New Year's Gardening Plans Resolutions?

[PritiPatelsMaker]

After the garden being seriously neglected this year due to a myriad my main plan is:

to give the garden a really good tidy up

Do little things when I can like planting seeds and bulbs. Spring bulbs already planted

Lurk around in here more for inspiration

Make the garden and gardening a bit of an escape/haven

have fun turning your 'unloved' space into a beautiful natural habitat in 2023 @Namechangeforthis88

👍 @Ilovelblue re slug deterrent using eggshells, it worked well with my dahlia last year, although I noticed the slug population went down quite a bit, due to the drought.

i hadn't thought of witch hazel, thanks for that. We lost a lilac tree/bush, went out the other day and found it flat on its face from the high winds 😢 So I may source a witch hazel instead.

I'm still getting over Vocid do not done a lot but managed to plant some tulips today.

Know it's a bit Pete but thought I'd try them rather than throw them away.

I have so many plans for the garden as always. I've been letting the orchard go wild but it's just dominated by ground elder and brambles. My plan is to dig out the brambles and try to out-compete the ground elder with bulbs, cow parsley, ox eye daisies and foxgloves (previous attempts to dig it out have failed dismally). I've stuck in loads of camassia, daffodil, snowdrop and bluebell bulbs and am chucking in any other overflow plants which might be tough enough to compete with the ground elder too. Any other aggressive wildflower suggestions would be welcome!

I also need to sort out the raised bed area which is a big mess and tidy Roses over arches and up supports. They always put on masses of growth in late summer which I never get round to sorting in time.

Totally agree on the over buying/over growing, although our local primary school are always grateful for overflow at the May Fair which helps a lot. I'm aiming to grow more from cuttings this year and get more 'free' plants.

So soot snot the typos.

I'm getting over Covid and its a bit late.

Not sure who Pete is? 🤷‍♀️

Poor you @PritiPatelsMaker ♥️

🌺 🐝 🪴 🌲 🌸

I treated myself to a late Christmas/ New Year present ( I would have asked for it as a real present from someone else if I had thought of it but I didn’t) .

It’s a potting table from Aldi, hoping it saves my back a bit, it’s coming tomorrow according to the emails. I am very much hoping for one of the ones that have been reviewed as “really good value, better quality than I expected” not the “came broken, returned as rubbish” ones. Fingers crossed. It will have to live outside so I might have to give it a coat of varnish before I expose it to the elements.

NAG MY OH TO FINISH THE BLOODY BBQ PLATFORM PERGOLA THINGY. There’s a corner of the garden that looks like a flippin building site for the last 18 months !

what's the purpose for the pond? If you want flowering plants, they could do with some sun. Always, plant for the conditions of the pond. If it's in shade, will it have a lot of leaf fall in it? If this is the case, scoop out the leaves to prevent the water getting muddy. Obtain the right type of oxygenator plants for this. If you ask around, you might be able to get some off other pond owners. Tip, tapwater needs to settle for a week or so, before introducing pondlife.

@daisychain01 I think hydrangeas can "take" if you do them at the right time of year. I've done it before of my "Zaza" variety. Have you tried doing cuttings of wallflowers? It's so easy (obviously not now, but in the throes of spring).

@Ilovelblue I'd love a witch hazel but I simply don't have room for another shrub. I have far too many squeezed in a small bed, and some of them don't do as well as they should do given the space they have.

@Namechangeforthis88 make sure your seedlings are strong and at a decent size plug before you plant them out. Slugs/snails hide inside pots so make sure you don't have them near your seedlings. Go out at night to pick them off.

Nachtvlinder I gave a friend of mine a witch hazel after her father died. It's lived very successfully in a large pot for over five years now.

@Espritdescalier I'm so sorry you're afflicted with the dreaded ground elder. I don't think growing bulbs will be strong enough to out-compete with it. I know this is going to sound controversial, but I think the only way to get rid of it is to use Round-Up. The runners run all over and leaving a tiny bit will only regenerate more. I don't know taking all the soil out and sifting it will the the second best answer to this.

@Nachtvlinder all noted pondwise. I'd like to encourage wildlife, I'm fairly flexible on the plants.

I had loads of ground elder in a previous garden. I spent so long digging it out I was dreaming about it.

I can't see bulbs outgrowing it I'm afraid.

I would love to join, as I have many plans for the garden but always get derailed by the DC using it for football and DP's general laziness!!

