What have you done in the garden today? Part 8

[Jimmyneutronsforehead]

A continuation thread.

Thank you to MereDintOfPandiculation for threads 1 through 6. We wouldn't have built this lovely gardening community without you.

No gardening job is too small or too big to tell us about.

Spring is springing into action, let's get mucky.

Oh a gardening thread! I made a month by month gardening plan this week, using AI. Hopefully it'll help! Today I cut the 3 roses back and the buddleia. Will try to get rose food and mulch tomorrow. The elm and apple are booked in for cuts in a couple of weeks, due to a mix up. After that's done I will focus on the lawn, which is mainly moss and mud! The plan is to aerate with a fork, compost, and re-seed with a shady lawn and micro clover mix.

I am just back in after 2 hours in the garden. I cut back photinia and tidied flowerbeds.
Moved a rose from a big pot into the tidied flowerbed. Then planted a fig tree into the freed up big pot.
Does anyone have any tips on how to go about pruning holly if I am aiming to grow it as a standard tree? It's around 6ft at this stage.
Or any tips for success with the fig tree? It will sit in a very sheltered sunny spot.

Can I join you all? My garden is in need of TLC and re-organising after a couple of years of being lower on my list of priorities than I would have liked.

Today I cleared all the autumnal seedheads and growth I’d left for the birds in my front garden, it looks very different with no crazy nasturtiums/sedum cut back etc! I gamely fought with briars that have crept in from next door too.

Evening all.
@Monvelo we are currently debating what to do with the mud bath that is pretending to be a lawn and clover might be a possibility.
@Dox9 I would remove all the side branches at the bottom 1/4 -1/3. Make the side shoots in the middle 1/3 thinner and leave the top bit unpruned. Check for crossed branches and cut them all and then let the top develop very thickly.

I’ll be back after dinner - today was shed building at the allotment for us all day job!

Lovely thread! Today I sowed my wildflower seeds in a patch that I'd set aside in the autumn. Also planted some dahlia bulbs in a pot.

Here is my update. We have a shed up at the allotment. My husband and I have each other a chain saw and a shed for Christmas. It’s taken 4 weeks to cut back the brambles, dispose of carpet, broken glass and general crap of a dumping ground in the far corner of our plot. Then came a grid and levelling, then gravel, the reused patio slabs from our back garden and then we carried, yes carried, all the bits of the shed this morning from our house to the allotment. And then DH and eldest worked hard putting it up. Not finished yet but nearly done! Will be finished tomorrow and then we will need to paint it. But 75% done. I can’t tell you the sheer effort put in - to get to this point- hours and hours and hours!

DH and I are putting in a dahlia bed at the allotment to remember his Dad who died last year but Dahlias were his thing so to remember him. I very got a pollinator bed going in. Wildflower seeds in a bed is next level - I so hope it is magical when they come up!

I planted three birches.

I spent 3.5 hours in the front garden weeding. I was unwell for the last two years so it needed a lot of work. I plan to go over it again and put last years compost on it. It just a small garden. Patch of grass with border all around it. It was hard work.

Great shed work!
I have potted up the tiny plugs of dark red geraniums that arrived in the post yesterday, planted bugle and aconites under the hawthorn tree and cooed over the germinating seeds! School Allotment tomorrow, with ‘helpful’ parents!!

Sorry that you have been unwell. But when you open your curtains today and walk outside you can go - hark at me look at what I did.

We found with the allotment we would do 2 hours and think we hadn’t done anything. And then actually we would look at photos and go - wow. 😮

Still endless rain here so not getting anything done.

Oooh a gardening thread! May I join in? I’ve popped to my local budget garden centre today and got an excellent amount of potting on pots and some vermiculite. Sowed some mini cucumbers, mini plum tomatoes, sweet peas (using toilet rolls), pricked out some snapdragons and generally happily faffed about, Disappointed that they didn’t have much in the way of tomato seeds ( I like to grow a lot), but also got Moonlight runner beans and some sugar snap peas as my dd loves them. Any recommendations for online budget seed retailers, please? My garden is still like a swamp from the rain so glad I’ve got the greenhouse!

Nothing here today too wiped out after my volunteering to do anything and DH was too shattered after rugby. Tomorrow is another day !

Hello! We are just re landscaping our front garden. Moving the gate and turning most of the drive into lawn/beds. I have dugup and moved a native hedge row I planted a couple of years ago. It's now wrapped up waiting to replant. I also moved hundred of bulbs so the wouldn't be wasted. I have two beds to plan. One with a plum. One with a pear. It's south facing. Thinking saliva and hebe in one. Also have to replant two hydrangea.

My other half pruned two apple trees. I also planted tomato beans courgette pumpkin sweet peas Inside. I am going to try to build a hazel arch over a bed to grow them. Any advice

I’ve been and cleared 3 beds of last year’s debris, stalks and things. I was going to attempt weeding but there’s just too much water in the ground, even with a kneeling pad I’ll get soggy.

Im having a good time though, only moved in at the end of last summer so there’s been some lovely surprises, like the daffodils all along the fence line.

I spotted two lupin leaves and will now have to go on the hunt for a plastic bottle to use as a cloche to protect it from snails. Tomorrow is bin day so a couple will probably blow down the street.

I did have two other lupins but they may have been accidentally sacrificed when I moved the big dahlia. Tbc.

I did use the garden hose but should post in What DIY Have You Done instead (removed an air lock by shoving it up the bathroom tap).

@Liquoricethyme isn't it wonderful what previous occupiers leave behind! I got a shed with my house (same size as yours), but hiding in the ivy overgrowing the shed were two metal bed frames, a rug, and a tractor tyre.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/property/5471636-what-diy-have-you-done-today?page=5&reply=150716388

For any newbies in the thick of DIY, we also have a What DIY have you done today? thread.

Just like gardening, no job is too big or small to share, it's a younger thread but there's already some great progress being made by many posters and a wealth of knowledge being shared.

I look forward to seeing what you do both inside and outside. ❤️

I'm a bit jealous that you got a tractor tyre @Agapornis. I asked my mum for a tractor tyre for my birthday years ago. She was a bit baffled because it was such an odd request. Even odder response when I told her I wanted one to flip round the garden for exercise. Anyway, she got me a shower gel set and some new slippers. That tractor tyre was my Mr Frosty.

We did turn 2 old car tyres into planters and I'm turning the other 2 old car tyres into a wishing well and filling it with trailing geranium.

Haha, my garden isn't big enough to host a tractor tyre for flipping, or as a planter! It's about 3-4 belly button height tyres wide.
The local tyres place a 10 minute walk away said they'd take it, so I rolled it over, they then had a whine saying it was too big... I walked away and left them to it.

Sowed seeds in trays in our tiny greenhouse. Watched the frogs still hard at it in the pond. A cold wind but some sunshine about.

Our plot sadly had nothing to salvage. It was just a bomb site. @Agapornis and the weeds we over a metre high. Back down to the allotment today and did 5 hours down there. Shed has a roof and two coats of paint. Two more to do.

Debating if it is time to untarpulin (is that a word) the garden furniture and enjoy it ????

Tyre flipping sounds fun but exhausting (!)

Hello all

I took delivery of:

1. box of disposable plastic gloves - for picking bird feathers up when cat has brought me a gift. And also for picking up leaves and detritus. I don't like gardening gloves, they always end up smelly and I get scared spiders will nest inside them.

2. Rust remover product. The chaps who put the new gutters up left the old rusty gutters on the patio and scrubbing with soapy water does not seem to have done the trick!