What have you done in the garden today? Part 2

[ThreeRingCircus]

A continuation of the last thread.

So windy in London. I have some lovely cannas that have been hit hard - I've put some stakes in now but suspect the damage is done.

How are others doing?

Went to a Wildlife Trust event in town today and picked up some plants of field scabious; parsley and a French tarragon - planted them out and hopefully, the snails don't get them. I've noticed my late sowings of linaria have germinated a few days ago to replace the cosmos that I planted out 6 weeks' ago, only to have them decimated by the damn snails/slugs. I'm hoping they'll flower later in the season, and have some show before the frosts come. (I had a self-seeded one in Feb. and continued to grow really well until it's just starting to die off.

It's been disheartening for me knowing my beloved annual seedlings have mainly been taken by them (phlox, ammi majus, clarkia). Managed to find some self-seeded verbena bonariensis from friend 2 weeks' ago, only to find they hadn't survived - maybe, I shouldn't have split them individually?

I've noted that Kiringeshoma likes shade - had to look it up but liked the shape of the flower.

I'd heard that London is wet and windy at the moment. Nice night here in Aberdeen.

My hydrangea Zaza is flowering really well; the best I've had for the 3 years I've had it in a pot (should be purple, but it's bright pink).

I don't have many plants in flower - only nicotiana, linaria, parahebe, silene and salvia Apricot. Waiting on my echinops to bloom soon.

Oh, I forgot to add kitabelia is also in flower, but whilst the flowers are pretty, the whole plant is too gangly and I don't like the sticky big leaves. It's flopped over due to the wind. (It doesn't handle being brushed against it so it flops over.) Think I'll give that away to anyone who wants it.

Very wet and windy last night in Northumberland. Our garden is pretty exposed anyway so I'm not looking forward to seeing the damage later.

An exciting day in other ways though as we have a guy coming to fell our enormous leylandii. It's about 30ft tall and sucking all the goodness from that part of the soil. Hopefully the lovely copper beech and oak will flourish once it's gone. We will have a view (in winter anyway) of a huge electricity pylon in its place but better than the tree!

Yep the weather is atrocious here too, I moved the taller ones to a sheltered spot of the garden (it's all patio so I'm growing fruit and veg in pots) and put the smaller ones into the little insulated grow house that I bought.

In other news my spring onions and French beans are already popping up little shoots! Very exciting!

We have had this for a couple of days, kept finding the trails on the hall carpet on a morning. I've filled the little well in the door frame with salt as that kept them out last year when we had similar weather and the same slug issue!

@Nachtvlinder I have to grow everything in pots in the slug-free zone of the greenhouse until they’re big and tough enough to be less attractive to slugs. My Cosmos won’t go out till the first flower opens, ditto runner beans. Clematis need to be 6ft high and woody stemmed. Clarkia went out when they started flowering and so far are OK.

Yes, I grow vulnerable things in pots on the top shelf of the cold frame, but it’s still not enough. Annual seedlings, especially cornflower and cosmos, are always trashed (and the newsprint pots I made during lockdown made the problem even worse). The dahlias were chunky plants but, even after dousing in garlic spray, they’ve been attacked. Nature’s bounty, eh?

Chopped off a load of Ermine moth caterpillar-infested branches from the hawthorn. Ermine moths are pretty enough, but the webs and defoliated branches are unsightly so they had to go. I'm not losing the whole tree to those little fuckers. Not had an infestation for a few years but last time we lost about 1/3 of the tree and it's only just thickening up again.

Ontherun I'll need to work out where they are coming in. We think it's near a pipe in the kitchen.

We've had constant rain for the past two week or so (thunderstorms and normal rainfall) so I haven't had to do much except dead head.

Concentrating on the front garden today because there's a Pride of Place inspection this week (community initiative tied into grant funding) and we were all asked to ensure our gardens and grass verges etc. are looking as tidy as possible. My lawn was stealthily encroaching onto my driveway so I've cut it all back. Also dealt with a few weeds that were sprouting out around my flower pots. It all looks a lot better (if I do say so myself) and thankfully the rain has held off today - well, so far. Just stopped for a cold drink and then I'll hang out my washing and head back out to the garden.

