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?

Thanks @larkstar - will look at those.

Yesterday: emptied plant pots of old, solid soil and cleaned them up. Repotted a sort of palm tree looking thing our mother in law was getting rid of. Planted some herbs and lavender into pots.

Today I have two buxus to pot, some more herbs to plant. Going to clear out more pots and visit the garden centre for a wander although it’s still far too cold here for any bedding plants yet.

Does anyone know of an app which is reliable at identifying plants? Ideally a free app but would pay if it was a really good app.

I'm ploughing through cleaning plant pots, repotting things, placing some aside for the plant swap next weekend, sieving soil for the new things, planting out various veg and flowers, cleaning the plant pots to reuse etc etc etc. It gets quite repetitive at this time of year.

Does anyone know of an app which is reliable at identifying plants? Ideally a free app but would pay if it was a really good app. Whichever app you choose, remember it’s only a starting point. The app doesn’t have the awareness to know when it’s wrong. So do your research on the answer. Is the plant hardy in the UK? Is it in flower at the right time? If you’ve seen it in lots of gardens, does that tie up with it being available from only one specialist nursery? At the basic level, is it possible the same growth habitat you’re looking at, or are you looking at a shrub and the app has identified it as a tiny rock plant?

What the apps do very well is skim through lots of pictures to find a possible match.

I’ve taken the bubblewrap down from the cactus end of the greenhouse

I use PlantNet. Like any other app the top guess is frequently wrong, but it's rare to not find find the answer in the top 10 and there are always plenty of pics to check against..

Sowed some more annuals in my new cutting flower bed, planted a rose, moved some snowdrops and geranium, continued with the never ending weeding.
DH has almost finished removing a 8ft tangle of honeysuckle and Ivy that had taken over a long trellis. The trellis has rotted so now there’s a big hole awaiting new trellis.

I’ve planted out the masses of bulbs I’d bought over the last few months, cleared some beds and reseeded some of the lawn.

Nothing today other than hanging washing out in it.

I've weeded out the crevices in the paving and put some fresh gravel in - I like things growing there but it's easy for it to be taken over by things that get too big. A very methodical task & lovely to do while sitting in the sun. Otherwise just general pottering!

We've created & weeded a new bed, planted a hydrangea, camellia & blackcurrant in it. Weeded out a few pots, potted on a couple of plants. Weeded a few bits of the garden to get on top of the weeds springing up. Lopped off the top of the bay tree which is going mad. Talked about where we're planning to put our nature pond.

Cut and edged the lawn front and back, it was very long. Meant to rain all week so glad it’s done

Cleared a neighbouring cat's outdoor litter tray, (aka one of my produce beds) of shit. Not a fun job!

Edged, filled and planted a new perennial produce bed with 7 asparagus crowns and rhubarb. I hope they do ok, I bought them earlier in the year and just hadn't found time to get them out until now.

In my front garden, I planted three peony rhizomes, some ranunculus bedding plants and a load of anemone de caen corms too.

It was a very productive day and I felt so good from having been out pottering.

Pruned my raspberries and other berries and tied them-in to the trellis .

Note to selfm Do it at the right time next year -it’s a lot easier

Emptied and reorganised my greenhouse, rather chuffed with my efforts, dug over a little border and pulled out all the Spanish bluebells, planted anemones and primulas.
Not a lot really but limited while new patio being laid plus fences on two sides (over the next month). I did weed the front borders yesterday.

Nothing today but going to start off some cosmos seeds tomorrow.

Busy day in the garden today.. replaced a lavender in the hedging which didn’t survive the winter, took an acer out a pot which also didn’t make it and repotted a skimmia, moved some euphorbias, did some wedding and mulching!

Working today,so nothing. However noticed that the Euchinacea seeds are germinating in the green house.

A bit of weeding and mulching, and I cleared out the pond which had too many leaves in it from autumn so was quite silty and stinky. I tried moving some self seeded forget me not and Welsh poppies to the front garden which I'm trying to turn into a wildflower meadow, I hope they will survive.

Applied leather jacket nematodes

Picked out more sycamore seedlings.

I also discovered people charge actual money for them on eBay. Amazed.

The sycamore seeds are everywhere aren’t they?! Don’t remember ever having to pull so many out.

Nothing for me in the garden today as our gardener is here. He’s a god send! I’m in the garden for hours a week, but I really value his physical help and wealth of knowledge. We have huge borders in our garden and it’s rather overwhelming at times. We are trying to get some evergreen shrubs in them to reduce the soil space. We only moved here 3 years ago and it was all in a right pickle. Completely overgrown with nettles and Ivy. It’s taking shape now though. It’s a labour of love. Great therapy too! My beloved Dad died from MND just before Christmas (he was only 64) and I find the garden a great distraction

We've topped up all the mulch, and I've planted out some salvia plugs and dahlias. Ordered some chocolate sun flowers that I will sew direct next week

I have planted 4 shrubs, 1 clematis and 5 perennials, mulched the strawberries and laid some heavy duty membrane on the bare patches. I also got my first barrel of tatties planted.

2 shrubs, 5 clematis, 5 perennials, 2 fruit bushes and 15 raspberry canes left to go (plus the gazillion more I need to buy) !

That's been the easy bit. We have 4 acres and 3 children under 6 (bought the house just after eldest was born)... So I have been trying to make borders out of what was previously wilderness. So far I've pulled out 7 compost bags full of nettle roots from one patch alone. I've laid an entire kitchens worth of cardboard boxes in an effort to suppress weeds and I reckon we're up to about 2000 litres of compost, bark or manure in various places.

Barely touched the sides of it!!!

Wow! I can only imagine what it’s like to garden on that scale.

I haven’t done much, as I’ve been out for the day, but I’ve potted on the few survivors of last year’s attempts at taking cuttings and gathered a few things to take to our local plant swap.