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?

Whereas we had about 30-40 pears from a 6ft tall espalier.
I've curated a bee-friendly garden so there's something for a passing bee at any point of the year, as they will show their little buzzy faces whenever the air is warm enough.
They repay me by being delightful to watch and listen to, and making my small garden excessively bountiful.

That's a huge amount of pears!

I'm hoping my newly planted foxgloves and pulmonaria will help for 2025.
I'm also going to look out for a flowering currant after your comment. I'm only just working out what time of year things flower - it's hard to get your head around - there are so many plants!

Walk around your neighbourhood and see what grows well in local gardens. My soil is loamy with sand about 3ft down so it doesn't flood or dry out.
Locally, so many gardens are paved over or plastic grassed. It's such a waste of good alluvial soil so I make up for it with layered planting and plenty of open flowers of all colours, and log piles, and bundles of bamboo canes for insects to overwinter. We've had bumblebees in our bird box (not this year - bluetits got there first), Mason bees in the wall, and tawny miner bees in the lawn.

Your garden sounds like a wildlife disneyland!

I'm definitely going to up my game and get my garden buzzing

@Rainsdropskeepfalling My greenhouse is large enough for a couple of reasonably comfy chairs. Really pleasant on sunny days when it’s still too cold outside.

I’m quite envious of being able to pull up a Welsh poppy. I just can’t. But I’ve heard people say that about herb Robert and I don’t keep that. My little seedlings are showing. The compost is very mushroomy though. Is that ok? I’ve got plans to finish weeding the veg patch tomorrow, and sow some more seeds. I’m suffering with an arthritis flare up this week, so I’ve stayed in and kept warm, and tried not to feel guilty.

@NeverendingRabbitHole pulmonaria and an early flowering currant are definitely a good idea for early bees. My currant is in flower in March when there's not much else around, and it's always covered in bees. I love it. I know it isn't a popular flower choice, but early bees love dandelions.

I loved growing plants from seed and cultivating tomatoes, cucumbers, melons etc. It also had resident toads living under the staging 😊. I gave loads of plants and produce away every year.
For the last four or five years my tomatoes have got blight and I got thoroughly disheartened because nothing I tried worked.
I have heart problems which are worsening, I need help with the garden and I decided that now’s the right time to make a change. I will be able to grow bits and pieces in the summerhouse if I want to , my garden is pretty much as I want it so I can sit back and enjoy it!

A summerhouse with scope for growing a bit in sounds lovely. We had a conservatory on our previous house which served that purpose to some extent but this house doesn't have a suitable aspect and configuration.

Another day attacking the Spanish bluebells, not many left now. Also got rid of a invasive Star Jasmine.

Took a load of spearmint cuttings and stymied my mint patch's attempt to breach the fence line. Two birds with one stone and all that.

Pruned a dead bit off established apple which has blossom - huge relief as drastically pruned last summer after we moved in as had got huge and grown to the ground with a tangle of clematis Montana growing through and really needed some renovation.

Used most of the pruned branch to make a support for stepover apple that went in this year. Planted an apple in a pot and against a wall and hoping it fan train it. Planted a Victoria Plum that was brought from old garden and nearly died but a bit is alive plus 2 bare root apples bought recently plus a red gooseberry.

Idea is to have a very tiny orchard behind the garage where the established apple is. There are a couple of ferns under the big apple tree which were lovely last year and have some hellebores and foxgloves to go there. I also am going to dig a pond.

I’ve taken rosemary cuttings, removed a couple more winter casualties and generally taken stock.

I've spent a couple of hours attacking the very old rose that was here when we moved into the house. Half of it was so gnarled that although it had greenery it never flowered so I've sawed that back and tied in the new shoots onto wires along the fence.

Does anyone know how I tell if it's a climbing rose or rambling rose? It didn't flower last year at all (hence my decision to drastically prune it) but it looks like some of the new growth has buds on it.

Sorry, @GameOfJones , I can never remember, except that ramblers are generally more sprawly.
I did some weeding and sowed some sea lavender, salad leaves and basil. I’m really tempted to buy some more seeds, I loved the experience of using the Real Seed Co. But I won’t, I’m going to do a proper inventory of everything I have, and make a plan after I’ve checked over all my pots. Tomorrow.

Planted out a row of sorrel.
Potted up plants destined for DD's allotment.
Installed two new (to me) water butts. One has a real "Lost in Space" look to it and I really didn't like it at first but it is growing on me.

