What have you done in the garden today? Part 7

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Continuation thread from MereDint's previous threads.

Rescued my plants with the hose before we get a ban - the water butts emptied a good while ago now. Everything looks pretty frazzled

32⁰ at the minute and I'm at least as droopy as my plants, possibly more.

I've picked more cucumbers and pickled 5 jars of them. I used the canning water on the cosmos containers after it cooled down.

I've not hosed down anything today.

We do have a housesitter but I imagine asking for the additional burden of watering the garden will be a bit much and they'd feel so upset if they forgot and things died anyway.

I've just accepted some things are going to die, and we're heading into autumn soon so it will be time for a big reset, and much easier to do when the plants are dried out.

I am waiting for my hollyhock seed pods to all dry up anyway so I can collect them and save them.

We have had the hose ban for a while now although we are allowed to water food crops so half of my garden and most of the allotment CAN be watered using the hose. Still it's just so exhausting in the heat. And then carrying watering cans back and forth to the flower beds. OMG. And having a slipped disc / pinched nerve does not help.

I have just come in now. Started watering at 10:00 a.m. I am so sweaty even my denim shorts are wet through. I poured cold water over my face at the sink and drank heejus cold water.

All this effort and I have not touched the front garden. How long is this heat wave meant to carry on?

I'm a catsitter and I don't mind being asked to water (I advertise cat care with optional plant care). Just tell your housesitter it doesn't matter if things die and you'd be very grateful. Paying extra helps too!

It's my uncle, he lives with us already so we're not paying for the house sitting part, and he is looking after my dog as well whos had a bit of a dicky tummy this morning so I'm sure he won't necessarily mind watering the plants but he might have a lot on.

I have sent a text to say can you keep an eye on the potted plants and give them a drink if they look thirsty but don't worry about the beds because they're coming up anyway.

Really looking forward to a week away though but if I find a garden centre I might be picking one or two plants up to bring back as souvenirs.

At last, Bishop of Oxford dahlia has come out, I was thinking I would not see it this year but by flowering and with several more buds to open, I will be keeping it over winter and hope it will go through to next year. It is a bit of a slow coach though but very pretty.

Yesterday, I noticed I have grape hyacinth leaves appearing in the border which is somewhat depressing as we are still only in August and it's baking hot here.

We’ve had a fair amount of rain over the last few days but it looks like being dry for the next two.
@Myblueclematis my Bishop of Llandaff started off really well but is terrible at the moment and looks like it’s dying. I have it in a big pot but I wonder if putting it in the ground might help.

We've got a bishop of Llandaff, and it was just blooming before we left for the coast.

It was looking good, but I'm not sure what the weather has been like at home, in South Yorkshire, but it's been lovely and sunny on the East Yorkshire coast so while we've been enjoying lots of beach time, I've been crossing my fingers that it's rained at home at least a little bit.

We are going to a garden centre today for brunch, so I might end up bringing back a few plants.

We've got a caravan on a site, and I keep seeing so many lovely flower borders and I don't know how they manage to keep them so lovely unless the owners are here literally every opportunity they can get, but now I'm getting caravan garden envy too.

That's interesting re the grape hyacinths. We've had a few flowers on our clematis armandii this week!

I was going to ask re grape hyacinths: I saved some seed from ours a couple of years ago. Has anyone grown them from seed? Should I plant around November as I would for bulbs?

Today I sorted out the cosmos.

DH and my little joke; deadheaded, obviously.

Today saying that to DH reminded me of the Netflix commercial he guffaws at every time: "Extreme Eliminations!!" It's for football but of course his immediate thought is poo. Especially when one footballer has his hands wide like showing the length of a huge fish or something...

And yes I expect you to wonder if we are five. In this life you get your chuckles where you can.

Finally went to reighton nurseries, close to the caravan site.

Did not realise just how absolutely massive it was!

Got stuck down a fruit tree path, and found this rather shy little plum.

Yesterday I did quite a few hours in the garden, after weeks of not really doing much apart from watering.
I cut off my straw flowers stems to dry out, planted up three new salvias I bought from a chilli festival a few weeks ago, clotted cream, La Mancha and strawberries & cream.
I had some winter scented box cuttings which had taken, but were in small pots so kept drying out. I've put them into one large tub and they can see out the winter in that before I plant them out into the front garden.
I had two pots of linaria northern lights which have gone into the border too.
Took up the sweet peas and reused the pots for some Chinese asters which were in a far too small pot and kept wilting. Looking much better so far.
I also planted out some wallflowers which I've sown from seed. One had a flower on it! I wasn't sure if I should cut off any flowers stems so they can put their energy into growing.
I have some white achillea growing through the grass. As most will be dug up to put in some new steps I've pulled up a load and planted them in the border.
I cut back my rosemary shrubs. I'm trying to fan them out to grow flat in front of the fence. It's slowly getting there.

Today I was going to scarify the lawn and cut it, and then start lowering and levelling the area for my shed to be moved to, but it got too hot so I just sat in the shade and did some crochet. It's just a scarf so not too heavy and hot to work on, unlike like the blanket I am 3/4 of the way through. Need to wait for chillier evenings to finish that.

