What have you done in the garden today? Part 7

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Continuation thread from MereDint's previous threads.

Managed to grab some strawberries, made a strawberry syrup. Similarly my mum harvested her first blackberries and made a blackberry syrup. We've just had a laugh about how we have had the same idea and agreed to do a trade tomorrow, half and half.

Just admiring the hollyhocks today and their fluffy bottomed visitors.

Love the hollyhocks, mine, self seeded, only grow in the front garden gravel where I very carefully park my car.
They do look beautiful surrounding the cottage door.

Awwww love the fluffy bottomed ones .
I have a Buddleia by the back door , we get loads of butterflies and bees.

I have to escort the bees out either opening the other door that they are furiously buzzing against or catching them in a glass . Don't want the cats getting them , neither would come out of it well.

I cut the Jasmine right back last year and it's grown back really well but no flowers yet

I'm going to have to dig them up this year. Don't expect them to last long anyway as they've bloomed 2 years in a row and succumbed to rust on the lower leaves, but I'm going to start some more.

I think they're the reason nothing else is growing. They're big feeders, but so are the other things I've put in, and although I've always had tall flowering plants in place of them, I do think they're also blocking out too much sun for everything else.

At the end of the season everything will be coming out of the beds, and I'll be putting down a layer of well rotted manure and some dried grass clippings, and next year I'll start afresh.

Admired my hollyhocks and dahlias about to burst. Tons of deadheading and digging up a few weeks

I put 3 in a bed not realising how big they get!! They’re not full height or flowering yet and they’re already blocking my climbing rose, dahlias, fuschias, verbena, salvia.
Shall I get rid?!

They're technically biennials, but they can go for 3-4 years sometimes.

If your other plants aren't showing signs of light hunger like growing leggy or yellow leaves then I'd leave them a year and see what they're like.

You could always start some seeds now, ready for more flowers next year in a different spot just in case you also need to dig yours up.

Mine are about double the height this year than they were last year, some reaching the top of our conservatory gable, so I'd say a good 3 metres.

I’m enjoying cooking with the garden vegetables. The onion, garlic and greens in yesterday’s curry were home grown and I’ve just been out to get spring onions and salad to go in the sandwiches.

Has anyone's honeysuckle failed this year? Had lots of buds and leaves but they suddenly withered and now is just a mass of stems

Yes mine has. It's got the odd leaf but it's on it's way out.

I really like the honeyberries and between my 2 plants I didn't get any at all off of them.

Never have any luck with honeysuckle or passionflower.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead our honeysuckle is usually really amazing and it was looking as if it was going to be again this year and then suddenly not 😔

I cut our honeysuckle back to the ground in April as we were painting the arbour it grows over. Lots of new growth but no flowers but I think it might be one that flowers on old growth anyway.
Painted the shed. It came out a darker blue than I’d hoped and I ran out of paint, luckily on the side that’s not visible to us but it looks miles better.
I was going to create a new border this year along a wall but I think I’ll hold off until the spring now.

@BestIsWest do you think I should cut my honeysuckle right back now?

@crumblingschools! I only did it because I had to. If it has no leaves, I’d be tempted to cut it back.

Sat in it after work with a glass of wine. Haven't the energy to do anything else tbh

This is my honeysuckle. Definitely on its way out.

Have considered getting it a new pot but my other one had those root eating beetle larvae in it, so I think it might just be best gotten rid of completely.

I've just been and lopped the dock at the back of the garden with my new long loppers.

My shoulder dislocated last night and I still can't raise my arm above door handle height, but the new loppers were a purchase today so thought I'd try them out.

I haven't the energy to move the waste now though and they've all gone to seed so I am going to have to find the energy to move it all tomorrow and hope my arm can move again otherwise I'll not be lifting anything into the green bin.

Sounds painful @Jimmyneutronsforehead Hope you rest it. I take it this is something that sometimes happens?

