What have you done in the garden today? Part 7

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

Continuation thread from MereDint's previous threads.

Where's our invite? 🧐

Sounds delicious!

We have actual sunshine today, so I supervised DH sorting the back garden out.
he weeded a couple of the raised beds and we relocated all the foxglove seedlings into one bed.
Cut back next door’s overhanging shrubs and dug out a load of sedge (I can’t deal with it as it sets off my allergies).
I pootled about cutting dead leaves off the strawberry planters and marjoram bed, and found a rogue oregano plant that I repatriated to the herb bed.
That’s plenty for today, I magnanimously let DH go into town for cake so he can pretend he isn’t old and unfit tired from gardening.

I went out to town earlier with a friend and while out, bought yet another pot of snowdrops from the market.

I didn't get home until 3pm and as today has been glorious, I rushed out and divided the pot into two, planted both clumps into the border at different areas and then did another hanging basket with the pale pink primroses and dwarf daffs that I bought in the week. I had three primroses left over so put two into a small pale blue pot and one into a tub where there was a small gap, big enough to poke it in.

It's rain from later today for about the next ten days so I'm glad I got to plant everything up before the garden becomes too wet to go out. 😟

I got out for a couple of hours today, stripping more ivy out, and collecting the rubbish into a tote bag. I don’t think I’ve made a visible difference today, but it was nice to get out there. Really need DP to bring some thing he says he’s got, for pulling out the more stubborn buddleia stumps, that I can’t get out myself. Then I can get some nice plants put in.

Yesterday I managed to build a shed and plant 50 beech hedge plants....
Today I watched the rain batter down :-(

I squandered a perfectly sunny day that I could have been gardening by trying to get my soap dodger child to stop dodging soap.

A whole day.

I'm about to get in bed and start browsing for more seeds I don't need to wind down.

Today I mostly...dug.

I'm almost done, one more day should do it.

This was on Sunday, but found this in the garden (which was filled with river clay 25 years ago, likely from the Thames) while moving some bulbs. Any idea on age/vessel? History friends have suggested pharmacy bottle (but it's not cobalt blue), uranium/manganese glass (but it doesn't light up under UV), and old baby bottle (??).

Yes I appreciate there are probably better places to ask this... Bet it's just a vase from Woolworths from the 1980s, but fingers crossed for a Roman amphora.

Also, went to Sainsbury's which had a hideous expensive rack of Johnson's seeds so I took photos of the packets for price comparison/dreaming about more seeds. Price code G, £4.49 I think. Jokers.

Argh, photos won't upload fully.

Saturday I managed to do a bit of weeding in the front garden and plant out the bulbs I'd planted into pots in the autumn. So glad I did that, otherwise I might have lost them all through neglect. The rain Sunday helped water them in 🙄
Today, after two days of pretty much dry weather I mowed my lawn! It's so bare and muddy, but the grass was getting too long and I am hoping this will strengthen it a bit and maybe bulk up a bit. When I can I plan to aerate it and brush in some sand.
Back to the rain again for the foreseeable...

It's a bit too blue but it could be a Victorian glass telegraph insulator, but the impurities might be making it seem more blue than it originally was.

Nothing in the garden today, but I'm about to start potting up some seeds. I suspect I have far more seeds than propagators and space though...

Only time I've done in the garden for a while is clear up someone else's cat's shit.

We have a shared drive, which is gated.We keep our bins there and wash the dog after walks, it’s not used for cars. I put some potted shrubs there a few years ago, and have pretty much ignored them since. It’s pretty bleak, seems t9 have acquired some ramshackle containers and old shoes. Ou4 door needs repainting. . Our neighbours don’t use it except to wheel their bins to the road for collection. They haven’t said anything but I feel guilty.
So, I have been out there, removed the pots- our Christmas tree from 2023, barely alive, a suspiciously crispy ceanothus, a random conifer, with one good side and a miniature sumac( I think) . I’ve distributed them around my garden to deal with at a later date, removed all the crap, swept, brushed and weeded. There’s a massive carex pendulum growing at the base of neighbours fence. I cut it back but can’t dig it out, cant get the spade in. I will paint our door and treat the gates when the weather improves. I’m trying to decide if bleak prison yard is actually as good as it gets out there, and at least it’s clean and tidy. Or should I try and brighten it up again with some planters, and look after them this time. It’s west facing but a long narrow space between 2 houses.

Good work! You didn't do that today I hope. It's nasty out there.

Hello all

I got a bag of cactus potting mix and used it to repot my Christmas cactus and I sowed some mixed wildflower seeds in a pot in the rest. I'm going to start that on the windowsill.

I also dead-headed my white hellebores which is still in full flower. As is my red one. And my red and white skimmias are also still looking fab.

And I cleared the remnants of a load of leaves that I'd put down as mulch and hadn't rotted down all that much. Just for the sake of tidinesss.

@ILikeDungs . Yesterday and today. Not bad here in the east midlands, just cold. . I do feel pleased with myself, even though it’s not really gardening - yard work!

@AntiqueBooks now I’m wondering if I should deadheading my hellebores. Do they get more flowers?

I don't know! 6 months ago I didn't know what hellebores was! They would look ugly tho with the deadheads left on so off they came!

I leave my hellebores to seed, I have turned one into at least four so far that way.

I love the look of hellebore seed pods! I think they're really sculptural. But they do breed like rabbits, at least the old-fashioned ones. I am narked that a lot of the new cultivars are either sterile or pretty disinclined.

I have done almost nothing in the garden today (I picked some daphne), but I have done a nice deep-dive into Ralph and Catherine Tuggy's plant nursery in Westminster in early seventeenth-century London.

Yesterday was really dreadful weather, very windy too, one of the branches of my pittisporum tree has come down, not a huge one but I'll have to cut it off.

The garden is so wet, the grass is very long now and I just can't get out to do anything at all as it is just so squelchy underfoot.

I did manage to pot up my new Daphne Perfume Princess, however, the pot is so heavy I can't move it myself. I'll have to bribe someone to come round and help me move it up close to the house so I get a chance of smelling the beautiful perfume at some point. 🙁

I admired a goldcrest on my potted pine, and cut back my Cornus.

And now I need to find out about the Tuggys.