

 

@clanless there are many types of cannabis. I grow light THC high Cbd varieties. The oil really takes away old people types of aches. It is legal for anyone to grow 4 plants since last fall. I have permission from the feds to grow a lot more and have had this registration for many years now.

Today I didn't do much out there as everytning was soggy from a heavy rain last night. I did top up tne receptacles for the indoor growing area capillary system. And I did pick a lot of chillies to make super hot pizza sauce and then canned the lot.

 

Took photos of three dead roses, failures from my last purchase. Then got stuck into reclaiming my climbing roses from the overgrown garden next door.

 

No. They were part of an order placed in February. (Bare root). Planted into containers upon arrival. They had of course been pruned by the grower, and the stems gradually browned and failed to take off.

I have had some very mixed experiences over recent years. An order placed with Harkness for around £200.00 were very disappointing. I did complain but no responce. It seems that very little notice is taken by the packers. Sometimes just a single stem exists. At one time this would be discarded, now they get sent out. As I have mentioned in the past. We the buyers tend to have a moan amongst ourselves but never complain to the firms. We should, as most outlets now offer a 3-5 year guarantee.

 

Spent a very pleasant hour in the garden yesterday. Made a start on my baths with weeding out the undesirables. All 3 of the baths were converted from flowers to grow herbs and lavender and all 3 have failed . I have been considering what to do. I like the baths but want something in them that can look after itself with very little attention from me. I thought herbs and lavender would be the solution and also provide food for the buns. So, my options are A/ get rid of the baths and just have pots, B/ remove most of the gravel and old compost and replace with fresh compost or soil and plant flowers again, C/ turn the baths into water features. All these options will take time to achieve and time seems to be a rare commodity for me at the present. However, whilst wedding the baths I found lots of toadflax seedlings. There is also something that resembles small dandelions on long stems. So, think I will just leave the baths to develop by themselves and just take out what I don't want. Love toadflax and very popular with the bees.

I checked 3 of my hedgehog houses, hog sleeping in one box, Rat sleeping in another and last one vacant. Netted the pond a little - it needs a good tidy up. Pulled up one of the baby newts, who now resembles a very small adult. Heard a lot of chattering going on whilst I was in the back garden which sounded a bit like Swallows. Turned out to be Goldfinch with 4-6 babies. Saw one being fed by parent. Never had the babies here before. Delighted

 

Yesterday was a busy day (so too tired to say what I did last evening!).

I pruned another 4-5 metres of laurel hedge with secateurs. I can’t do the full height, but manage to cut up to about 2.00-2.25 metres high. All bundled up into 5 bundles, which will be taken away by the council today.
In the afternoon I mowed the grass, so that was a good 2 hours wandering up and down the garden.
Then I took a break sitting by the pond... which of course led to an hour weeding out the meadowsweet that is taking over one end of the pond. It is so vigorous, my yellow flag has really struggled this year! But at least I don’t need to worry about goldfish versus wildlife. The matted roots are so dense, about 1/4 of the pond is inaccessible to the fish....
Some harvesting was also required - two yellow scallop squash, some yellow pear tomatoes, along with some tumbling Tom reds. We are doing well for toms this year .

 

You most have some patience cutting laurels with secateurs @Sian in Belgium

Looks better now @shiney nice sharp clean edges he's done a good job . They're always a bit tricky the narrow borders they never really seem to look right , I've got some myself which I am scratching my head about I think one or two types of plants repeated look best . Mine are in between a path / lawn and a fence and its not viable expanding the path or lawn , so the lawn may go and I've a new bed to plant up but I'll see I am quite attached to my lawns . Your lawns are looking well by the way especially the one by the summer house