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

It’s freezing here too. Still no flowers on my witch hazel (variety long since forgotten) but I just bought two Kniphofia from the half dead, half price shelf at our local NT property. They’ll live in a sheltered spot until it’s warm enough for planting.

I’ve brought the lavender into the conservatory. Just for a week as I keep worrying about tucking it in at night with a fleece ;

Bizarrely there are still a couple of roses in bloom and I’ll prune after they get decent rose hips

Spent today potting up some Japanese anemones I was given for Christmas (garden still too damp to plant baby plants), then emptying out last year’s veg pots and using the compost to mulch raspberries etc. Now all I have in pots is various cabbagey things and some chard. This wasn’t at all what I meant to do today.

Very little gardening activity here, but I did buy some iris reticulata to put into a pot of tulips.

No gardening today, but my iris reticulata are suddenly appearing!

And DH returned from a trip away with an unexpected witch hazel. I'm not sure he realised how big it might be get, I'm darned if I've got anywhere suitable to put it . I've never had one before (tbh not that keen on them) - the label suggests full sun or semi shade, the only possible locations are more than a little shaded. Would it tolerate being in a container?

I started my chilli seeds today, makes me feel good to get some seeds started

i noticed I have a daffodil open in the garden today to !

I’ve noticed a daff about to bloom too. And my tulips from Amsterdam are shooting. I have some hyacinths out but they were indoor ones I put out in December. I hate the smell.

I've never seen witch hazel in a pot but it's worth a try. I've never managed to smell anything from them, despite lots of trying at sundry NT & RHS gardens.

It's been a good gardening weekend so far - dry since Friday and likely to stay that way until tomorrow, so I'm getting on top of the greenhouse which was a complete mess. Today I'm getting the hose and car brush out and clean the glass inside and out. I sanitised all the staging yesterday and sprayed the inside hard standing with patio clear as the edges were very green and mossy.

my snowdrops that I'd split and repositioned last Spring (they'd got very clumped and compacted) are starting to show through. I'd taken advantage of a Parkers sale of snowdrops 'in the green' to increase the coverage, so have been hoping for good things. I can't believe how quickly they've grown. I checked the grass where I'd replanted them last Saturday and thought I'd killed them, they went from "no sign of them" to some of them showing foliage and flowering, amazing! Still a lot more to come up, 🤞

Tulips and mixed lasagne of non-descript bulbs I found in the garage, that I put into pots at Christmas are all showing growth, which is good as I was worried I'd left it too late. Hopefully I planted them reasonably according to bulb colour and size, we'll see.

There's no sign of the snowdrops I planted in the green last spring so I'm tentatively keeping my fingers crossed they'll suddenly show up but I've never been very lucky with snowdrops!

Today DH and I are measuring the garage wall. It takes up one side of our garden and I'm sick of looking at a bare brick wall. There's a concrete path at the base of it so no chance of planting anything in the ground there but we're undecided as to what to do with it. DH thinks we should get some nice wall-mounted screens/garden artwork and I'm leaning towards cladding it with wood and hanging some planters off the cladding for herbs/trailing plants.

I have a fence panel opposite my kitchen window, it’s a path about 8 feet wide with a 6 ft fence panel to next doors garden.

we are planning trellis with long planters underneath to grow clematis and honeysuckle. Will probably be nasturtiums for this summer for speed !

we had a brick wall in the front which DH built a trellis for but there’s room for a border there, we’ve added fruit trees to train all along with to blank out this wall

Don’t think it would like a container.RHS says it won’t flower in deep shade. Mine is shaded to the south and flowers its socks off. Lovely to have something in full exuberant flower at this time of year. I planted one in full view of the kitchen table where we have breakfast and lunch.

RHS says they don’t grow fast

My witch hazel seemed perfectly happy in a large pot, although I later moved it into the border. Now it looks rather sad. I think its spot may be too shady.

Witch hazels tolerate being in pots pretty well. They need ericaceous compost/feed, though, so maybe a dose of that is required if it's looking a bit sad?

I am a bit obsessed with witchhazel. I have three that I bought last year, which are all flowering now, and I've just bought a fourth. I do not have an enormous garden, so this is very silly.

