What have you done in the garden today? Part 7

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Continuation thread from MereDint's previous threads.

I think we might have rain too, it feels like it. I’m volunteering/helping restore a historic garden tomorrow, hope it’s not too hot. So many weeds.

I'm having a temper tantrum because I've been ruminating on pruning my wisteria down to 1 main stem as the second stem was a bit bushy.

I decided to go ahead and do it and as I've snipped the 2nd stem, I've also snipped the first one by accident.

I can only be angry at myself but I cant believe I've just bloody done that.

There is new growth at the base fortunately but it was almost at the top of the trellis where I wanted it.

Watered the pots, moved a flowering pot out onto the front porch from the back garden to make the front look prettier.

Spent half an hour cutting back the neighbours out of control brambles at the front of the house that were going across my window.

I like my neighbours but I was cursing them the whole time I was out there for doing bugger all to their overgrown garden that looks dreadful, I'm always worried about what might be living in the undergrowth, we do have rats around.

It's so disheartening doing the best to keep my garden looking nice and living next door to a jungle that I am forced to maintain to protect my garden as they just don't bother.

Grrrrrr!!😡

Ouch @Jimmyneutronsforehead , so upsetting. Ditto your neighbours @Myblueclematis . Could you talk to them about it?
I emptied 2 pots of crap and planted some cosmos and sowed some seeds in them. Looks a lot better. I weeded the courgette bed. Found ants have built a giant nest under one plant and the other was infested with leopard slugs. I dont know why I bother. Got Dh to mow lawn while I swept and tidied the pergola. So pleased that the temperature has dropped.

Rescued some unwatered snapdragons and a climbing hydrangea from the Range garden centre and watered and planted them so they’ve perked up already and put some bark down on the shady bed that nothing will grow in apart from weeds.

That sounds like it really sucks. I've had neighbours like this. We have brambles that keep regrowing on our side because the person who lived next door to us wouldn't remove them before they became a problem, the lady that moved in after they had gone has just paved all over her garden.

On the one hand I'm happy for her that she has just eliminated her garden completely because she doesn't have the mobility to even look after plant pots, on the other hand I'm fuming at the old neighbour letting brambles get through to ours and also new neighbours garden just looks so... barren.

She has a grandson who is always out there on some sort of wheeled toy and I wince because I'm worried he'll crack his head open, and when he isn't there, she let's the dog out back and sun baked dog poo on paving flags leaves a right horrible stench.

She does pick up after it but not immediately after.

Makes being out in the sun a less tolerable.

Hell is other people. My neighbours are lovely though.

My father in law loved bindweed 😫 He died two years ago, the house isn't sold yet and we are constantly having to rip out bindweed because it gets into the neighbours' garden and they UNDERSTANDABLY hate it. It does have pretty bell-like flowers and I normally subscribe to the theory that a weed is just a plant you don't like.. but not for bindweed.

I have done nothing in the garden today, but I did repot some succulents and have fed all of them (the only thing that will grow in the window of my Sahara-like home office). I did also buy two trailing ivy pots for the shady corners at the back and am hoping they'll like it here!

I've stuck the wisteria vine I shouldn't have chopped off in some water to see if I can get it to root.

It's living in the jar my pet sweet potato is living in.

While I was sat next to the pot in the garden, having my self pitying strop, I did see a solitary bee making It's home under the wood chips I'd put on top of it. That made me a little bit happy.

Noticed my calamondin has 2 new fruits forming. Was considering giving that the chop too but I think I should put the secateurs down for a bit. 😬

I made a start on planting out some long-neglected seedlings - well, if you can call a 10” chilli plant a seedling. I'm using chillies as bedding in planters. Nicotiana, fennel, physalis, and echinacea to hopefully fill up the many border gaps. The Dutch irises flowered in their pots and now I'm not sure where to put them. Tied in/trained the climbing nasturtium. I have a lot of things that roughly end up being the same height.

The new pelargoniums aren't really growing this year, is anyone else having trouble with them too?

I'm going to Hampton Court flower show on Sunday and hoping to be inspired.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead your wisteria misadventure is putting me off doing anything to mine! But it is a long, tangled mess.

I'm not trying to excuse my poor behaviour but I was in the postdrome stage of a migraine.

My family have been cracking jokes at me all day saying they wouldn't trust me to diffuse a bomb that only had one cable.

I say go for it (might be bad advice)

No but I am having trouble with my pumpkins. They look healthy, no parasites, infections or scorching, but they look exactly the same as when I planted them out 2 months ago. Maybe 1 new leaf per plant.

My camellia has done the same. It's lush and green, but no new growth at all.

We are doing some landscaping in our garden, closer to the house this time as we did the area at the end of the garden when we moved in so we could build dh his garden office.
This time we are digging out to build a dwarf wall to put a gable end conservatory up and then redo the paths either side. One will have long but shallow steps so we can get a wheelbarrow up with the wood for the log burner. The other side will be a gradual slope which we plan to cover in resin bonded gravel so our dds can get to and from the garden in their wheelchairs. A lot of work but will be oh so worth it.
It will be giving me some new borders to work with which I am very excited about. One will be east facing and currently has a very old wisteria growing on that fence line. I tried to tie it in whilst the digger work was going on, but it was just too big so I cut it back quite hard but leaving some long central stems that I am hoping I can create a new framework with over the planned archways we will be putting over the slope pathway. I am planning on planting ferns and Japanese anemones on that side and other shade liking plants. I would also like to plant some apple trees so the tops are just over fence night and clipped tightly so they are more a hedge on a stem rather than a tree.
The other will be right next to the conservatory which I want to plant up with scented a wildlife friendly plants. The idea will be to sit in there and just watch the garden and feel like we are in it.
Anyway, the grass has been destroyed by the digger, all the walking about and the hot dry weather, though the corner where our garden dining table sits is very lush green. Today I mowed the long bit and scarified the dead grass out in the hope if we do get some rain, what's left might perk up.
I discovered I have two little cauliflowers emerging! I've never had success with them before so this was wonderful to see.

