What have you done in the garden today?

[ThreeRingCircus]

I thought it would be a nice idea to share what we've been up to in our gardens.

Today I planted potatoes in buckets (with drainage holes drilled into them.) Six buckets in total, three second earlies and three main crops. I have fond memories of digging up potatoes with my dad when I was a child.... I still get excited rummaging around in the buckets when my potatoes are ready!

I also made up a herb planter from an old plant pot that had been hiding behind the shed. Mint, parsley and thyme planted in that so I'll see how that does.

I fed my pot plants with blood, fish and bone and gave them a water.

What have you been up to?

We have greenfinches who make a noise like slurping spaghetti

Thanks! We got it as we’re in north of Scotland and it gets pretty windy - stronger than a greenhouse or polytunnel!

I've got the local Womens Institute coming in at 2. Spent yesterday making cakes and getting the tea urn set up. Got to do cakes all day Saturday too because of the charity opening on Sunday. Could scream....

What I want to do is to finish off my pots - I've still got the flabby remains of tulips in the cottage garden,- and to prick out a load of candelabra primula which have germinated like cress (sown too thickly as always).

Re birdsong: I'm sure I sound like a complete fantasist but a couple of weeks ago I heard a noise like a whistling kettle with a hole in it - a really silly sort of bird noise. I was right out on the hill with the dogs and it was foggy. The sound came from a Golden Eagle sitting right on top of a very tall tree. We are actually in the middle of the South of Scotland Eagle project - there are 39 in these hills - some released to join native pairs, so they are a rare sighting, but not that rare. Somebody called it in and it was 2 year old Gracie (they are all ringed). The thing was- it was such magnificent bird but the noise was laughable. It was like a hunky ripped bloke opening his mouth and coming out with a wee girly voice.

I've liberated more of the rockery but still have another square metre or so to go. Doesn't sound like much but it's ten years worth of weeds and grass to shift, and it's bloody hard work. I've also re-weeded a short bit by a fence. Again.

Plant wise, I bought two white campanula which I'm going to put in the rockery along with the purple one and a sedum, and they should help keep that area down a bit. And separately, I'm potting on two lavender.

And I need to mow the lawn around the daisy patches.

Mostly I'm trying not to get overwhelmed. I keep looking at it all and thinking there's just too much to do and then I panic!

I sieved a load of compost for use in pots, then I sorted my “bonsai collection” - they’re looking nice this year, and finally I detangled the results of a Chiltern seeds “mixed roses species” seed packet, and spaced them around the garden ready to try to identify them, so it’s pretty hazardous out there now! They were such fun to grow, showing different leaves and different spines from about an inch high. Now they’re all about a metre

I planted some toms into the greenhouse. Think I figured out what Monty means by putting string underneath to support the plants. Laughing a5 5he Golden Eagle. Must get this app.

I’m very jealous of the golden eagle! Best I could muster today was a wren. The opposite end of the scale from the eagle - so much noise from such a tiny bird.

Had a trip to the garden centre and came away with some nemesia and a lovely new rose (A whiter shade of pale) and some bark.

DH came back from Asda with a tiny acer - he’s really good with them and this looked like one he hadn't seen before. At least I don’t have to worry about where to put it unlike the five foot damson tree that turned up last week that he had no recollection of ordering.

@Bideshi no I don’t have P. Triste. I have very few actually, at the moment. My collection waxes and wanes, and sadly it’s very much in a wane phase at the moment. But perhaps this is the turning point now I’ve bought a new one and I can start building up again! First I need to repot my P. sidoides and give it some much needed TLC.

On the bird front, I heard a nightingale this evening. This made me very happy because we used to have one that would sit in the huge ash tree right behind the house, but sadly we had to have the tree cut down a few years ago due to ash dieback. I haven’t heard a nightingale in the garden since, so this was really heartening!

I popped over to visit DDad yesterday and caught him trimming his neighbours’ hedge and strimming along the edge of their drive. I asked if he’d asked them if they were ok with this, and his response was that he’d knocked but there was no answer, but ‘it looks so much tidier now and it was annoying me’. 🙄 I jokingly suggested he come and do some edging for me instead!

Came home today to find he’d done all my edging, mowed the fiddly bits of lawn between my rose terraces, and, eek, ‘tidied’ DD’s wildlife area next to the pond - ie removed all the bits of wood, stones, branches, bug hotels and creature habitats that she’d made, and mowed all the long grass and wild flowers down to an inch high. Argh.

