What have you done in the garden today? Part 7

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Continuation thread from MereDint's previous threads.

I do think we've had a cold spring to be fair.

My usual routine is go to the garden centre for mothers day, buy my seeds, wait 2 weeks, get them started, and get them in the ground when they have their 2nd set of true leaves.

A lot of plants have stunted in growth because the soil has just been too cold, and I was late planting everything out this year too.

I do think we had a relatively mild winter though compared to previous winters which is why it's so easy to forget we've had a cold spring.

I thought May was hot and dry - they were debating a hosepipe ban if in didn’t rain before June.

We also had quite a long cold and snowy spell in winter.

There's a period between April and May that I like to call fake spring. It looks like it's just gearing up, might even be a bit hot, and then we get more cold wet weather.

You are right we did get snow, I completely forgot about it.

I live on a street full of old people and bungalows, and did a lot of errands for them because the snow kept thawing and just turning into inches thick of ice and school was cancelled a few times.

Not sure how I forgot that, but yes we did get some harsh frosts and heavy snow.

I had a tidy, because I have visitors tomorrow...the type that I need to keep up appearances for 😅 The patio is now free of various trays, empty pots, compost bags, plastic bits/'archaeology' I find in the garden and forget to bin...
There is actual space for a few chairs now!

This is not the kind of gardening I enjoy.

Don't look behind the shed.

I haven't got anything done that I set out to do.

I'm currently trying to get DS to sleep so I can use the hosepipe before the ban kicks in.

I'll use it at 11:59pm if I have to.

I’m sitting in the shade reading Garden Magazine. The flower beds are alive with insects and butterflies, so good to see.

I've just been in and out of the pool all day between appointments today. Got a lovely view of the hollyhocks, sat sipping some orange juice from a plastic wine glass garnished with a calamondin. Felt very posh in the back garden of our council estate house.

Have had to rescue many bees, so I set up a bee recovery platform out of a flat terracotta dish and a turned sideways plant pot, and a little dish of sugar water with marbles in.

Kept getting dive bombed by ladybirds, and I am absolutely terrified of them. Had the unfortunate experience of witnessing a larvae shed in a very "nature is beautiful" kind of way 😬

Admired the gladioli that have been flowering since yesterday. A bit brighter pink that they looked on the bag, but for £1.99 for 25 from Aldi, I can't complain.

Bought some epoxy glue to hopefully fix two pots.

I absolutely love gladioli.

Gladiolus byzantinus are on my wishlist, so I think I might treat myself to some for next year.

I'm also going to try growing some rose campion but I've not seen it in any garden centres so I think I'm going to have to try it from seed.

I’ve been trying to identify this thalictrum I saw in a local historic garden yesterday. I love the combination of yellow leaves and pale blue flowers.

Other than that I’ve moved a couple of roses into larger pots, painted all but a small corner of the shed and watered.

Forgot to add picture

My Google lens says this is a thalictrum delavayi, but on the pictures it shows me the flowers are more pink than blue like in your photo.

I guess they might be a lilac-y blue but it was the combination of that and the yellow leaves that I liked - although my friend pointed out that maybe the leaves weren’t supposed to be yellow and thought it was autumn or something.

Today we attempted to strim back DPs front garden patches but the heat has defeated us, and also the roughly 10 hidden bloody holly tree stumps.

Ran out of strimmer wire, too hot by that point to get the loppers.

Tried to cover and peg down a cover, but the pegs wouldn't go in, just kept hitting concrete, but that's confused me because the holly tree roots must be SOMEWHERE.

We sat on the stairs inside as no furniture yet, melting, door open and a little girl walked past and said "daddy that grass is a mess", which I just sat and nodded in agreement with.

Im not even sure what the best thing to do is. Do we just dig it out? We can't peg in weed membrane because the pegs don't fit. It's all weeds, and dry, nutritionless dirt and rubble.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead aww the young do say it as they see it. I had the opposite this morning and heard a little girl say to her parent look at those sunflowers! about ours in the front garden. Made my day, and what I secretly hoped would be said about them ☺️

I think we've decided to still go with the heavy membrane/tarp but use heavy sleepers to box it in and stick some landscape bark on top.

There's no way we are digging it up, because we just won't get round to filling it again, and it seems like in some places it's deep and other places its only got a couple of cm of dirt.

The holly trees will be sawed down to ground level, and will need to be chemically killed off because the last tenant planted them right next to the house, within inches, so they're going to cause issues with their roots. It was a nasty surprise thinking there were only 1 or 2 and then the strimmer wire snapping for every other that I ended up going over.

Then we need some low maintenance perennial plant pot friendly shrubs or flowers to make it pretty.

DP is worried the sleepers will get nicked though because someone's already stolen his bins and dumped their rubbish in the garden so he says his priority is some security cameras.

Sat in it with a glass of wine.
Our cat Jerry is in here too. Can you spot him?

Is he black and white?

I want to sit in there with a glass of wine too. I decided that trying to make a wildflower meadow by combing fruit trees , roses grassesand perennials was something stupid I’ve wasted 2 years on. It looked great for 2 weeks in June The roses and fruit trees are staying , but I need more structure and less floppiness. I’ve gone back to basics lavender,salvias and pinks. I’ve bought some this weekend. And I will started putting them in . Grounds so hard though, hope it works😀

combing fruit trees, hah don’t even comb my hair!

Don't get me started on hard ground 😩😩😩

Today I rescued another bee like some bee superwoman 🦸‍♀️. Also got attacked by kamikaze ladybirds which has put me off wanting to go back in the garden.

I've ordered myself a ladybirds of Britain book, in hopes I can perhaps trick my humours from feeling like the world is about to end and into curiosity but I'm a skeptic at heart.

I want to go to the garden centre but is it worth me buying more flowers if we're in the midst of a hosepipe ban? The watering cans are running low and I can't walk with them round the garden because of my bloody useless connective tissue. I am willing to do a rain dance though.

I think you need to buy mulch to sort out your hard ground before you buy more plants... No new plants for me for a while now. Too hot and nothing thrives in the heat.

Seem to recall that it's okay to use a hosepipe if you're using it for disability reasons? And drip irrigation is also allowed? Definitely don't buy more watering cans! I do wonder how many litres of water the production of 1 can requires 🤔 the point of a hosepipe ban is surely not to kill off everyone's gardens.

He is!

We've filled in some forms this morning for exemption. My nan because she is of pensionable age and my son and I because of our disabilities.

It has had me thinking that if you have no disabilities or exemptions though and can't reasonably lug watering cans tens of times to and from a tap that it must be gutting in this heat watching hundreds if not thousands of pounds worth of plants just start withering away.

Someone on another thread said you can use your hosepipe for food crops, but I haven't fact checked this.

A lot of my food crops are interplanted with my ornamental plants in a small 1m² bed, so it would be near impossible to spot water them anyway, and our outdoor tap is about 50m away from the beds.

I still have this inner feeling of guilt though that I've asked for exemption. If there's not enough water there's not enough water, even if that is Yorkshire waters fault for losing 4 buckets per person per day through leakage.

Tbh I know that as a household we use very little water (Thames Water have had to adjust the direct debit downwards more than once), so I don't feel guilty for still watering the small garden. Surely the problem is more with filling swimming pools, commercial car washing, major industry that uses lots of water, etc.

Today I'm planning to plant out some long neglected fennel, chillies and tomatoes.