The garden got a good water this evening though. Should keep it going for a few days

Love the shy plum . Amazed by your achievements @longtompot . I watered and dispaired, and picked a pretty bunch of flowers.

If anyone finds themselves on the east coast I wholeheartedly recommend going to this nursery. I stumbled into this field and thought wow thats huge!

Then when you get to the end of one, theres like 4 more just like it, plus so many greenhouses and polytunnels, and I dare say I am not a fan of heucheras but the way they had them laid out in a well stocked rainbow fashion, going all down one of the fields, with a sign that said heuchera heaven, it made me rethink my position on them, and now I just want a garden full of them.

They also had some bucketlist plants that I've not seen in my local garden centres, and that I've never been able to grow from seed. Swathes and swathes of Erigeron.

We got so lost in the fruit tree section one of the workers came to find us, and said if we wanted to try some of the fruit we could because they just can't sell the trees faster than the fruit was spoiling. I've developed a taste for green plums, so now I need 2 green plum trees.

I've posted a picture, that is just one of their fields. They've apparently got 9 acres.

Oh I was in heaven. I feel so lucky that we've got a caravan about 5 minutes away and we come up about 5 times a year because this will be on my list every single time.

Thank you @Zebracat I'm still a bit achy two days later!

These are the most recent flowers picked from the garden which I love being able to do. All sown from seed bar the verbena which I got from someone on Nextdoor.

I had a little peek in tne greenhouse to see the chocolate cosmos has flowered! And it does indeed smell of chocolate! Not sure where to plant it though as the colour is very different to everything else I have in the garden. Will look at planting schemes for inspiration.

For now the sun is not out so I will continue with what is left of my poor poor lawn :( (drought and landscaping damage)

@Jimmyneutronsforehead OMG. That nursery!

I had a good weeding/cutting back session, until I was on the lawn and stepped backwards in bare feet onto the remains of a frog 🤢
There’s more to do but I’m not going back out there until I have forgotten the smell of it!

@InMySpareTime jumping into this thread to say I sympathise: last night, during a last-min watering in the dark, I stepped on a slug in my bare feet. Is this a gardener's rite of passage? However, I must add, it was v much alive and there was no discernible smell. I'm grateful for that and hope you aren't haunted by the memory for much longer!

Yesterday I took the tomato plants out of the greenhouse to give them some sun. Nipped out and by the time I got back the wind had lifted the sun umbrella out of its stand and dumped it on top of the tomato plants thirty feet away. We’ve lost half a dozen tomatoes but I think the rest should be ok.

I was once doing something in the garden, can't remember what, maybe taking a photo? Anyway, I stepped back and the ground went soft...I'd stepped on a very dead rat on the patio which one of our cats must have left there for me. How kind. Thankfully I was wearing shoes, but even now, over 15 years later I can still remember the feel shudder
Medicinal g&t for you 🍸

Tied back the surprise sunflowers (yesterday, I'm not gardening this early). Possibly a product of Pike's Peak hybrid sunflowers from two years ago - they have the height, but look like a perennial helianthus.

Peeled back the ipomoea/morning glory off said sunflowers and back on the fence. I've been away for a few days and came back to it flowering. It's supposed to be the Heavenly Blue variety, but they're all pink! The seed packet was at least 7 years old so maybe it fancied a change.

Handling the hairy ipomoea gives me rashes on my arms though - does anyone else get this? I've had a look on a botanical dermatology database which lists this for other species in the family, but not for Ipomoea tricolor. It's not the only thing I'm allergic to, but I'm surprised it seems underreported.
"Several instances of dermatitis have been recorded following contact with members of this family. Whilst there is some evidence for irritant, photoirritant, and possibly photoallergic reactions, no detailed investigations have been reported."

@AgapornisI don’t have any ipomoea but get rashes from plenty of other hairy stemmed plants (particularly bad with Inula Hookerii that I have to get DH to deal with).
I have quite reactive skin so it doesn’t take much irritation to set it off.

Yesterday I weeded a patch of garden near the back gate. It was completely overtaken by strawberry runners. I now have three plastic sandwich bags full of the things, and need somewhere to put them. I don't know what variety they are, but for the first time ever we had a good crop this year, and they were the most fantastic taste. Adult dd said they were the best strawberries she's ever eaten in her entire life.

This morning I have been mostly standing and staring at all the other stuff that needs doing out there, meanwhile nursing my aching knees from yesterday. I'm not as young as I was, and doing a lot of kneeling down is not something my body likes to do any more...

I've never had it with morning glory, but as InMySpareTime does, I do get it with plenty of hairy stemmed plants.

Pumpkins especially and not just where the stem touches the skin, but if I touch the stem with my hands and then touch anywhere else with my hands that area also gets it.

I once rubbed my eye, and the entire area puffed up and blistered within minutes.

I think that was an extreme reaction though, because my next door neighbour had decided to put loads of lillies in plant pots and they set my hayfever off the worst so I reckon I just got some bad luck combination of reactions. Usually its just like nettle sting hives. And thankfully my neighbour has decided she doesn't even want plant pots in her concrete garden.