What have you done in the garden today? Part 2

[ThreeRingCircus]

A continuation of the last thread.

@Zebracat - will you plant your basil in the ground?

I have a lot that germinated and put a few in pots and wonder if I can bung the rest in the ground. Not sure what conditions they like but may as well give it a go!

The light weeding turned into another Fecking Brambles sesh, with a couple of large shrubs for good measure...

That is a beautiful parterre, Bideshi.

My main garden excitement today was the arrival of some mail order plants. I think I know where to plant them!

@Maggiethecat . I can’t think about that yet, they are tiny little specks, might just be moss. I was hoping to plant up 3 containers and put some in the greenhouse border with the tomatoes, but there’s nothing there. How long did yours take to look like they had a future?

They’ve taken some time - sown on 13/5 and they’ve only come alive with the good weather.

scattered seeds in the brown pot - had a big clump which I thinned to include those in the grey pots, and stuck some in the ground.

Going to the garden centre during our lunch break. I’ve made a plant list because dh will be rushing me round

Put a second coat of paint on my garden wall. It's looking good perhaps a little bright in the sun. Going out now to touch up a few spots and then I can push my containers back in against the wall.

Very very humid here so we downed tools and went to the seaside for some breeze and ice cream. I did buy some new solar lights on the way home and I’ve put those up and deadheaded some roses and azaleas.
Our first sweet peas are out.

Hoping for some rain tonight - we haven’t had any since May 9th

Ooh, nice to find the new thread! I bought a ton of plants at work today, and planted most of them, as well as some I bought last week. I have a gorgeous apricot coloured foxglove that I'm really enjoying. I've also planted some deep orange lantana in my new flowerbed. I know it's a bedding plant and I wouldn't usually buy them, or put them in the flowerbed, but I have so much space to fill that I thought I'd try it. It is really making the blue agapanthus and dark blue salvias pop!

In good news, I’ve seen 2 ladybirds today, a red one and a yellow one. They will not be short of aphids to munch.

I sat in the garden and daydreamed 😊
Actually I did tidy the greenhouse a bit before it got too hot too!

That’s a beautifully laid terrace @InMySpareTime . Is the garden really as tapered as it looks?

Love the photos
@Bideshi parterre with the red tulips is awesome
@Maggiethecat I've really got into basil this year - green like yours and the purple variety seems to be very easy to grow. I've had to split it into 6 separate pots, so we can use them in cooking and salads over the next few weeks.

I prepared to plant 2 clematis Montana - dug very deep holes, loaded each with a ton of leaf mould and bone meal and watered well. I won't be able to plant them for a couple of days because we're off to a family event this weekend so I'll be itching to get back on Monday to get out there. This time of year I can't spend too much time in the garden, there's always so much to do!

almost finished planting the dahlia out - some will have to go in pots, most of them are already in the borders but there are a few stragglers that were a bit too small to plant out,

Ive also got several tubs of sea holly that need to go out but They're fine where they are for now.

I like the idea of a planter on wheels, that could be something to copyright, @MereDintofPandiculation especially if it could be self watering!

Watered. Weeded. Wandered around with the husband looking for a place to plant a very big multi stemmed acer we bought last week. Couldn't find anywhere.
Thank you@ComeIntoTheGardenMaud. It looks fairly even and flat on that picture but those squares go in all directions. I love getting mail order plants. Utter joy. David Austin is the best - a box of rose often in full bloom. I have to find somewhere for 'The Lark Ascending'. It's quite a big rose.
Watered again. Noticed a couple practically having sex in the middle of the grass path between the borders. Gave them the evil eye but next time I went past he was giving her a massage. Gave them the evil eye again. Later he was playing the tin whistle so gave up with the evil eye: not evil enough obviously. Then remembered there's a festival on locally and we always get a few like that at this time of year.

@InMySpareTime I meant to say I love your very well tended garden with veg beds, perfect!

