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 have a few lilacs, yes cut them straight after flowering, the problem with a very old lilac is that they do die back in the centre and then have a tendency to sucker.
I cut back hard 1/3rd each year until they look good. I also crow a clematis up them as whilst they are glorious in flower, it's short lived. A late flowering clematis gives a fab second hit.

I was going to say about lilac suckering too. It can be a real nuisance when it does.

Today at work Mr Veg dug out a huge clump of Aruncus dioicus that I've wanted out for a while. It has overwhelmed everything around it, but mainly I want to put Cornus 'Midwinter Fire' there instead.

I have a long front flower border, which I've weeded through and then mulched with wood chippings. There are hellebores, narcisi, snowdrops and early pulmonaria just coming into flower, plus some primroses in the sheltered patches.

And so far I've sown radish, spring onions, leeks, french beans and lettuce in pots in the greenhouse. Broad beans next.

And I started pruning the leylandii hedge outside the kitchen windows. There's a lot to do.

Anything that’s dead can come off at any time. It’s dead, it can’t have any more effect than cutting your toenails.

There’s two types of pruning, keeping in shape pruning and renovation pruning. Keeping in shape pruning is done after flowering (if this means November, then possibly better to wait till March) - this applies to pretty well everything. Renovation pruning entails taking out branches and leaving big wounds, and is better done in late winter. This applies to lilacs too.

so in short - if you want a hard prune, do it in March. But you may miss a year ir two’s flowering.

Astonishingly (well to me it is) a stalk with two tiny wrinkled leaves has appeared in the pot of seemingly dead mint, so I’m hoping it has managed to survive again.

I spent an hour trimming the dead straw-like stalks off the Mexican fleabane nearest the house, weeding the cracks in the patio (I do wish they would fill up with beautiful moss) with an old dinner knife, and weeding the lavender bed nearest the house. We put in woven hazel edging to stop the lawn invading that bed last year and it has worked - there is far, far less grass to pull out.

I have a bad habit of leaving the enjoyable things like gardening to be done after all the boring stuff. This year I’m going to try to steal at least an hour a day, weather permitting, for the garden and let the chores wait.

Finally managed to get out to buy some seeds. But poor timing as I will have no time to plant them till next week, most likely. Also picked up a couple of seed trays with lids and some vermiculite.

The DDs and I chose a few bedding plants to add a bit of colour to our mostly empty garden so we planted those in this afternoon. It was lovely to be working outside.

Picked up a Granny Smith apple tree for only £7.99 from our local nursery too, which felt like a proper bargain. It's a maiden bare root, so I don't expect any fruit for a couple of years, which is fine.

I have set myself the task film of cutting flowers for the house this year so I have mixed daffodils and some early droopy yellow tulips.
what do I do with hellebores do they just die back ?
also super excited to see a snakes head fritillia poking through. Only one but never grown one before
otherwise I am prevaricating about taking out an old shrub to make more room for flowers 🌺

also got sent the green Gardener catalogue to decide on my creepy crawly orders for the year !

I don't cut many flowers, but I rescued a couple of daffs which were nearly horizontal the other day. They look a bit scruffy but I've got them in a little vase near where I often sit in the kitchen - they smell absolutely wonderful.

I’ve been salivating over the David Austin catalogue which arrived today. Wish I had more room!

Yesterday the weather was lovely.DH cut the grass,did some tidying up of climbing roses. Reminds me there's one to plant. Normally I have sown tomatoes, pepper and aubergine by now, kitchen window. But Covid, September October,long Covid, countless consultants, and an operation 2 weeks ago Friday to remove a growth on my chest, scuppered that. I've got 4 greenhouses,all full of overwintering tenders. One full of citrus. I haven't even walked down the garden lately. We have a border collie puppy 7 months old now, and fenced off an area for her, damage control till she's calmed down.

We have frogspawn

Would anyone be interested in a thread about green manures? Just asking before I start one, or don't start one.

I did green manure once.

I suppose it worked in that there were no weeds. However I massively over estimated my enthusiasm for digging it in. And if you aren't on it before it flowers you will be pulling it up just like weeds for at least the year.

It wouldn't be me that digs it in and there's a willing man with a spade, so that's okay.

What's happening is that there's a good sized, unused vegetable garden at work that we want to put to back into use, but it's been sprayed with glyphosate regularly and the soil looks depleted and doesn't have many worms in it. We want to put some life back into the soil and start growing veg, so thought that at least one year's worth of green manuring would help.

Any thoughts?

Morning! Isn't it so lovely that we're all finally able to be out and doing!

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast, I know nothing at all about green manure but would be interested to hear how it works for you. I'm really bad about improving my soil and patches of it are awful - very stony and full of builder's rubble. I am slightly perturbed that it's flooded very badly this year, and the school next door commented (without apparent concern) that they're aware their French drains are blocked (but don't seem to connect this with flooding). OTOH, the back field has always been boggy, and yesterday I unloaded a gorgeous delivery of masses of aquatics/marginals at work, so I am going to buy a few of those and enjoy the damp.

