What have you done in the garden today Part 4 Spring 2024.

[MereDintofPandiculation]

What have you done in the garden today? What went well? What surprises have you had? What could have gone better?

I do this. Works well. If you are worried about them rooting, burn the ends. I do that with cornus when I weave it into pea supports.

I try and take a photo of the garden at the same time each year, in the same place, so I can see progression otherwise I can get feeling low which is silly really as I’ve done tonnes.

This is such a good idea!

I used Forsythia once, turned them all upside down. Some of them still rooted!.

Gorgeous day today - happy spring equinox everyone!

I've done a lot of pottering today. Tied up the clematis I bought for 50p last year that now looks as if it may swamp half the garden wall this year, planted a few more geums, gave the roses a good seaweed feed as per DA's instructions. Picked 1000 sycamore seedlings out of pots and beds. Planted out some more potatoes at the allotment and re-potted some sweet pea seedlings in a desperate bid to save the last remaining few that hadn't been chomped by emails (think this may be unsuccessful but at least I've tried).

Also refilled all the bird feeders and sat on a bench on the sun watching our robin go mental for the mealworms.

Now in a hot bath.

I transplanted three globe thistles to hide my oil tank.

And dug up more stones. Many many stones.

Warmed up today by pruning some roses, then moved on to starting work on overhauling a bed that is run through with ground elder. Dug out some cleanish clumps of perennials, then took the regretful decision to spray everything else off, but then I'm paid to keep the garden presentable and digging the stuff out would take years I don't have. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though.

After lunch I had a change of pace and went into the fruit cage to cut back old raspberry canes. Put my hand my waistcoat pocket for a tissue and found a big slimy snail 😬

Three of last year’s troughs of bulbs were looking rather feeble, so I’ve crammed the more promising bulbs into one trough, in the hope they might have one last blaze of glory. I’ve also been staring hard at the echium pininana and euphorbia myrsinites which look as if they’ve died in the last few days. I hope they’re just teasing me.

Yesterday I planted iris bulbs into a pot that I’m planning to sink into the ground next to our water feature. Doing it that way because there’s no soil there, it’s a gravelled area and the water feature is a big corten steel bowl.

Today the daffodils that have been trying to come out in the front garden- which is north facing and gets NO sun- succeeded. And they are absolutely gorgeous, really delicate, pretty white ones, so I’m hoping they’ll thrive. They didn’t flower last year in the crappy weather we had. Ditto some blue flowers in a shady back bed, which I feared were going to be Spanish bluebells, but have turned out to be a kind of scylla and very pretty.

@TheSandHurtsMyFeelings gotta watch out for those pesky emails! 😀 I'd much rather battle snails than emails...

I did nothing in the garden today except feed the birds (twice).
My blue pots have various combinations of Thalia narcissi, blue muscari, white crocuses and tulips, and white-ish violas. The white flowers aren't usually all out at the same time, the crocuses are late and the others early. I need to turn them round so I can see the Thalias' faces.

Wondered what on earth you were talking about for a sec... bloody autocorrect 😂

Yeah, snails are definitely easier than emails!

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast I have decided to do the same thing for ground elder and bind weed - everything else will get hand pulled. I don’t think there’s a lot of choice.

VegemiteandhoneyontoastDug out some cleanish clumps of perennials, then took the regretful decision to spray everything else off, but then I'm paid to keep the garden presentable and digging the stuff out would take years I don't have. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though.

I am faced with this issue. Last year we took over a large allotment space that fortuitously is next to my garden. It had been entirely abandoned for 4? years-- well, since before covid. Nettles and docks taller than me, beds swallowed up, all of that. But the path and land into the allotment which runs parallel to my front garden has never been minded so I have had many issues for two decades of the weeds/weed seeds/roots coming into my garden, with dock nettles bind weed you know the drill.

When I took on the allotment and spoke to the allotment guy I asked about the lack of maintenance to the approach to the allotments and he admitted that no, they were not planning to do anything. "You can do it, but it is not really yours we'll just let you control the weeds and we won't charge you." The fuckers. But I said hell yeah.

But there is ivy running in crisscross fashion everywhere, chick weed and lords and ladies, bind weed nettles cow parsley and the rest, and as you say digging out even just the ivy would take years I don't have.

How best to tackle the problem when the allotment guy says "we would rather you didn't spray", and "yes that's quite a big job, isn't it." in a dismissive sort of tone. I mean, I would rather not spray too, but blimey what a job.

I have followed the Charles Dowding advice for dealing with large areas of perennial weeds that you want to revert to planting-- plastic cover. For a year a large area of the land approaching my allotment (20 ft by 40?) will be covered in plastic to kill the perennial weeds. I also have a lot of landscape fabric (but not the good stuff sadly) so I will use it for a year on the remaining bit, planting through it, then I'll discard and mulch will be my friend.

But even to get to the plastic cover/ landscape fabric stage has been such hard work! (I am still not totally there but about 2/3 rds there). I have needed to level the ground somewhat and doing so I was forced to remove about twenty wheelbarrow loads of cotswold stone. The guy who lived in our cottage before us was a builder and just dumped stuff I guess.

That deals with the land parallel with my garden but there is a HUGE other bit of land that also must be controlled. And for that there is <whispers> Roundup. I am not a bad person! Just tired and overwhelmed.

Ooh, I wish I had pheasants. But we do have a robin, blue tits and sparrows visiting the bird feeder.