Golly, I'm tired just reading all that. You've got your work cut out for you but it sounds like it will look absolutely stunning when it's done.

I've got 4 raised beds, and I've decided that at the end of the season the hollyhocks are coming out and next year one of those raised beds will be a wildlife bed.

I've got loads of long whips I've cut off the dogwood over the years, so im planning on making like a stuffed obelisk out of them, some garden twigs and bamboo cane cuttings.

I'm trying to think of some smaller garden projects I can do this year that will take minimal time and money but give me a maximum effort look.

Planted out about 20 small aloe maculata (soap aloe). I've been 'storing' them (read: put in the dry, shaded corner of crap) in an empty pot since 20 March, when I potted up the 6 biggest ones. No one needs this many aloe, so I'm hoping they'll fill some gaps and I don't really care whether they survive the winter.

I'm going to plant the lovely dahlia I bought at the garden centre yesterday, I've been so disappointed with the ones I've tried to grow, only one so far has actually flowered and that's disappointing as the petals are slightly curled rather than flat out.

Despite saying I wasn't going to do dahlias any more, I found a lovely deep red one yesterday and it was only £7.99, the others were all £11.99. It has lots of flowers and plenty of buds and I might talk myself into keeping it over the winter and planting out again next year.

I do have two dahlias that are still just making buds so if they turn out successfully this year, I might well keep those as well.

I do like dahlias and had visions of having them all round the garden in pots looking absolutely stunning but somehow it hasn't quite worked out like that. Still, ever the optimist ...😆

@Myblueclematis I had a whole border of them one year, my first time having them, and then didn't dig them up over winter and lost them all! I bought them from a neighbour off Facebook marketplace for about £20 so wasn't too ouch. I didn't grow them again as they were hard work with the slugs etc but there were a couple in a local discount store for £3 each? one red something and one White Opera. The red one was doing so well and then the main stem broke off during the winds earlier this year, but has grown back and yet to flower. White Opera has been quiet and steady and is now full of lovely white blooms. I hope to store it properly this year and see if I can get the same again next year. I've stood the pots on pot stands in saucers filled with water which does seem to have stopped the slug carnage.
I like dahlias too but I am being swayed over to Zinnias. Their colours are just so bright, but I guess their flowers don't quite have the shape range that dahlias do.

Some bird have eaten my beans!

Not all of them, i think I've got a few left and they are still flowering so I Will have more, but they're a bit hard to cover with a net because they're climbing up my cattle panel arches and are dangling inwards.

Do those owl dummies actually work as bird deterrents or do the birds just catch wise onto them?

They're the only thing that's actually growing at the moment as my tomatoes and pumpkins seem to be stuck in a rut, and after my mishap with the secateurs the other day I'm feeling rather precious about them.

Ate our first tomato yesterday. There would have been three but the slugs got two. Had some tiny courgettes too. They seemed to have stopped growing.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead have you seen the bird kite flappy things. I don’t know what they are called but I’ve seen them used to deter pigeons on factories. Wonder if there’s a version for gardens?

I have zinnias growing in with one of the dahlias but I think they are being overshadowed by the amount of foliage so not sure if I'll get any flowers unless they can force their way through the greenery. I've grown them from seed for three years now and they are very pretty and quite striking but I don't really have the facility for seed growing under cover so I only did a couple this year.

I've been successful in the past with dahlias which obviously made me think I was good at growing them but the last couple of years and now this year, I think I may well give them a miss next year and try something else as my success rate has plummeted. I'm still hoping the two that haven't flowered yet and the new one will be good enough to keep over for next year, if not, they'll be dumped in the compost bin. I might shout at them tomorrow that it's what will happen if they don't buck up! It worked with a lazy clematis year before last so it's worth a go.😃

That's a really good idea, I have seen those but I didn't think of them. They seem to be everywhere in farmers fields lately round here. Off Internet shopping I pop...

Next door neighbour does have 4 fancy pigeons that like to exercise their rights as mated pairs on the fence next to my vegetable patch so I believe they could be the main culprits, but we do get a lot of variety of bird life in our garden which I am so grateful for.

I'm not too mad because if your garden isn't being eaten it isn't part of the ecosystem, but I too would like to participate in eating the garden.

Today I have been mostly harvesting onions.

That's truly put me and my 4 onions to shame.

4?! I dream of getting any onions 🤣

The hard work has been mainly my dh @Jimmyneutronsforehead though our ds and his gf came down a few weeks ago and helped out a lot. We have the footings dug so will be doing cement stuff next week and then leave that to dry out whilst looking at conservatory places to see where we will get it from. It's a self build so much much cheaper