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?

I’m having a lie down after 6 hours hard garden work:
assembled new mower, mowed lawn
weeded 3 giant beds in front garden plus the lawn borders in the front
had a big clear up of old plastic pots for recycling
helped DH clear out sheds and other rubbish for trip to the tip
trimmed and resecured the honeysuckles
dug compost into new border
planted 5 heuchera and 3 clematis
watered everything

I need a beer and it’s gonna have to be takeaway for tea cos I’m knackered!

We’ve turned my broken swing seat into an arch in the vegetable patch, altho slugs have already eaten all the runner beans around it. Need to start dusk patrols. I then had an empty area of gravel.So I moved a bench and large potted pine(with help ),then spent ages faffing, pruning , top dressing, weeding the area around it , cleaning up the area it came from. Meanwhile other, more pressing tasks were ignored. Never mind. It’s days when I do nothing that I feel bad.

Planted the half of the new seeds and ended up ordering more soil for the rest

What a good idea, I'm going to keep my eyes open ,thanks

Planted my new patio quince tree in a pot I hauled back from the garden centre on the bus.

My 'garden' is a minute scrap of yard and in the 18 months since we moved in, I've done very little with it (not helped by my dad randomly turning up with a load of trays of fritillaries meaning I now have a minute scrap of yard... with a disproportionate amount of plastic trays lying around in it 🤦‍♀️) but I think I'm starting to very slightly take ownership of it.

@InMySpareTime Luckily, I have a neighbour who is gardening mad. She's always offered me cuttings but I've never had anywhere to put them. Lots of advice, too.

But, I've had a quick potter today putting some weed and feed stuff on the grass (it's far from being a lawn!). I've been to an expensive nursery to look at plants to put in pots, squirted some weeds in the paving with weedkiller and filled up my bird feeders.

I've not bought any plants yet as I'm going away for half term and I don't want them to die from lack of watering.

Are online sites good for plants? They seem much cheaper than in the nurseries. I have also been recommended Home Bargains, are they any good?

And when my pots are done (not by me!), is it worth putting some bulbs in at the bottom first? Daffs, tulips, etc?

Sorry for probably very stupid questions.

I’ve weeded, fed and topped up my 7 big pots of strawberries, two more to do tomorrow. I have planted out most of my dahlias 🤞🏻and a few of the plants I was growing on- I need to find the right spot for a campsis….
i’ve spent two hours constructing various bits of furniture for the summerhouse, I need to move my roses, which are planted in big tubs, to their positions along one side.

The morning glories I put outside seemed happy so I've planted them out into pots by the arbour and put the ones which were still inside out. Hung up the basket with a tumbling Tom in and moved the other two tomato plants to larger pots. Edged the paving the arbour stands on which reclaimed a good few inches from the encroaching lawn, allowing me to add a couple of pots of self seeded Erigeron to the mix. And a bit more edging after DH mowed the lawns.

Did a bit of weeding,planted my half barrel with a big clump of daisies. Repotted a sad wisteria which has decided to put out leaves after being naught but a twig for years.
Resisted the temptation to plant out the Cosmos seedlings as the snails will have them.
Lit a fire in the fire pit and am still there now,huddled in a fleecy throw in the summer house watching the dying embers and listening to the blackbird singing

Finally got around to sowing french beans, runner beans, tagetes and cosmos after a germination disaster last month (dodgy compost/old seeds). Fingers crossed these will sprout.

@Sashikocheck I too just got a half barrel to make a pond - it's watertight now but I'm still changing the water every few days to make sure the water is clear before I put plants in it (I have put a branch in for any wildlife to climb in or out). Are you lining yours or leaving it as is?

I decided, on the spur of the moment, to make a pond. DH agreed to help. He's got a jcb type digger, so very easy.

We lined the hole with HD polythene and started filling it with tap water. As the weight of the water increased, a tree root that we hadn't noticed poked through the polythene and made a hole.

I baled out the remaining water that hadn't leaked away. I took some time rescuing worms/spiders/slugs that had fallen in.

DH suggested lining it first with some thick felted polythene that we had lying around after an old roof had been removed from the house. We used that, and put the polythene over it.

We refilled it and it has held water this time, no leaks. We've added a wooden pallet temporarily to help anyone falling in to get out. We're going to the garden centre to get some plants for it.

