Anyone else devastated

[myotherface]

By the end of the gardening season? Even the gardeners world finishing for the winter feels upsetting. I've only discovered gardening last year but it's one of the biggest things to help with my mental health. Trying to find something else that would feel similar and keep me afloat but struggling.. At least there's still mulching and planting of bulbs but even that won't last forever.. Anyone else feels this way and have you find any good winter replacement?

If you’re planning on making a new rose bed, then do the digging on sunny winter days.

I love this time of year, when everything goes to sleep and you can move things, make new beds and build structures. It’s like when the kids have finally gone to bed and you can clean up the house, ready for when they wake up. (Not that I do that for the house obviously, only the garden!)

myotherface I'm pleased the winter and rain is here! I'm going to move my peonies , this is the best time. Also reading your post about the standing water you have. Maybe you could think of having pond, to take the excess water, it's great on clay because you won't need an unsightly plastic liner. Now is the time to plan and dig it while the earth is soft !

I have a natural wild life garden which is quite easy, because it shouldn't be 'tidied' too much , I want to encourage our hedgehogs!!

The op who lives on a barge, can still have a compost heap just don't put any food waste in it. You could use a wormery for that.

@MoonlightInVermont

My dahlias have not done well this year - too much slug damage early on - but I shall go outside later to pick the last bunch.

Lovely! :)

I have just planted up an amaryllis and it is just starting to come through. It is on my kitchen windowsill.

winter is time for planning, enjoying observing wildlife (bird feeders!)

look where you can get horse manure from and pile it high on you veg bed for next season. get bark/leaf compost for mulching. look for bare root plants (shrubs, roses, fruit trees).

Don’t be too impressed, Chottie, I found a measly three stems!

my late sowing dwarf french beans are flowering - with frost on them
they have no hope of fruiting but they look cheery
I'll pull them up when I mulch the beds
as legumes are good to leave in the ground till late

Moonlight What's the secret with growing dahlias? I was given some corms one year and I managed to get one sad flower and that was in a pot! I do have quite alkili soil. Irises and peonies grow ok though.

If your pond liner is ripped and it doesn't hold water any more, make it a bog garden instead. Loads of interesting plants to reaearch over the winter and potentially order. If you can sink a new pond nearby that would be even better as the wildlife can have the choice.

As others have said, feed the birds, plan, amend soil, sort tools. Also think about wildlife habitats. Perhaps you could build a dead hedge somewhere, or put up nesting boxes for birds, bats and bumblebees. On dry winter days you can lay paths and if it's not too cold you can even paint fences etc.

If you are arty, you could also work on some projects inside if it's really awful out. Paint pots and decorate pebbles. Sew yourself a Gardener's apron, or make bunting to go on the shed.

Get a greenhouse! I love pottering around in mine in the winter. Sowing seeds, pricking out, getting veg started.

Clay is great for growing on.

Think about a pond too - we don't have room really but I'm hoping to squeeze one in.

I've made the front garden more bird and winter friendly - so planting for berries and bark and winter flowers.

Ponds : I know somebody who has three "bin lid" ponds
as in the lids of metal dustbins upside down, sunk into the ground with a 1 inch lip above ground
they get frogs and water skaters

Hello, ppeatfruit. We met on one of the long-running gardening threads a few years ago, before my several name changes.

I’m not the best person to ask about dahlias, as I don’t grow many. In fact, last year I swore to give up completely, but when lockdown started I found a couple of survivors in last year’s pots and gave them a reprieve, simply because garden centres were shut at the time and it looked as if it might be hard to get new plants.

So, based on my very chequered experience, I would say plant them in open ground (mine are in pots and I suspect they’d like a bigger root run), put them in a sunny position (nowhere in my garden is sunny enough), do lift them over winter (I thought being in an urban heat bubble would be enough to protect them but experience suggests otherwise) and start them off indoors in spring. But it’s the slugs and snails which have been my nemesis - they removed all the top growth twice, which really set the plants back.

@ListeningQuietly that sounds great - just need to dog proof them...

It's all guilt as we had a pond 6 months ago when we moved in and just couldn't get is safely puppy proofed so it's now a flower bed.

Giraffe
Pig wire across the top ....
puppy cannot fall in, plants and invertebrates can get through

I’ve also seen ponds covered in builders’ steel mesh - again, it’s robust enough to stop children and puppies falling in.

The op who lives on a barge, can still have a compost heap just don't put any food waste in it. You could use a wormery for that. There's not much practical difference between the two. If a compost heap doesn't get hot, then it's the worms that are doing much of the work. So if the worry about food waste is rats, then just have a compost heap which rats can't get into.

The secret with dahlias is to start then in pots, then transfer to the garden.
They fair much better against slugs and co.

Feed them like teenage boys. Fish blood and bone, manure etc, a good weekly feed.
Then you can enjoy a stunning display.

They do better in the ground than in pots.

I love this time of year although I love each one as it happens

The garden has been there throughout this pandemic and I still rely on it now

The super red acers have dropped and I’m waiting to prune the roses

Hi! - having cleared out over 30+ rats from this mooring and blocked at least 12 entrances to burrows, plus rentokil out monthly serving 12 bait boxes. There is absolutely no way we will be having a compost heap or wormery ! Rats and boats are worse than rats and houses.
The only things that are preventing them from coming back is having a really really clean garden environment- any pots are moved weekly and repositioned, no piles of leaves to hide new burrows etc etc. We don’t even use our own council bins - it all goes to biffs skips half a mile away. Neighbours shoot any rats they get.
Even the feral cat population hasn’t eradicated the rats. Rats and water go together- we just don’t want to give them any excuse to set up home again!

I pay for garden waste collection as that cannot go in the buffs skips - everything else can. !

Bargebill
Sounds like you need a Jack Russel or even better a Patterdale

I know exactly how you feel (bare trees, sad looking roses and sleeping hedgehogs) but equally I'm enjoying watching the birds on the bird feeders. Aldi had a lovely bird feeding station a few weeks ago, and I've put it on the lawn near where I can sit indoors and see through the window.

Some things that are in bloom now - winter flowering Camellia, hellebore, red berried plants, anemones. Pansies etc for flowers.

I tell myself that it's almost (!!) Christmas, and then it's January with snowdrops and brighter evenings

And instead of focusing on it being over for this year, be grateful that you ''found it''.

Some people don't have that

@ListeningQuietly

We could!! But we’ve ‘done’ dogs and have said no more. Getting too old. These cats will be the last.

Barge, I feel your pain. We had a rat problem from keeping hens!
You can plants lots that deter them.
I add lots of onions to my compost pile, it kills them🥰

Onions - now that I never knew ! I’ll add that to my steel wool/concrete hole blocking technique. Safer for the feral cats too. I don’t like bait boxes and rentokil use the swelling style bait due to our otters and the feral cats.
We’ve reached an ‘amicable’ stand off I think with the rats - they can go through our mooring but just don’t set up home or stop in anyway!