My winter flowering honeysuckle is also dying, which I am really sad about. It's a beautiful bush, usually, but the leaves are just going yellow and falling off. Someone said it needed a feed, which I have done but unsure how long that would start to show. I now don't know whether to leave it & wait or cut it back and or dig it out. I do have some cuttings elsewhere which I could replace it with, but I think I will have to make some more for insurance. The original plant I got it from was here when we moved in so who knows how old it is.

Thankfully it's not too painful, it's just a bit sore, but it just locks at a certain range of movement. It's probably swelling so I've taken some ibuprofen and enlisted some help for tomorrow.

When I first got my honeysuckle I fed it every 2 weeks with tomato feed, usually the same time as I fed my tomatoes and I haven't done that this year which I don't think is the primary culprit for it's demise but it really thrived off heavy feeds in it's first few years and it has been neglected this past year.

I've seen honeysuckle absolutely thrive in some neglected gardens though, even when everything else is dying off, but it might be because everything else is dying off, dropping leaves, leaf litter turning to mulch and compost and feeding the honeysuckle that makes it thrive in those conditions.

My mum also thinks that plants dont do well trained up metal supports don't last as long and thinks they easily succumb to the heat because of the metal heating up. I want to disagree with her but lots of things that I've grown up a metal trellis or arbor have shown signs of heat damage.

I've been saving and drying all the long whips off my dogwood that I can so I can weave a large obelisk because I'm too poor to spend £70 on a 5 foot willow obelisk per climbing plant, so that might be my next summer project.

I noticed a couple of ermine moth caterpillar webs on my Hawthorn, and it was bin day so I cut them off before they took over much of the tree.
Usually I spend a few weeks dithering over it, but this year it was only a small task.
I feel like a gardening grownup!

Such a good point about the metal stakes which I hadn’t thought about, I had bought some thinking I’d use them for my sweet peas. Maybe I’ll stick to bamboo.

Good morning! My arm works 💪.

That's a huge relief so it means I might get round to picking up the garden mess.

DS took his first dose of liquid iron yesterday though, it was 8ml of feredet, then in the middle of the night just started vomiting so even though I'm sure he isn't contagious he's off school for the next 48 hours so I'll see how much I can get done with him hanging around.

I've got to sort the pool out so we can have somewhere to cool off as well so trying to get that done before the sun hits that side of the house, and the real genuine hosepipe ban is in effect from tomorrow so I've bought half a dozen watering cans that I'll fill up by hose today and leave close by the beds I need to water so I don't have to lug heavy cans round the yard and pull my arms out of the sockets again.

My tomato plants have 1 tomato each on them, and are less than a foot tall and seems like they're going to stay that way, so I look forward to that bountiful harvest, and the nasturtium have not acted as trap plants for my cabbages, so I hope the caterpillars enjoy them as much as I would have and I'll plan better for next year so I can cloche them up.

Mine is a self supporting shrub so no metal. I think I'll cut off the bigger branches so it can conserve some energy and hopefully it'll come back 🤞I've also bought some blood, fish & bone so will see if that helps.

Glad your shoulder is feeling a bit better and the watering can plan sounds like a good idea. If you can, pop an empty plant pot over the opening to stop small things falling in

Spent ages tying in my sweet peas and snipping off their tendrils yesterday. They were late going in this year so only just coming into their own.
Also deadheading dahlias. Also behind this year - not sure why. DH says we had a cold spring - I can’t really remember. I’ve got about 12 varieties in my cutting garden and only 3 are in full flower. I’ve entered a horticultural show next week so hope they get a move on!
I picked a kilo of rhubarb too and prepared it for the freezer. I’ve got some rhubarb gin on the go which should be ready in the next couple of days. If it’s good, I’ll start some more. I’ve also found a recipe for rhubarb and ginger cordial which looks great.
I’m a teacher so grow lots of things that flourish during July and August when I’m at home. Pleased to have found this lovely thread.