What have you done in the garden today? Part 7

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Continuation thread from MereDint's previous threads.

@AntiqueBooks I was on Gardener's World a couple of weeks back. It was filmed in the cold late spring of 2024 and all the stuff they wanted to film wasn't out yet. There were wonderful trilliums, epimediums, erythroniums and so but they came with their own narrative and wouldn't adapt. I've done it before and had a great time, but didn't enjoy this one at all.

@MaxandMeg OMG you are famouszzzzz! Such a shame tho that you didn't have a good experience. :-(

I agree with whoever on here told me a few weeks ago that Beechgrove Garden is more user-friendly than Gardeners World. Even if the presenters do make "being Scottish" their entire personality. My grandfather and father used to watch it in the 80s onwards - bet you 8 year old me would be ASTOUNDED that I am now watching it voluntarily!

Ha! @AntiqueBooks maybe it's because I am in Scotland that I detest Beechgrove. They filmed here once, must have been 30 years ago, and the presenters were banal and uncurious. People say they can relate to it more than GW but that's like saying 'Gardeners World isn't for the likes of us, Beechgrove will do us nicely...'

Maybe I'll give it another go though, though actually my climate's closer to Herefordshire than Aberdeen.

@MaxandMeg I'm 1 mile from the coast at Edinburgh! But my parents and grandparents were weegies!

@MaxandMeg Aha, I thought that was was you . I can see why that would have been uncomfortable, but to an impartial observer( except for thinking aha!), it was fascinating. And I wish we were friends irl.

@Zebracat Thanks for the lovely comment. Normally I really love a bit of telly but the director Dick struck me as a prime example of nominative determinism. Maybe nominative determinism in both our cases as he certainly thought I was a classic Karen.

The horticultural advisor - Polly- kept pointing out lovely things they could talk about but he was stuck on the Himalayan narrative because of Datenji.
Who is a pain in the backside by the way and does very little in the garden other than dig things up for sale and shout a lot. Also since June he has been refusing to speak to me so poor dh has to be a sort of United Nations envoy. Peace reigns now as he has cleared off to Nepal for 4 months.

@AntiqueBooks When I met OH 8 years ago he had a nice Victorian flat on the seafront at North Berwick with a garden the size of a tea tray. But, goodness me, the gardens at NB! The huge lavenders, mighty clumps of arum lilies, the roses that never seemed to stop flowering! You have such an opportunity there.

@MaxandMeg Oh lord you have made me laugh. I thought he would get on my nerves too with all that mystical inherited deep knowledge bollox. Or is that for real?

Course not, @Zebracat. The women do all the actual work.

@MaxandMeg I just rewatched your segment. I was born the same year you moved there - 1983! Yeah they clearly had their "mystical Himalayan" angle covered with the music and close up of the prayer flags! I assumed initially the first time I watched it that D was your DH and you had fallen in love after you had returned home with him. (Don't kill me!)

I'm near Cramond in Edinburgh if you know it. A favourite of Miss Jean Brodie! There seem to be a lot of us Scots on here. Esp on my tulip thread!

@AntiqueBooks Actually that occurred to me when I first watched it and thought wft?
My friend in Cramond is the grandson of the minister who is supposed to have married Queen Victoria and John Brown (he says not). DH's children and GCs and therefore my step-offspring were/are at Gillespie's where Muriel Spark taught. Marcia Blaine is supposed to be modelled on it.

My tulips in my - ahem- parterre are planted thanks to DH. I have all my pots to do now but I'm just waiting for a top-up from Farmer Gracie. I under ordered apparently.

@MaxandMeg how interesting! I recently watching the prog where they claimed Victoria & John Brown had a baby. I was unconvinced! I think they had an emotional affair, essentially. I highly doubt it was physical.

I bet you and I know a lot of the same people. I went to Heriots which is, of course, allegedly the inspiration for Hogwarts. And Edinburgh Uni where, as I mentioned on my Tulip thread, I was taught by Prof Alexander McCall Smith.

I’ve dug out one part of my front garden border that was congested with aster rhizomes- they’ve spread terribly and strangled everything else. Building up to do the same on the other stretch of border that has the same problem!

Been collecting leaves and digging out nettles. Was a beautiful day!

Nettles are like the asters I dug out- the roots travel quite far don’t they! I’ve put some leaves in black bags for the first time to try making leaf mould.

I have a huge chicken netting circle that my leaves go into. I've done black bags in the past, mind, and they work a treat. It meant that I was looking at a dozen bin bags all winter though. My container is in the corner off to the side, and I can get in to turn it if I wish. I told myself I would add a wheelbarrow load at least, every day, but that hasn't worked out what with the rain cold etc.

I added two today.

The nettles are a buggeration and the roots go under paving in one spot, under landscape fabric in another and amongst the ground cover (worst!) so it is only a matter of keeping them under control. I let it slip this fall and now I am paying for it.

Fellow gardeners will understand slippage :)

I've purposefully left my nettles in my raspberry beds because nettle soup is delicious.

All other nettles are in the wrong place and must be eliminated.

Re leaf mould, how much do you need for it to compost at a reasonable pace? I get max 2 wheelbarrow loads a year, and wonder whether I should bother. Perhaps I'm better off just using it as mulch, maybe chopped with a strimmer? (I don't have a mower, small garden with little grass)

I have been piling up the leaves from the street trees (thankfully no slow plane trees), but my own five tiny trees are going to need a few more years.

for the amount you get, @Agapornis I would just put them straight on the borders. You don't really need to chop them down, they naturally decompose due to weather such as frost, snow, rain and the worms can be very active if the ground isn't hard, and they pull the leaves under the soil over many months.

I had dozens of wheelbarrow loads of leaves in my pile last year and I think they only covered three? beds in the end, after breaking down into lovely leaf mould.

If you use leaves as mulch just dumping it on the beds would be fine. I also put my grass clippings straight onto beds when there is over much in the compost. It is all organic matter that breaks down. One area in the allotment I've covered with all the fallen apples. Will be planting pumpkins there in the spring.

It wasn't in the garden but in the house...I learned the hard way that although the RHS website SELLS airplants in sealed bottles, keeping them in enclosed containers will cause them to rot! And that airplants need to dry out fully at times!

Today I remembered that I still had two small bags of double tulip and camassia bulbs, so I finally planted those. Dug up some tulips that were just peeping out from The Wrong Place (too dry, cat likes to nap there) and replanted them in Hopefully The Right Place (catches the rain and hopefully no cat interference).

First snowdrops are peeping through! Planted them in about 2022 so they're forming some good clumps by now. Thinking about dividing them, but also I can't quite remember where I've already put various other bulbs...

Next victims to be dug up will be the double daffodils that are somewhere near the shed but refuse to flower there.

I love bulbs but jeez, the game of 'where did I put those' and 'I forgot I had those' gets a bit much at times. And my garden is only about 10x5m and mostly grass!

Cat tax. Note bamboo canes near his butt that were meant to prevent him from sitting on the tulips.

@Agapornis He’s an absolute beauty. I’ve never understood the prejudice agaist black cats. To me they are the pinnacle of feline beauty, lost Bear, my 15 year old Black Beauty in July and the idiot dog prevents me getting another.

@Zebracat Thanks, I shall pass on the compliment. His fur is beautiful in the sun, slightly iridescent. Made of sunshine and rainbows and occasionally a little bit of dandruff.

His contribution to the garden yesterday was to fertilise it 🙄

Here is MY black cat, Storm, just after I adopted him in June this year, sitting amongst my then-fledgling pot collection!