We have a mud pit small lawn but there's not a lot I can do with that, it's been relaid, reseeded and still looks terrible... I'm going with using lots of pots instead. My DTs are 7yo and will happily pile compost into pots for me, hopefully they're past the stage now of pulling plants up every week 'to see how they're doing'

I have plenty of seeds and bulbs, just waiting for a nice enough weekend to spend a bit of time outside... I don't mind the cold, but planting things in the pouring rain is no fun!

Ah @Nachtvlinder and @Namechangeforthis88 don't depress me! I can't use roundup as it's under the fruit trees and next to the wildlife pond, just can't face risking killing off anything else, including wildlife. I spent three winters doggedly digging it up but you wouldn't even know after a couple of summers, so aggressive! I know the snowdrops and daffs will thrive because it doesn't come into leaf until later in the year and I have a few patches there already. The Camassia remains to be seen. The oxeye daisies are so incredibly aggressive elsewhere in the garden I'm crossing fingers they will survive. If I can just improve the diversity I'll live with it.

@RebeccaSharp I'm with you on the pots, I want to do more, although flying footballs are such a hazard!

Sympathies to all those with ground elder. This too is in my lawn.

But I have lots of lesser celandines which some may say are a pest but I rather like and spot of food for early bees

I would love to join, as I have many plans for the garden but always get derailed by the DC using it for football and DP's general laziness!!

We are the same but it's cricket here

Not sure how old the DC have to be before you can get rid of the lawn?

Well, @Espritdescalier , in a way I quite enjoyed digging out ground elder.

www.rhs.org.uk/weeds/ground-elder if you want more solutions to ridding ground elder.

I've got lesser celandine too which is also a pest and I've only noticed it last two years. It's worse than bindweed!

@PritiPatelsMaker I had to ban the DC from playing cricket in our (small) garden due to their very inaccurate batting 'skills'

@Espritdescalier I'd love to invest in beautiful terracotta pots but just know that they would fall victim to the flying footballs straight away it's plastic all the way for us...

@PritiPatelsMaker Can't imagine having to compromise on having a nice garden versus giving outdoor space to children. My daughter grew up not sporty, but we went to parks and woods all the time. I got the garden I wanted. It's a win-win!

Depends on children's age and distance from park probably though. You can fling open the back door and let them get on with it while you get on with whatever long before they can take themselves off. Needs must.

I moved house this Summer and have now got a very small garden with no plants at all. I'm in the process of removing aggregate and pulling up landscaping fabric to dig over the soil underneath for planting. I really want to get a pond in this year because I love to watch the wildlife, especially the frogs. I have an additional challenge of a sloping lawn and very little money to invest so am resigned to doing most of the donkey work myself.

Thanks everyone for the advice on the DC, think I'll leave the cricket lawn in situ for this summer and make plans to change things around for next summer.

@charabang sounds like hard work but you're going to get such a lovely garden at the end of it

Ahhh invasive weeds! The bane of my life. Our's is bindweed which is built to survive, its runner can go for miles. No matter how much I rip up and think I'm winning, back it comes the next year.

@Nachtvlinder i haven't tried rooting wallflower so I will give that a try as I have the normal variety in a small section of the border so will enjoy their flowers and beautiful scent in April and then take some cuttings. They tend to get very leggy so it will be a good opportunity to tidy them up.

My lettuce and tomato seeds have germinated in my propagator, at record speed, I was amazed to see the lovely tiny green shoots emerge 2 days ago. That's 4 days! The weather has been very mild for January so they probably think it's March/April. Nothing yet from the chilli, so it's time for a blast of heat - having said that, we were remarking yesterday that we haven't needed the heating on for 4 days now (mustn't complain). I may click it on for an hour (just for the chilli seeds

Found you , and joining in
Like @charabang we moved last year , and have a house on a hill with a steep inaccessible “garden “ no sporty DC at home any more
All I’ve done so far is put some cardboard down on what will be a border ( if it ever stops raining ! ) and we have contractors coming in to tame 2 lovely big , very overgrown trees ( ones a beech , I’m not sure of the other ) and take out 6 dead looking horrid conifers )
We have a huge shrub border , overgrown and with a nice selection of brambles
Theres a beautiful clematis , which I’m desperate to take cuttings of , as it’s on a wall which we want to take down , apparently seeds take 3 years to germinate and in not that patient !
I will take some photos ( partly because I’m nosy , and like seeing other peoples photos and assume I’m not alone in that ! )

I wouldn't have 3 years of patience either @Veryfishy!

I don't tend to take photos but I do nosey at people's front gardens when I'm walking the dog and am copying a couple of ideas for our own for this summer. One is to grow a row of Sunflowers along the front wall.