Capturèd a swarm of bees and popped them into one of my empty hives, watched the newly fledged family of Great Spotted Woodpeckers learning how to peck on an old, rotten tree trunk, potted up some young Lillium davidii grown from seed, admired the Dracunculus vulgaris which are in full bloom and stinking magnificently...though the postman did ask what the dreadful stench was!😂

Now doing a rain dance as, like @BestIsWest, I have not seen a drop of rain since 9th May, water butts are empty and nothinģ significant in the fòrecast

Will also go and sit out later, with a cup of tea, to watch the bats flitting about and enjoy the cool of the night and drink in the scents in the night air

I love mail order plants @Bideshi its rather addictive!

Like you David Austin is a big favourite - Spring bare roots are great value.
Sarah Raven does a nice variety of unusual plants but is eye wateringly expensive
Parkers are great, very reliable quality. I massively overestimated my purchase of plugs from them during the first C19 lockdown and ended up with plants absolutely everywhere (even had to put some in buckets in the end), but our garden was a riot of colour all summer when we were feeling very out of sorts during the lockdown so it kept us sane (ish).
Just received an order from Farmer Gracy - sea holly, cranesbill and mallow in lovely shades of pink, cream and lemon,

Waterbutts are down to their last few watering cans, then we'll all be out there doing a dance. Sunday is forecast to be thundery, but don't expect it will replenish our supplies unfortunately. I cheat and put the hose in there and fill it up as I need water all the time in the greenhouse,

Filled our bottom-of-the-garden waterbutts with the hose yesterday. They were down to an inch of water, and they feed the greenhouse watering system so can't be left dry. Today, connected the new top-of-the-garden butt to the drainpipe. That collects from the whole back roof, including next door's. The smaller butt that was there before will be moved tomorrow to collect from the little scullery roof. That will give us a total capacity of 970 litres.

Rain forecast for tomorrow night, so keeping fingers crossed for a good top up. Not quite as dire here as some of you have had it - we did have a couple of ml of rain on 23 May - but there's been nothing worth speaking of for a month.

If you are looking for orange I saw the most gorgeous geum the other day, kicking myself for not buying it, called Coral Tempest. I will be tracking one down ………

@MereDintofPandiculation yes, the back garden is triangular and very quickly heads to a point. We're the top of a curved street (the opposite of a cul de sac) so the top 4 gardens are triangular.
I've managed to pack a fair bit into it though, most of the plants are both beautiful and edible, and there's always something in flower even in winter.

I must be doing something wrong, whenever I’ve got mail order plants they’ve died. There’s a lavender I really want which I can only find mail order but I’m so reluctant because of my past experience (pink fairy wings - it’s gorgeous).

I increased the size of my front border, I’ve got more mulch arriving today. The ground was solid so moving the border logs was tough, took a lot of water from the hose to soften the ground. I moved a few plants about, will do a few more today. Then there’s more grass removal in the border because it’s all new. Only started it last autumn

Been a busy week here, planting out as many seedlings as I can, and weeding like mad here in France.

We've dug out a large area that had upside down turfs from the places where we made new beds in the lawn. And I'm putting the last of the potatoes in it. It is big enough for about 40 potato plants. We lost half our harvested spuds last year as they cooked in the bags, it was so hot here. So I'm trying a staggered planting and this is the last batch. I've got 6 Charentais melons that I'll plant over the top as they will be harvested before the potatoes come out.

I've nearly planted up all my veg beds, a few spaces left which I'll sow green beans in for eating, all my beans for drying, mostly kidney beans, all went in 2 weeks ago.

I've finished putting up an arbour outside my shed, for some kiwi berries to grow up.

We got 2 bargain buys this week. One of 21 brassicas in soil blocks for €7 and one of 40 veg plants, mainly peppers, melons and cucumbers, for whatever we wanted to pay. So I need to repot the brassicas into larger pots and set up a protected area to keep the dreaded flea beetle away as if they those, they are done for. These and the kales and leeks I already showed will form the backbone of my winter harvests. So I'll be working on that space this weekend. Yesterday's veg bargain peppers, cukes and melons went straight in last night.

My Spencer mix sweet peas are flowering now, and the scent wafts across the whole garden. So flipping lovely.

I've been to the garden centre and rescued two very sorry looking hydrangeas from the bargain bin.....£8 for the two of them. I've planted them out in the border and will see what happens. No idea what variety they are but £8 is probably worth it just for the excitement of seeing whether they'll grow and if so, what they are!