Does anyone else do bog gardens? What do you like in there? I already have some irises and pontederia/water mint in the pond; there's Chinese rhubarb nearby and annoyingly invasive lysimachia punctata. I tried native orchids but I don't think they were happy.

No getting out and doing here today, alas. It’s been raining almost continuously for 24 hours, so I’m sure the garden is again a swamp.

SarahAndQuack - I’ve often seen houttuynia cordata recommended for wet gardens. I planted Chameleon because I thought it would brighten up a dark spot (although it later perished).

Does anyone else do bog gardens? What do you like in there? I already have some irises and pontederia/water mint in the pond; there's Chinese rhubarb nearby and annoyingly invasive lysimachia punctata. I tried native orchids but I don't think they were happy.

We had a small pond which was attracting rats so we filled it in to make a little 'bog garden' - but I let DH and dd choose the plants as they did the spadework. It's on my list to do some replanting in. It's got some irises and some sort of primula with dark leaves and pink flowers which does ok ... but some of the other things they put in are gone now.
I want to get some candelabra primulas which I love, used to have them elsewhere but they got crowded out by more vigorous neighbours.

I've got a couple of 'mini bogs' - plastic pots which I didn't drill holes in which have blue irises and something else I got out of the pond ... it's pungent with flowers like pennyroyal but the leaves are narrower, can't remember the name.
They were an experiment when I needed to rehome some of a clump of irises which was spreading in the wrong direction, works surprisingly well.

Some of my back border is very damp, I could do with replanting some of that. It's got dogwoods and too much purple loostrife and a thing like a huge pink meadowsweet which started at the back but has marched forwards leaving gaps behind and displacing the candelabras etc from the front.
So I'm looking for ideas too.

@SarahAndQuack the idea is for the tap-rooted plants to bring up nutrients from lower down, which will then be incorporated into the soil when they're dug in. Then, there's the nitrogen fixing plants, weed suppression and the increase in organic matter in general. The image shows what I'm looking at so far.

There is a good guide book, 'Plants for Soil Regeneration' by Sally Pinhey and Margaret Tebbs that describes and discusses suitable plants and the role they play in improving soils.

Soil improvement interested me anyway, but what really got me started was reading 'Dirt to Soil' by Gabe Brown. He farms in North Dakota and had been farming conventionally until he had four years of crop failure that left him increasingly unable to afford to plough or buy the fertilisers and chemicals he'd used previously. At the end of those four years, he realised the soil was recovering and that soil life was regenerating, including lots of worms, and he started looking into regenerative agriculture, which turned his farm around completely. It's a fascinating book, written in a conversational style and I couldn't put it down.

Our local Transition Town were giving away free trees & shrubs so I picked up a dog rose; elder; Rowan & crabapple.
They also had Scot's pine, black walnut, wild hazel & blackthorn.
I've put them all in bigger pots - they're all about 20-30cm tall so probably take a few years.

@SarahAndQuack The native Lysimachia vulgaris is a bit less brash than punctata. Greater Burnet is a plant of damper places, so there may be other Sanguisorbas who like it there. Water forget-me-not has big (for a forget-me-not) bright blue flowers and long flowering season, hard to beat Caltha palustris in spring. There’s also Mimulus of course.

Which orchid did you try? Hard to see why Northern Marsh Orchid, Dactylorhiza purpurella wouldn’t survive, provided you have the necessary symbiotic fungus. Terrestrial orchids spend an awful lot of their life underground.

DEFRA, as well as their well known flood maps, also do surface flooding maps, which are surprisingly accurate

DEFRA, as well as their well known flood maps, also do surface flooding maps, which are surprisingly accurate Although they seem to have buried it well - I can’t find it at the moment.

Ooh, that's interesting @Vegemiteandhoneyontoast.

@MereDintofPandiculation, unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it is punctata that I have. It's very invasive. The others sound lovely - I have already earmarked marsh marigold as I love it. I don't remember which orchids - I tried a couple - though I have a common native orchid nearby that is perfectly happy.

Defra have a site a stone's throw from me, so I ought to know about their flood maps. The survey on the house didn't indicate flood issues (and it isn't really an issue; it's just boggy). But I think there is some surface water draining onto my side that shouldn't be.

@SarahAndQuack though I have a common native orchid nearby that is perfectly happy. If you can identify that one, it might give a clue as to which other species were worth trying.

Yes, L punctata isn't one of our natives, so that may explain its invasiveness. Interesting to get a lens on the flowers - they've got glandular hairs (hairs with knobs on top) neatly along the edge of the petals. L. vulgaris doesn't.

It looks like DEFRA have now combined their flood maps, so the overflowing rivers and streams, and the run-off of surface water are on the same map. Trouble with water draining on to your land that shouldn't be is it's a civil matter, and the LA Planning Department won't get involved.

Whereabouts in the country are you? I’m in Norfolk and no sign of any yet.