What have you done in the garden today? Part 5

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Put an extra feeder up for the sparrows - they are soooo hungry! They are eating 3 fat balls a day - I can't keep up.

They must be struggling to raise their little fluffballs in all this cold, wet and wind

I have three large seed feeders up and they’re being emptied every 2-3 days by sparrows, great tits, blue tits and goldfinches. There’s a nonstop flurry of birds all day long. Lovely to see them 😍
I dead headed roses and pulled up an assortment of weeds this morning, willow herb mainly that self seeds from the woods behind us.
Dh mowed the lawns, I have tied in my climbing roses and tomorrow I will plant a clematis to climb through them and put out the remainder of my potted plug plants.
i also have some cucamelon seeds to sow that dd sent me, I have no idea what they look or taste like!

Done nothing today other than cull nettles and put them to soak to make fertiliser. Itching to plant out the Cosmos seedlings but the slugs will just eat them all so not sure what to do with them. Dont know what this is in the long grass by the pond but its pretty.

Ragged Robin, Lychnis flos-cuculi (which means cuckoo flower, one of its other names. Close relative of Lychnis coronaria and Lychnis chalcedonica, both often grown in gardens, and quite close relative of Silene, which is the campions. They’re all in the Pink and Carnation family

It’s getting rarer in the wild, so treasure it.

Ooh thank you. I was thinking campion.

Weeding.

Planted a few more tomatoes and peppers in the polytunnel.

Sowed onion seeds and Allysum Odoratum seeds.

Pinched out the cosmos, having seen them do it on a recent Beechgrove Garden.

Started to sort out the containers on my verandah.

Strimmed the grassy section at the front. (Garden is currently a disaster. I'm having to do a little at a time.)

Continued the campaign to deal with the ivy which is trying to take over a boundary hedge. Pulled up some more sycamore seedlings. Pulled away the the thug geranium/cranesbill cross that is threatening to swamp the Johnson's Blue in the back garden.

Pulled away the the thug geranium/cranesbill cross that is threatening to swamp the Johnson's Blue in the back garden. Of course Johnson’s Blue is itself a geranium/cranesbill cross (G. himalayense x G. pratense).

I suspect it’s thug which is the key word here. Some geraniums are well-behaved and others are, err, thugs.

Been out to feed the birds this morning and noticed that the Generous Gardener I planted last year seems to have taken off and is full of huge heavy buds which seem too heavy for the stalks. Unfortunately I planted it in an awkward spot behind some other things which mean at the moment it’s only visible from the bird table. The idea was to grow it up and along a wall. Hope we get some sun this weekend and the buds open before rotting.

Our garden is completely overrun by geraniums.

We live at the bottom of a hill that stays very boggy and wet so when the rain is in full force it takes a few days to dry enough to mow the lawn, and I'm afraid over the past few wet years it's managed to spread and self seed, and it's really hardy to the big chop.

I do think it's really beautiful but there's too much of a good thing and it simply outcompetes everything in its wake.

I am all for a diverse lawn rather than grass only but this is just taken too far.

If any one has any anti-geranium or de-geraniuming advice I'd heartily welcome it.

I have a fire going to burn off loads of last months now dried trimmings and dug up roots. While I supervise I’ve been hedge trimming.

We are 3 years into having a huge garden. When we arrived it was massively overgrown. It’s finally starting to look like someone actually likes having it now. Maybe next year I can start putting in some plants for me rather than observing and removing some of the excess

i need to fill some raised beds soon and I need to get the striker out as the grass has gone wild in the rain. H will mow later.

Lovely sunny morning in the gatden doing loads of jobs. Until i came into contact with some broken glass in the long grass. OUCH! Seriously gouged a chunk out of my index finger,loads of blood. Yes,I should have been wearing my gardening gloves. Fortunately had dried yarrow to hand so got the bleeding stopped.
Activities curtailed so will just have to drink beer now.Shame

Attacked one of the last areas I have been putting off. Have filled a green bin with all the forget-me-nots and grass growing there. Lawn also turns out to be a foot smaller. Masses and masses of snails.

Tomorrow is then going to garden centre for manure. Am looking forward to finally going to the garden centre to look at plants and not just pick up bags of mulch.

Checked out the hostas - no snails in sight. Difficult to say if they are better but not worse at least.

Planted some pak choi seeds at the allotment and continued to dig over and over and over to remove the resident weeds.

I'm very new to gardening... Would it be worth planting sweet pea seeds now. Or have I missed the window of opportunity to get flowers this summer?

Potted up some dianthus that arrived in the post, I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to plant them,; I’d forgotten I’d ordered them 😵‍💫
I was moving my pots of strawberries when I discovered a tangle of baby slow worms under one so I hastily put it back where it was….i seem to have them popping up everywhere!
I did plant out a few cosmos in one border and I put all my patio pots back in place so that’s finally done.
Cucamelon seeds sown, I have no idea what they look or taste like so that should be fun 😊. They’re in the summerhouse where it’s reasonably warm at the moment.

Re Sweetpea - if you've got a spare packet of seeds, go for it. What have you got to lose.

Soak the seeds in a cup of hot water overnight to soften them. Then plant them in a small pot of compost - and cover the pot in clingfilm which will be like a mini-greenhouse. Keep them on a light windowsill - this time of year they should sprout after 4- 6 days. When they have their secondary leaves they should be find to plant out in a large pot or in the border. Grow them up a bamboo cane wigwam or obelisk.

I'm planting mine out tomorrow, several weeks behind schedule - due to the dreadful Spring!

Thank you@daisychain01
Like you say there is nothing to loose so will give it a go.

Bedded out the parterre in front of the house. Planted a tray of cosmos and antirrhinum in the cottage garden. Planted rhodochiton in the cottage garden. Planted three more cardiocrinum in the woodland. Watered the pots. Did a slug patrol. Started deadheading roses. Bit of staking.

Potted up some dianthus that arrived in the post, I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to plant them,; I’d forgotten I’d ordered them This is why you have decorative pots on paths and any bits of hard standing that you can find

Took delivery of some impulse-bought lily bulbs which, fortuitously, will replace those that rotted over winter.

We're coming home tomorrow and I'm nervous about seeing our garden.

Our caravan neighbours have got some lovely decorative pots that I always admire when we're here, it's got tea roses and hostas and a few others that I darent get too close to identify lest they think I'm some weird space invader, but now I want some decorative pots for our caravan, except I can't decide what I want to put in them as we're not here terribly often so it would need to be drought tolerant for if we have a long sunny spell but also rain tolerant because this is the east coast of Britain.

Has anyone actually found a slug repellent that works?