What have you done in the garden today? Part 3

[ThreeRingCircus]

The old thread was filling up so I've created a new one!

Link to old thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/gardening/4823202-what-have-you-done-in-the-garden-today-part-2?reply=128367673

@MereDintofPandiculation no, Greater Manchester. More rain, less wind than the Sheffield side.

Leaves, never had so many lol. If I want trees I get leaves. Thinking of using them for mulch so will do some googling.

I have started my new border. Planted some winter stuff for colour and interest. I got a bit carried away at the garden centre and bought fruit bushes too. Fell in love with a beauty berry so fingers crossed it likes its new home 🤞

Ooh! Beauty berry (Callicarpa) is one of my favourite things.

I'd never heard of it before seeing it in the garden centre, Google shows a beautiful arching shrub. But it was the colour that got me.

Most of the plants I love are blue like borage and I usually end up with a mix of blues, yellows and silver (stachys). Not a huge fan of pink but I won't say no lol.

I also got a snowberry which I've wanted for years.

I feel blessed to finally have a big garden. And trees ❤️

I realise the berries are bright purple BTW 🤣

This is one of the hellebores I got, another purple-red flower

Been working in someone else's garden and have been raking leaves. I expect I'll be doing the same tomorrow, only in a different garden.

Some years ago I was given a rubber tined rake and it's brilliant for pulling leaves out of the beds without shredding the plants. Makes life much easier if you spend a lot of time raking.

https://groundsmantools.com/grounds-maintenance/rakes/bulldog-wizard-lawn-rake/

I'm a bit ambivalent about those berries...they look a bit too much like purple skittles or suchlike to be entirely natural.

Yes, Errol, but there are so many of them (there’s a Callicarpa called Profusion) and they look so jolly at this time of year, when the garden is otherwise looking a bit meh.

Same here, Errol, they don't look right to me either but tastes differ. I'm also not keen on variegated plants that have pale blotches as they look diseased or like they've been splashed with weed killer. Mr Veg's mum loves them.

Hello, been reading for a while and now im being brave enough to post! I'm a plant it, see if it grows, if not plant something else gardener! I hate plants which need a lot of care so have a spectacular collection of dwarf rhododendron and azaleas. (Apparently they shouldn't like the heavy clay but nobody has told my plants!)

I have lots of planters for summer flowers (bulbs) and everything I choose is aimed at the bees. I don't rake up leaves in case bumble bees are nesting under them.

Today I've replenished compost in the planters, added 2 new dwarf shrubs to a bare patch and trimmed my weeping birch.

Hi @SleepingisanArt! What are your new shrubs? I love azaleas, but they don't love me!

I had such a lovely day buying things for the garden today - I've bought a nice ornamental ribes, two cornus stolonifera flaviramea, and a cornus mas. We were potting them up from a bare root delivery at work, and I couldn't resist! The flaviramea is the most amazing colour.

I appear to have bought a red leaved hazel. I have nowhere to put it. Anyone know if it will be OK in a pot to start with?

How lovely! Which red hazel? Corylus red majestic?

It'll be ok in a pot over the winter - it'll be going into dormancy about now - but it will much prefer to be in the ground asap.

@SarahAndQuack (I hope you have a duck called Quack!) Today I added a Leucothoe Axillaris 'Little Flame' and an Abelia Grandiflora 'Kaleidoscope' (had to look at their labels). I have one of each already (with different 'names' ) but as their foliage is not green its lovely to have different colours. I'm useless with plant names.....

I love my rhododendron and azaleas especially as none of my very knowledgeable gardening neighbours are able to grow them! I think they try to hard, using ericaceous compost, feeding and watering etc. Nope - they went into the ground and are watered if it's very dry and the original 2 which were planted 20 years ago are now 2m x 2m and were spectacular in the spring.

This is the first year I've really been able to spend any time in the garden for years and I'm really pleased with my progress....Though I hate weeding.....

I wish I had a duck called Quack! I keep toying with the idea of getting ducks to wage war on the slugs.

I think your soil must be ericaceous, mustn't it?! It sounds as if everything you grow is acid-loving. Your shrubs sound gorgeous!

I hate weeding too!

Raked leaves. I have a beech avenue😐DH raked leaves. I raked leaves. Piles and piles of them and made no headway at all.
But I've ordered more roses from DA and between us we've planted 600 tulip bulbs. More still to do but there's plenty of time. Also we had a booking for next year - coachload of 30 Yellow-Book openers from Fife. It helps with the impetus on days when it all seems too much (it is too much!).

Which red hazel? Corylus red majestic?

That's the one with the twiddly branches, isn't it? No, not one of those, just an ordinary straight one. And only about a foot high at the moment.

Heavy clay (under the 3 inches of nice soil the builders put in back in the 80s when they built these houses!) Below the very deep clay there's apparently chalk. (Some excellent vineyards in the region who are on the chalk downs!)

Clay soil is often acidic. Heavy clay can be really good for lots of things! My mum has heavy clay (not acidic), and I so envy her roses and hellebores.

Yep! I was just guessing as red majestic is a bestseller. I love a red hazel.

I’d be nervous about something with the species name stolonifera

Having checked the label, my hazel is a Rode Zellernoot.

https://www.thompson-morgan.com/p/corylus-rode-zellernoot/wkf3155TM

It did not cost me £100! It was 1/10 of that.

That will be pretty, Binturong.

I spent the day cutting back eleventy thousand Crocosmia as they need thinning and I want to see what's going on underneath them. Hawthorn seedlings and Geum urbanum, mainly.