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 bought euphorbia,Brunnera rudbeckia, rhodentum(sp?) centaurus, astrantia anda Hebe, The nursery had a half price sale, so I got all of that , and big plants, in multiple and a new yard brush for a hundred pounds. Bargain! Weirdly, my Dh didn’t think so. I’ve got them all in bar 3 astrantia. But I think I need to swap the Rudbeckias with the Euphorbias The bed looks weirdly American, I think because there are little gaps between the groups, which actually contain the plants I haven’t yet killed off, but have cut back.

I cut the “wildflower meadow”. Scythed first, then went over it with the lawnmower. So now we have a light coloured oval area in the middle of the lawn. But it’ll green up in a couple of weeks.

It's weirdly enjoyable watching the new grass coming up Meredint, we have the same after the daffs die off around April/May. I get fed up of the mess so we strim it down and wait for it to recover by June/July.

today I've been out in between the showers, deadheading my dahlia. I only have two weeks from today before the local Flower and Produce show. I don't know if I will have sufficient flowers to select 3 of the best blooms. There are a few perfect ones now which will be finished in 2 weeks, and there are lots of buds, but I've never timed how long they take to fully open up, so I'll just have to watch and wait. I will give them another seaweed feed and mulch tomorrow and hope for the best.

Here are some I picked today. I'm hoping to have 3 different types to display
1 Cactus
1 Pompom
and either a miniature or a Dinnerplate.

I've moved some tired pots from by the front door and replaced with an acer and some white busy Lizzies. Potted up what I hope are some foxglove seedlings which were in inappropriate places. And did a bit of lawn edging - I'm finding the hori hori good for my nonexacting standards - grab handful of overhanging grass and saw, then dig out bits that are making incursions into the border

Went out to deadhead the roses and got stung by a wasp. Horrible things.

Gorgeous dahlias.

I sometimes do it with secateurs.

Today I scooped up 2-3 years worth of rotting down dead leaves from the sides of the driveway, making sure to leave enough soil for any volunteers I wanted to keep, basically Aquilegia and Centranthus ruber.

And the usual daily harvest - today mulberries, blackberries, tomatoes and figs. Had a nice Summer Pudding for tea, using the mulberries and some windfall apples.

a wasp. Horrible things. Good pollinators and eaters of pests.

I've tried secateurs in the past, they don't take a big enough mouthful imo. Before getting the hori hori, and still anywhere I want a bit neater, I use a large pair of scissors - they'd be ideal except they're not so good at digging out bits that are rooting into the border.

I have edging shears, like hedge clippers but with the blades at 90 degrees sideways IYSWIM.
They make short work of the bits the mower can't reach.

I'm impressed people have dahlias to deadhead.

Every single one in my area of London is long eaten by the slugs.

I divided some Geranium Samobor. It's not doing as well as I'd hoped but the little scented geranium cuttings are thriving. One of my neighbours has the loveliest nasturtiums. I wonder if it's too late to try and start some. I never think of them and then usually start noticing them when it's too late.

Usual deadheading and maintenance here but massive downpour which I welcomed as it has been quite dry

I got to a very neglected bit of border today, a rose, ornamental elder, tree peony and a honeysuckle, totally mashed together , with a load of ivy and couch grass thrown in. It’s fun to disentangle, but then I always somehow manage to cut right through the main stem of something, I was cutting the lawn edges with my spade.

We're in for a spell of about 10 days' of settled weather from today which is very encoded as I have next week off work and a long list of gardening tasks to do in that time.

• plant 3 new plants - 2 clematis along the stone wall and a new honeysuckle The clematis I planted in the spring had a slow start but suddenly decided they liked their home and rewarded me with a flamboyant display which has only just started to fade.
• staple the plastic liner onto the new half barrel that has sedum and bedding plants in. Hopefully we'll have a nice display of colour into the autumn and winter.
• Greenhouse duties, have a tidy up in there and start to plan for autumn. Work out what to keep and what to chuck. There always seem to be miscellaneous pots with some sort of growth that limps along until I ge fed up and chuck on the compost heap . Keep harvesting the tomatoes and lettuce then clear the troughs to make space.
• Awaiting a large order of crocus to arrive, by early Sept I may be able to get them in the ground.

Yes, nasturtiums have come a long way from the brash orange things of my childhood. At the moment I have a greyish leaved one with red-orange flowers, a darker red flowered one and a deep pink flowered one, all rather good at holding their flowers above the leaves. I think they complement the berry activity in-the garden

There always seem to be miscellaneous pots with some sort of growth that limps along until I get fed up and chuck on the compost heap Yes, happens to me too. Also the last few beans/peas - when will I learn that if the main plant has decided to pack it in, that embryonic bean on the green tip isn’t going to come to anything?

Absolutely! Last week, against my instinct, I pulled up the French beans in the half barrel in the sunny side of the garden, which were still growing and had a few little pink flowers on. Due to the awful weather, they had only yielded two dinners' worth of beans (which were tender and delicious I would add). I needed to move the pot so I thought pah! I may as well just get rid, because trying to lift and replant them was pointless.

There will soon come a point when I decide to cut the top off my indeterminate tomato plants, with new yellow flowers on because there isn't enough growing time left this year, sadly.

There will soon come a point when I decide to cut the top off my indeterminate tomato plants, with new yellow flowers on because there isn't enough growing time left this year, sadly. Traditional advice is to stop them after 4 trusses, Not that I ever do. I don't see any great evidence that they're putting too much energy into new flowers to be able to grow the tomatoes they've started.

I’m glad they have a purpose - I always think about Dylan Thomas getting in his Christmas stocking ‘books which told me everything about the wasp, except why.’

Absolutely chucking it down here. Going to stay in and look at bulb catalogues.

It's a batch cooking and (maybe) catching up on the ironing day here for sure.
I really should look at bulbs online rather than getting most of the way through September and then having to buy from the garden centre (the local nursery used to have a great selection but it's been poor the last few years after changing hands).

And I should try to learn how to do cuttings of what when, and if there's any seeds I should be planting now/soon. I really do need a monthly 'what to do' list...maybe we should have a thread per month like that? Though obviously it'd be regionally specific advice

I like the idea of a ‘What to do in the garden this month and how to do it’ thread. I’m always keen to learn. I do have one of those gardening almanacs somewhere.

What a coincidence! I was thinking exactly this, about an hour ago (re Gardening to do's through the year) - slight variation was that I was thinking quarterly, WSSA... then I realised, we don't really have seasons, so month by month like they have on seed packets and monthly GW mag would probably be more realistic 😊

There are often good seasonal tips on this, and other threads but it can be hard to keep track of them. So just linking to such posts from a monthly thread might form part of the content.

Has any one had any luck with vine lilac, particularly in pots?

I've recently discovered it and it's very beautiful but I'm skeptical about whether I can actually keep it alive through winter outdoors or whether it would just become a really expensive annual.

Not planning it this year, I'm pre planning next year's.

Hardenbergia violacea?

Could we do a “what to do this month” thread by people confident in their plans sharing what they were planning?

12 threads, one for each month? Each month someone resurrects the previous year’s threads so we don’t get bored of repeating the same info year after year?