I think you'll have to wait and see what type it is, if you've pruned it right back. May be difficult to tell!

Just as an illustration, I've added a photo of my two climbers, which might give you something to compare to your's. I pruned them back today so they look very bare, but by June/July they'll be full of flowers.

the Generous Gardener (lemon) and A Shropshire Lad (deep peach).

Climbers have a profusion of small single flat blooms in bunches, not sure if you could see any signs of that before you pruned them.

After a pleasant morning visiting Gresgarth Hall gardens followed by a short walk by the Lune with binoculars to look at the huge flocks of godwits we'd noticed there yesterday, I got down to some gardening.

The first job was unwelcome... DH noticed that the climbing hydrangea on what is really the neighbours garage wall was encroaching too much on the roofline - he reckoned it'd be liable to cause damage if we didn't deal with it now, rather (than as I'd intended) doing it after flowering.

Then took various things out of the growhouse and rearranged what was there to make room for the sweet pea seedlings from indoors. Sowed more sweet peas - Cupid in 2 (plastic) baskets, everlasting and another sort, I've brought half indoors and the others in the growhouse to see how they compare. Also sowed a basket of Tom Thumb nasturtium, a few pots of another variety and then some passion flowers which I've never tried before - not sure how they'll do here but worth a try.

Then I disentangled the lacklustre jasmine beesianium from the arbour trellis (easier than I expected, not much breakage, and moved to whole pot to a bare section of fence where there's no chance of digging a decent whole for it to take its chances. Suprised to find there were vine eyes though no wire - green plastic twine (afaik indestructible) tied on and its spread out quite nicely.

The arbour now has a new pot containing a small climbing rose.

Didn't have time to finish the edging, do the planned weeding or plant the tray of bellis daisies bought yesterday because they're so cheerful. Maybe could do that now...

Planted a few solanum and clematis, dug out some ground elder, weeded by steps and in paving and was just getting into it when DD called me in to watch War on Terror series with her for her homework. Strange and uncomfortable juxtaposition pottering in my beautiful corner of the earth and then watching the appalling destruction of Afghanistan.

Good, done that, deep pink looking good in front of the sea of forget-me-not.

Weeded!!! Mostly pulling ground elder and bindweed. I am hoping things like geranium that are coming up now will hold their own, but it's such a clever plant it's definitely got off faster.

Thank you, that is helpful! I bet yours will look beautiful come summer.

The one in my garden is I assume, decades old as it almost looked like a tree trunk! But no flowers in the couple of summers we've been here. I had a quick Google and this is the best image I could find that gives an impression of what it was like. Maybe it's actually a shrub rose? I have no idea to be honest!

Mine was similar to this photo but I noticed quite a bit of new, fresh growth that does look like it has some buds on. They look like single buds at the moment but I suppose I'll just wait and see. I figured it's an attempt at rejuvenation but we'd resolved to take it out anyway if no improvement this year.

That sounds so pretty!

I worked six days this week and my tiny daughter was so reluctant to leave work that she wanted to go straight back again today - but I stuck to my guns and did my own garden! I've planted an exochorda and some camassia, and continued weeding and mulching the new bed. My canary bird rose is covered in flowers and I am so pleased - it was under water much of the winter!

I also trained in the morello cherry, agonised over the seedlings that are going leggy (no good windowsills in this house!), planted three larch bare root that I nabbed from work before the price went up, planted a couple of pond plants, and found (yay!) that another one of my grafts that I thought had failed, has taken.

@NeverendingRabbitHole - wow! I am in the north east, but it's too early for me to plant squash seeds yet, let alone outside. I hate having to be patient while everyone else has the fun!

I am interested in the pear tree pollination talk. I planted three pears last year - two bought from a specialist supplier and at the proper time, both of which did nothing. One of the flowered this year (and it is very beautiful flower, to be fair), but also seems to have some kind of nasty lurgy. The third I bought at entirely the wrong time, when it was full of blossom and not the least bit dormant, but because it had been standing amongst a ton of other pears, it was thoroughly pollinated and, despite the upheaval, produced a pear. I am hoping against hope it does it again this year! And then more, please!

My garden is good for bees - I was delighted to see that the big crack in the wall where we had a colony last year has some curious visitors this year.

Climbers have a profusion of small single flat blooms in bunches Did you mean ramblers?

David Austin says ramblers tend to have smaller flowers in sprays and usually flower once, climbers have larger flowers held singly and are usually repeat flowering.