Poor dd came home from school, didn’t say anything, just laboriously reconstructed what could be salvaged from the ‘rubbish’ pile that he’d made.

Oh no!

Aaargh, 'helpful' parents. I remember a thread on here about someone's Dad who had helpfully massacred pruned her beautiful cherry tree, could have wept with her!

Snap @LostAtTheCrossRoad I have to keep on reminding myself that this is a minimum 5 year project, to sustain what will be my hobby for the next 40 years, and not something I can transform overnight...

Bought my Noras and Lauras yesterday, and picked up some shrubs for one of the front borders yesterday, and will try to get my Apricot polemonium today.

Can I also take views on this? It's popped up in the border, seems to have spread to other areas, and I've no idea whether to keep or dig out with urgency....

Yesterday I planted vinca major and Persicaria 'Superba', potted up some tiny azaleas I bought very cheaply as they had lost their labels, and sowed carrots.

Today I need to cut both lawns, edge, weed and I’m also going to mulch the roses…oh and I need to plant a thornless climbing rose (Rosa 'Zephirine Drouhin') next to the picnic table. And sand and paint the bench I made last week.
I have one peony bloom out, which is gorgeous, so may stand looking at that for a while 😁.

Northern, those look like Chanomeles seedlings, the spiky quince. Is there a quince hedge nearby?

AlwaysAlba I’m doing a lot of staring at my peonies too at the moment. Here are my Callie’s Memory and Sonoma Sun.

Thanks @NorthernChinchilla, I need all the encouragement I can get! Whilst it's really not a big garden at all, maybe 35ft by 20ft total and 50% lawn with a v small patio and small beds surrounding it, we've neglected it for a decade really, so I need to take this slow and steady if we've any hope of maintaining progress!

I also know very little and am learning as I go - one thing I'm still struggling with is that bigger jobs still need doing every few months or every year - it never stays 'done' 😂. But when I look at the list of what I've achieved over the last 18 months and look at the garden itself, I'm pretty damn proud of myself. And it is 99% me apart from the one half day my dh helped take an old cypressus (?) hedge out with the chainsaw.

Despite the small overall size, practical issues include some very damp & shady spots that are an utter pain for planting in (and I dislike ferns, they give me the heebie jeebies!) and a whole bunch of different levels, sloped and uneven areas 😮‍💨

Got a lovely chorus from the birds while I was hanging out the washing (also had starlings and pigeons). No gardening yet today, got to prep for weekend guests.
Plus I need to order more soil and bark chips for my border.
I ordered shrubs from J Parker’s, and they’re arriving in dribs and drabs so the border is very slowly getting planted as I work by way along weeding and removing turf.

This is all I have in the garden today, which wasn't much of a surprise because I could also see them.
The main garden sound is the constant hum of many bees, which warms my heart as I know they're pollinating all my fruit trees and shrubs. Bees now means blueberries all summer.

We’ve cut down a small oak that was too close to the house and a flowering cherry that we want to replace with something that looks better. I am a bit sad about the oak tree, I hate cutting down trees. We need to work out how to get the roots out now or whether to leave them.
Also moved some Alchemilla mollis and taking a hard look at whether it’s worth keeping a peony in our tiny garden. One flower this year which lasted three days. I can think of a dozen things I’d prefer.

Drunk beer,so far

Planted up two pots. Moved the dahlias from the dining room table to the cold frame. Made foul-smelling garlic brew to spray over said dahlias.

@Hedjwitch I'll be round by 6! 😂

I have jet washed 2 patios and the path. Back broken.
Also repotted some chives, mint and thyme that a neighbour kindly gave me.
Currently sat in the sunshine with a cold glass of lemonade feeling very at peace. Forgot just how much I enjoyed getting out in the garden.

lost there's a cold one in the fridge with your name on it

Potted on some cucumbers.
Sowed some lettuce under the peas, and some old packets of sunflowers, amaranthus and borage (just in hopes that a few will germinate).
Got DH to put up the gazebo in the garden so I can sit out without getting sunburned. I'll get him to bring it in when it rains, but that seems to be at least a week away.

Well that sounds perfect!

I've given everything a good water, planted out some beans and some brussel sprouts and picked yet more radishes. Tomorrow I think I'm going to make rhubarb crumble as the rhubarb plant has gone mental all of a sudden.