What have you done in the garden today? Part 6

[MereDintofPandiculation]

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

Cut holly trees back and bark mulched the beds.

Started ordering some new perennials.

I'm afraid he's not very good at picking up hints or social cues. The headphone trick has been tried and failed many times. I even once crawled round on all fours to be hidden by the wall and I looked up and he was stood hanging over it waiting to talk to me. Shock of my life when I saw him.

He's not a bad man, but he's a very lonely old man who possibly has some undiagnosed disabilities and a lack of support to understand other people. He does a lot of good for the street with his free time.

The council have been up the road redoing walls and driveways all summer and he's been "project managing" them, in every ones garden, all day. It was like an enemies to friends storyline between him and the workers. They've packed it in with the wet weather though so that means he's sat curtain twitching waiting for someone to leave the house to grab onto.

I've considered hiring a gardener to do the front instead but I feel mildly guilty and slightly unethical to put a stranger through it.

Ohh what have you ordered?

Nothing exciting! Astilbes, candelabra primroses, Tiarella, Pulmonaria, Iris sibirica in the original dark-purple-with-tiger-stripes-in-the-throat colour. Also some Midwinter Fire dogwood and some hellebores for the spot where I got rid of a gooseberry bush (it was a big gooseberry bush/thicket). I may not have finished!

I'm planning ahead - I may not be in this house more than another 10 years, so I'm moving from slowly raising stuff from seed to just buying plants for quick impact and maximum length of enjoyment.

Pulmonaria are seriously underrated plants - I have a white, a blue, & the bi-colour - lovely plants that mostly keep all their spotty leaves throughout the year, great for damp & shady areas & a great early spring flower for pollinators.
They're a favourite of the Hairy Footed Flower Bee - the females look like a black bumblebee 🐝

Every year I mean to get some of the clear blue pulmonaria. I've got quite a lot of the bicolour, some I transplanted a couple of years ago has flourished, it's good but I just love pure blues.

Some of your acquisitions sound quite exciting to me, @MereDintofPandiculation ! I could do with some of those, but I need to be ruthless with some plants that have done too well or are a bit meh.

@ErrolTheDragon If your liking for blues extends to dark blues, try Anchusa azurea (also in forget-me-not family like Pulmonaria) - intense deep gentian blue, and about 5 foot tall, an absolute stunner. Relatively easy from seed.

Taken geranium cuttings, emptied a couple if hanging baskets and re-potted fuschias in the hope they will overwinter in the garage

Thanks, looks lovely.
Even on a dank September day the sky blue of a morning glory flower is bringing me joy - there were 3 flowers yesterday and there's more buds to come. I need to grow more of those next year.

I've given up on morning glory. I've discovered that they don't grow well for me if planted early, they need summer to have really set in, and then they struggle to get anywhere before the weather shuts down for winter. I might manage them indoors, but they are a red-spider magnets.

Another clear blue is Sollya. Long flowering period. I used to grow it twined among the highly scented indoor Jasmine.

Have planted our just delivered Cupressus arizonica Glauca into a massive pot in the front garden. Chap at the nursery said it will be very happy there for a few years. Adds some very much needed height and I can put twinkly lights on it 😍
All the other plants we bought at the weekend have had a good watering and will be planted out in the back garden border tomorrow all being well.

I had self-seeded morning glory in my greenhouse for several years. They did wonderfully and I really enjoyed them, but eventually I decided they were too wayward and evicted them. Was really nice, though, up to a point.

My greenhouse self-seeder is Nicotiana sylvestris. Rather nice, one plant will scent the whole greenhouse.

I'm awaiting a last delivery of bulbs which have been delayed before I start planting them on pots and troughs. For those of you who plant your bulbs in pots, do you add mulch on top?

I don’t. Whether I should I don’t know

Massive and brutal cut back of the garden today. The plum tree,the cherry tree,one of the hollies,the horrible leylandii,and lots of sprouty,twiggy things all cut back hard. Bloody tons of green waste now requiring a skip which arrives Thursday to get rid of it all. The garden looks awful but there is space and light and lots of new corners and spaces to explore. A wee man came and bagged up some holly and took it for his church for wreaths. Gave him some rosemary too as that has a hard cut today. At least now all the telephone and power cables which cross the garden are free from entanglement.

I appreciate you have to prune things when they need pruning, but for other people with cherry trees and Prunus in general, the best time to prune is the spring when the sap is rising and it’s more difficult for disease to get in through the cut end. I took delivery yesterday of a 4m pole lopper and itching to get at the cherry tree, very difficult to persuade myself to wait to spring!

How did you come to give away the holly? Did you advertise it, respond to an advert, or did he happen to be passing? Lovely it was able to be of use.

Last year (in late November) when I cut back my holly I put a message on my street WhatsApp to say there was holly on my driveway if anyone wanted it for Christmas decorations.
Several neighbours took some and the rest went to my local scout group for a wreath making activity.
I had barely a green bin worth of thick branches by the end.

A timely warning on cherry for me, we're having a blighted hawthorn removed from the front lawn today and I was thinking of doing a bit of reshaping on the remaining tree. I think it's a cherry or prunus though it doesn't blossom let alone fruit - the last of the trio of trees put in by the builders to survive.

I put a message on community facebook page re the holly

Today in the garden, I planted new flowers and spotted bees buzzing around, which was a delight. A surprise was finding unexpected blooms in a hidden spot. However, I struggled with some pests that popped up and a few plants didn’t thrive as I hoped. Overall, it was a productive day with many successes and challenges! 😍

Took out weeks from one neglected side of the garden that I assume was once a flowebed. Now wondering what to plant there.

Today I moved two Fuchsias from the garden into the conservatory, now they’re not going get baked in there. I closed the non-automatic windows in the greenhouse and closed the doors. And I walked round the garden plotting.

I have a fushia in a pot, should I put that in the greenhouse (I'm south Wiltshire if that makes any difference)? I was planning on planting it into the ground but want somewhere higher up so I can see the flowers as they are amazing. Not sure which one it is but using Google lens it says it's Star Wars