I'm a bit concerned though that we used tap water, because I've read it can be harmful to some creatures. However, the advice was that the chlorine dissipates after 24 hours, so it should be okay.

@Hedjwitch
Lit a fire in the fire pit and am still there now,huddled in a fleecy throw in the summer house watching the dying embers and listening to the blackbird singing

Sounds lovely!

I fell asleep last night before I could say what I’d done, probably because I was knackered after doing so much lol.

I made up a new storage garden bench, whilst being dive-bombed by attack midges (West Coast of Scotland, need I say more lol). Soon as I finished the wind came up a wee bit and they buggered off! Placed it behind my bird-gifted Rowan, and sat with a cuppa to test it out.
Rearranged front garden pots, weeded, planted up lobelia, petunias, London pride, ajuga, tied in honeysuckle, clematis, admired the dame’s rocket which is flowering profusely (took some flowers for salad), watered.

I’ll test the bench with another cuppa today haha (garden looks completely different from this new angle, I’m used to my old bench elsewhere)

Don’t! Every time you change the water you add more nutrients and set the clock back to zero. What you need to do is allow the algae causing the cloudiness to use all the nutrients, after which they’ll die off and the water will clear. Adding plants (using only low nutrient aquatic compost) will speed the process.

unless I’m misunderstanding and you’re needing to clear substances exuding from the wood of the barrel.

@Turkeyhen planning to leave it unlined initially. It's still in its wrapping outside - spent yesterday painting so I didn't get around to going to the pond shop. I am expecting to have to play around with it for a while. Mosquito breeding is my biggest concern, I have a solar pump ordered. And if that doesn't sort it - I have other options.

Having checked the forecast, and night temps look conducive plus a good blast of sunshine, I'm going to plant out my morning glory seedlings in the large tub as I did last year.

plus dahlia going out at last!

counting down the days until the end of Thurs when my week's leave starts. Some hard-core gardening is planned!

I desperately want to plant some grandpa otts morning glory in tubs, but at my mums house just up the road when she moved in the stuff had taken over her garden and she still finds herself trying to yank it up now and it's put me off even putting it in pots.

Is there a knack or a secret to stopping them spreading? Like are they prolific self seeders or do they just root at the vine with ground contact and that's how they spread like brambles?

I think they're bloody beautiful and I wish I could muster up the guts to plant them

I rashly mentioned to DH, who never gardens, that a tree on the boundary was getting a bit overgrown.

Looked out half an hour later to find the lawn covered in branches, and exhausted DH heading off for a cold beer. 'Sorry, love, they look a lot bigger on the ground than on the tree.'

So I've done a lot of antisocial shredding.
Sorry everyone.

@GuppytheCat that's opposite of LTB material in a husband right there.

MTBA, marry the bastard again?

I've never heard of morning glories being a problem in the U.K., afaik they're tender annuals so propagate from seed not like their thuggish relative bindweed. So I'd have thought it'd be a matter of pulling out unwanted seedlings - or maybe deadhead?

Forget-me-nots, so, many, Forget-me-nots. Days and days of clearing them. Almost there though. Then the hit of deciding what to fill in the gaps with.

Rescued four hostas planted last year in a front bed. Loads in the back, all happy as Larry, the ones in the front chomped to hell. Poor things. Have dug up and replanted in pots on the patio, so they can recover.

Brought my hosta into the conservatory. The slug and snails see it as a salad bar

Does anyone grow large pots with loads of daffodils?

Do you plant anything in the non flowering seasons?

The secret is usually in how to get the things to grow in the first place. In the UK climate they’re annuals, and they’re not known for self seeding. Are you sure that’s what your mother has? Or is it a nomenclature problem- by “morning glory” do you mean Ipomea, or something else?

I slipped into the pond and have a shoe full of duckweed and water slaters.

@MereDintofPandiculation she's got those white bindweed convolvulvus type. They had taken over the garden 20 years ago when she moved in and they are still a recurring problem for her.

We're based in south Yorkshire, she lives 5 minutes up the hill and we live at the last house at the bottom of the hill. We've both got quite clay soil, but her soil dries out quite quickly whereas ours is basically a bog. Peonies love it.

I don't know if that alone is enough to stop morning glory becoming an issue in our garden but I think I could be convinced to take the risk in a plant pot with a climbing trellis by people who have experience with it not being a nuisance.