Lovely afternoon sunshine today so I managed to finish pruning the buddleias. The ones I cut back first are already producing fresh growth near their bases, which is very pleasing.

I now have heaps of buddleia sticks to use as plant supports too. I’ve been using them for years and never had any start budding yet. A hazel branch in a home-made tripod is though.

A camellia bush inherited from the previous owners is flowering in all its pink and white blowsy glory. I wouldn’t have planted it myself but I can’t help admiring the individual blooms. It’s a pity they turn a stained brown and scatter their petals so quickly. I never quite keep on top of deadheading it. Maybe this year.

One of last year's jobs was to rid the trees in the approach to the allotment of ivy which included a lot of ivy ground clearing around the trees as well as removal from the branches. This work continued over winter. This is one tree and its surround free of ivy now, and I planted bulbs that will spread like crazy in a place that they are very welcome to spread like crazy.

To those saying round up..please google what it does to worms, it causes seizuers and death. It's nasty stuff and poisons the soil.

Cutting back and covering the soil is so easy and better for the world. Old wool blankets are fabulous for this. They breakdown over a couple of years, after doing their job.
I have reclaimed tonnes of ground over the years with wool blankets, then a layer of cardboard then mulch or manure. It's cheap and the soil is fab after.

Weeding fresh mulch or manure is quick, it's the roots of the docks that are a nightmare to remove. They will be killed off with this slow method.
Slow gardening is always the best imo.

@DougAndTheSlugs and @ungarden I feel your pain!

@babybons I know the nasty issues of Roundup and only use it as a last resort. The thing is, this garden is my job. The ground elder was already there when I started working there, it has to go and I don't have the time to dig out every fragment of root. Goodness knows I've tried, but it ain't happening, so on this occasion I'm resorting to poison.

My Euphorbia myrsinites has disappeared this winter.

I am off work so managed to do some gardening. Was a bit wimpy about cutting my 1yr old buddleia too hard. Are they really OK with no leaves just stems left?! I don't mind it being tall.

I cut the roses back. Swept up old leaves under my flowing hedge. The weirdest thing I did was moved a random cabbage type thing that had self seeded from my bird feeder. It was in a really prominent position so had to go. But last year we had so many butterflies laying eggs on it then caterpillars munched it to oblivion, so I wanted to keep it rather than bin it!

I need to decide what to put in on the corner of the shed. Thoughts are 1) a climber to cover the shed, 2) a shrub to screen the shed and join the ceanothus that's at the back, 3) things like ferns and helebores to be pretty around the swing chair.

Bloody shed, nicking the only sunny spot...

@Curlewwoohoo I don't actually think it's possible to cut a buddleia back too much. Remember they grow quite successfully in cracks in walls, gutters, wasteland etc. I don't think I've ever left leaves on mine when I hack it back to a knee high stump every year, and if still gets to about 7-8ft tall by the end of summer.

I usually reduce my buddleia to about 2-3 feet (largely because that’s doable with secateurs) but I’m planning a more drastic prune this year. Must dig out the pruning saw …

Curlewwoohoo - I’d go for a well-behaved climber in a pot. Maybe a clematis as I’m obsessed.

I cut the buddleias in the more manicured part of the garden back to about two to three feet too.

In the wild part I took the overgrown ones back to a few stems around five feet high on each bush, partly because I still wanted them to grow higher than usual and partly because there was no way I could cut some of those branches any lower with the loppers. And sawing takes forever and I am not very good at it.

Some of the stems I cut to the ground are already producing fresh growth, so I agree they are pretty tough. The only ones I’ve ever had die were the expensive cultivars which couldn’t cope with the terrible heatwave a couple of years ago.

@Curlewwoohoo I would put wires on the shed and train a climber or two up them. If you’re happy with having to replant annually, morning glories are spectacular. We grow them up the side of a large shed in a sunny spot every year and they are easy to grow and such a delight to see. They seed prolifically too, so after the first batch you can just save the seed for next year.

Or if you want something you won’t have to replant I adore chocolate vine (akebia quinata) for its beautiful five fingered green leaves, little purple flowers, occasional funny sausage-shaped fruit and its habit of quietly settling in and growing quickly without any fuss or pampering. It is very good tempered about being cut back too.

We put a couple of rambler roses on a shed last year. So far they are doing well. I’m hoping they will grow over the roof of the shed eventually. I love clematis but I do find them a bit more work for me. Having said that, I had a beautiful, well-behaved clematis texensis pagoda in another garden. I wish I could find it to buy again but it doesn’t seem to be in fashion any more.

Today I made a start on tidying a tangle of fuschia, cotinus and bramble (ouch) in the wild section, accompanied by a large fluffy tabby frisking at shadows. The foxes have dug a tunnel under the wire fence separating the garden from the one directly behind us. It looks like something from The Great Escape.

You’ve reminded me, CatChant, that I need to sow my morning glory seeds.

I find akebia quinata to be a thug, intent on world domination, and wonder whether it would swamp a shed (although a hard prune does keep it in check). I don’t know why I love clematis so much, as they’re so prone to dying on me, but somehow I persist in this very one-sided love affair.

That's like chaenomeles. It roots from nothing! I had a big old bush of it which I tried to dig out in stages (it was a revolting muddy-peach colour, and growing through the walls of the house). If I wasn't absolutely scrupulous about gathering up every bit of cut wood, I'd come back to find it had rooted in.