Nothing. Just too wet and miserable

Kirengeshoma is a real class act@OscarsAmmonite2. There are a couple of others that come from the same part of the world (Japan) and have a similar vibe - deinanthe caerulia, which is a herbaceous member of the hydrangea family and anemonopsis macrophylla. All three are real aristocrats, all late flowering (which is good because they keep the season going) and all do well in cool shady conditions. None are difficult in Scotland.

I haven't done anything today because I have the cold from hell, or possibly another dose of Covid. I went down to the nursery garden and had to stop and have a rest on the way back up. Couldn't get warm and eventually went to bed with a hot water bottle. I have a party of 24 on Thursday and another similar party open Sunday who are booked for tea and cake, so I really don't need anything that's going to slow me down or stop me tweaking the garden.

We have a couple of hedgehogs wandering about on slug patrol at dusk and I profess to slinging the odd snail onto the lawn for the blackbirds to have for breakfast - I doubt whether the hedgehogs can consume the number of slugs I get, but they do seem to have kept the population a bit under control.

Egg shells and grit also deter them.

A minimal gardening weekend.

Friday - washout all day, poked my head round the greenhouse and ensured the gro-bags of toms and chilli were topped up with nice fresh rain water.

Saturday - dry until 9am then constant rain alternating with sunny spells. Pointless doing much.

today - a much better day but we were able to swap our open-air tickets to the local Shakespearian performance of Antony and Cleopatra from 6.45pm yesterday to 3pm today, so it chopped the day in half and I didn't fancy racing round trying to fit gardening into everything else - it's something to savour not rush, in my view . Play was fab and weather was very pleasant, breezy but no more gale force winds and driving rain ☔️ yay!

Hope you shake off the lurgy @Bideshi and regain strength for your hectic days coming up.

It's been a nice afternoon in Lancashire. Although it's been wet recently there haven't been many days when I've not been able to walk and/or have a potter in the garden.
I hadn't intended to do any gardening today, but this mornings trip to Wilko garnered a £1 packet of rose campion seeds which can apparently be sown into July (for flowering next year of course) so I've sown those into a couple of seed trays and put in the growhouse. Also rescued a small half price delphinium for £1.75 - it looks healthy but very tender so I've potted it up and that's in the growhouse too so hopefully will have a chance to toughen up before planting out.

And then had a hack at my climbing rose, it's got too tall and it's hard to deadhead with extended loppers without accidentally getting a branch with buds on. Need to ask the neighbour if I can attack it from their driveway I think!

Which bit of Lancs are you in @ErrolTheDragon ? I'm from that way originally, as the name hints at- a very different gardening experience in the SE!

Went to a lovely little garden centre near Sevenoaks today- picked up a Salvia, some heathers, Mexican fleabane and a white fuchsia (is it a Hawkshead, can't remember...) Had one in a pot in the old house, but it did too well and rooted to the ground through the drainage hole, so when I moved it, it died.
Just slowly trying to get a grip on gardening with sandy, acidic soil in full sun- so completely different to the old house even though it was literally down the road!

I'm a bit north of Preston.

Snap! I was in a market town, beginning with G, about 10 miles north of Preston... never had to worry about wilting hydrangeas there. OH's family is Poulton. Lovely soft water too, not like the stuff you have to chisel out of the taps here.

Will need to go and thoroughly water everything tomorrow!

Does anyone else have any nicotaniana sylvestris this year? I have potted up some seedlings that popped up in paving cracks and am hoping I'll get some flowers from them this year - but they are small at the moment, just 2-3 sets of leaves. Am I being over-optimistic? I'm sure when I grew them a few years back they were much bigger by this stage.

I don't have any Nicotiana @WobblyLondoner but in general terms, this year has been very challenging for gardeners - very slow start to the Spring with extremely cold temps, a long, dry spell and now this wet windy stuff. So I wouldn't worry too much if your plants are behind their growing cycle. I've heard that there is some hot weather coming soon, so they'll soon catch up.

I've got some, they're also only a few leaves at the moment, The local nursery was giving away some packs of seeds which were past their date so I thought I might as well try them them. Those leaves have grown quite a lot in the last couple of weeks so maybe there's some hope.