I finally got out in the garden yesterday, and planted a tiny yew hedge on one side of my gate (by 'hedge' I mean three plants!). It was very satisfying seeing everything starting to come up. But I am really fed up that I planted (literally) hundreds of crocuses, secure in the knowledge that the handfuls I'd planted in previous years had thrived, so they'd do ok. I've got about six flowers.

Thanks, SarahAndQuack! That’s a good point about the feed. I’ll attend to it toot sweet!

Thanks all... sounds like perhaps it'll be happier in a potful of ericaceous in the sun rather than planted in a shadier location. My soil is fairly neutral clay, we can grow rhododendrons if we use ericaceous feed/iron sulfate.

Good... that'll be a lot easier than trying to dig a hole - the only possible place would have been stony and rooty.

I've had another major onslaught on the euonymus - the actual bush was getting too big, and the stuff which had spread back and up the fence was far too wide, with a mess of honeysuckle in it. I probably should take some more off...

But the other thing I should do is sow some sweet peas after the almost total failure of the ones I'd tried in the growhouse. The one seedling is looking quite healthy. I'm assuming the rest of the seeds will have rotted and there wouldn't be any point bringing the pots into the warm to see if there's any still there capable of germinating?

Euonymus are tough plants so you can cut it back as much as you like. At a garden I worked in, the deer would get in and they always went for the Euonymus to the extent that I never once trimmed it in ten years and it always grew back.

So far:

I pomced abiut with secataurs tidying .
Dogwood ( it is beautiful I just trimmed the branches that get in my way , plan to cut it right back end Feb/before it gets leaves)

Buddliah - doing well , it's in a pot at the moment as it was a tiny twig last year . Bit narked that it was labelled Black Knight (darkest purple) which is what I ordered but the flowers are magenta

Brambles - attacked these with vigour .

Pyracantha- as before just the ones that are threatening to impale me . There are lots of berries and we might get birds .

I bought a Forsythia , they do well in our soil , it'll go in a pot till it's bigger

Ordered a Chocolate Vine to cover an arch

Took my Xmas present of a hori hori out for a play. I had some leftover bulbs to plant in the meadow lawn, and it cut through the grass roots like butter. The slow part was working between all the existing bulbs that are starting to come up but still barely visible among the grass. Think I managed not to trample anything significant. Then used it to hook dandelions out of the borders with equal ease. Very happy with it.

@GertrudeJekyllAndHyde - you're welcome!

I have had a lovely day helping a nice couple to plan a native hedge. All the fun of the planning, none of the hard labour - perfect! And they took the recommendation to include viburnum opulus, which is just such a gorgeous thing.

In my own garden I've been less effective, but I have finally sorted out the very sad window box of dead pansies that has been annoying me for ages (I know window boxes can be a bit naff, but my daughter loves them). I have replanted with hellebore niger, sarcococca and cyclamen, and the bulbs underneath were coming through quite happily. So that is good.

Ooh! That bit about dandelions is a recommendation and a half!

viburnum opulus,

I had to search this , I recognised the picture - Snowball Plant ?
I have one and yes they are pretty

I didn't know snowball plant as a name. I know it as Guelder Rose or Wayfaring Tree (which are lovely names). But yes, it is! It's really good for wildlife, as well as being pretty, so I always like it when people include it in a hedge.

I found my wasp! Someone gave me a wasp snowdrop a few years ago and I thought I had planted it somewhere I hadn’t so assumed it was lost, but today I found it hiding under some arum , I think it must have somehow moved itself because it is quite far away from where I thought it was! Though it is a shame I didn’t find it a couple of days ago before I managed to find some on sale and bought three at huge expense,( early birthday present is how I am justifying them) I also cleared a space around my grumpy face snowdrop so I can see it better, it does make me smile to see its cross little faces.

I want a hori hori even more now. And I don’t think window boxes are naff at all. I swept the pergola and paths today, and pulled up some dead things, and cut back some encroachers Not much but the garden looks much more cared for now. And I was noticing as I went. So now I have a plan. Might actually write a list.