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.

I’ve had a busy morning in the garden, mowed the lawn and done lots of clearing up. I have cut back all the salvias now and done a lot of weeding.

Im now sat in the sunshine having a cuppa 😊

Hello all. I’ve had a tough week or so with pain and general other stuff. We have been busy making raised beds at the allotment. Middle DC aged 18 doesn’t have much patience so got loads of plants for her section at the allotment ….. she got DH to buy them and then forgot about them (aka revising hard) she’d left them in the study in sunlight and unwatered !!!! which meant a quick rescue mission to the allotment to get them in and I honestly thought they were dead but a plant and water and they have popped back up ok so they may yet live!!

Finally our huge garden sleepers all 12 of them arrived this morning (we have waited ten days or more for a delivery!!) and we have been busy painting them and making them waterproof to make the raised beds. It’s been tough to do - I would say we have painted about 2/3 of them now and got 1/3 to go. Brackets should be arriving tomorrow. Buying 30 bags of compost tomorrow (that will be fun to get in the car!) and we got 10 bags of pea gravel this afternoon so I think we have everything ready just a couple of days of hard hard graft for the Thursday and Friday to get it sorted ready to get the cherry trees planted. My ADHD is all overwhelmed at the moment so I’m trying to take some deep breaths and lean on DH a bit.

Can I ask - I have lots of new growth on my salvias so not sure how to cut back? Do I just cut back, say, a third of it all?

Mowed the lawns, spent a blissful hour stirring in the sun on a stool weeding, fed all the acers and pots ready for watering in later.

I probably cut my salvias back too soon as they are not looking great.

Deadheaded and sunbathed. Perfect afternoon in the garden. 😍

@Maggiethecat I’m not an expert but yes that’s roughly what I’ve done, otherwise they get very woody. I think the general rule is to cut back to the first sign of life on the stem iyswim?

I’ve got lots of green on mine. It’s the second year so may just leave cutting back until earlier next spring.

About 1/3 like a nice trim but not a close shave and it should be fine

Ok, I suppose the worst is that growth is a bit stunted if the haircut goes badly wrong 🤔

An order of bare root plants and summer bulbs arrived today,that I had completely forgotten about. Where to put 120 bloody plants? The daffodils are still hogging the only bed that has space. Should I just hook them out now even tho some still flowering? We are in Central Scotland so a bit further behind with spring.

Oh My Giddy Aunt I am absolutely shattered ! I ache all over. We have painted a waterproofed 12 huge railway sleepers 😂 we have assembled and screwed 8 of them together and made a huge retaining wall within a wall and those sleepers are going nowhere even. Huge bolts holding them together. We have now been and got 54 bags of compost from B and M in total 🤪. The arbour is back in position and we have one plant planted it which is a woody evergreen climber Star of Venice which has gone in one side of the arbour. I am exhausted and fully appreciate the people on ‘Ground Force’ - does anyone remember that programme?? Do it ourselves and save over £5K DH and I thought (???!!!!) rain expected now and at least two more days of building in the next few days. Very grateful for my lovely DH who is a 6 ft powerhouse. But oh my goodness I ache and ache and ache!!

Aha, my nan has a ground force book in our cupboard, and when we talk about plants she'll often say "that nice Mr. Titchmarsh says we should do this..." or I'll ask her what that nice Mr. Titchmarsh says about that.

I used to love watching ground force with my Nan and grandad.

I suppose it entirely depends on if you were planning on trying to salvage the bulbs or happy to discard them. If you're happy to discard them in favour of your new plants then I would just dig some up. I do love daffodils but they don't get priority real estate here when they only flower for one month a year.

Just did a bit of pruning today: the White Wedding climber was overspilling a path and I clipped a few bushes and cut back a crabapple branch. (Wrong time of year for the crabapple, but the branch was in the way.)

Whilst clipping the bushes, found a volunteer hedging plant - it's either lonicera nitida or cotoneaster. I'll be moving that to a gap in the hedge next to a common path.

Weeding, pruning & watering.

planted basil & parsley seeds.
dug old hyacinths bulbs into garden.

Put together my planter with opaque top with ventilation openings that clips onto the bottom part, stands waist height on four legs, has a water reservoir too.

I've put some seedlings into it and some pots with dahlias that are really slow to do anything in the hope that they will start to show signs of life.

Tidied up the lavender plant, trimmed down a couple of roses that were getting leggy and watered all the pots, moved a couple around and chucked some chicken fertiliser pellets around the border.

I might be able to buy some summer bedding now I have the greenhouse planter as I will have somewhere to keep them under cover until I'm ready to pot them into their containers to go out in the garden in a month or so.

I would move the daffs to the very back of the border. It was green bin day here, and I hate it going out half empty, so I ran around the garden collecting-old weed buckets and lopping off stuff that’s in theway. Then weeded the front paving. I then weeded my long north facing border, and planted some cannas that I overwintered in the greenhouse but which may be dead. I’ve moved tomato seedlings to the greenhouse, but I need to prep the beds before planting them. I sprained an intercostal muscle digging up a tree sapling the other day. I know people always say it really hurts but it REALLY does.
I got some cardboard from the cafe yesterday. Want to do that thing where you lie it down, wet it, cover it with compost and plant in, but can you just put it on top of old weeds and gone to seed brassicas? Surely some prep is necessary? I’m looking a5 my garden and just seeing problems and work to do. I wish it was smaller

Can I dig them up and replant them somewhere more obscure? The look of them is depressing me, and they're right outside the back door.

Made a wigwam from canes for my sweet peas and added fertiliser to the soil. They are hardening off during the day for another week then will go out in a 1m square raised bed, the wigwam in the centre and I’ve planted wallflower and bees & butterflies mix seeds in the corners

gratefully watering some tomato plants donated by my lovely neighbour from her excess stock

pricking out/thinning my lettuce seedlings, I thought I had only put a tiny pinch in the pots but loads germinated so have divided into more pots. These have been in about 10/14 days so will plant a few more seeds this weekend to keep them coming (they’re mixed colours) as we get through a lot of lettuce and I hate the waste involved in the supermarket bags - they used to do a pack with 2 smaller portions individually sealed but haven’t seen them for ages, and there’s always a bit left at the end that goes soggy.

smiling at my rhubarb which is growing brilliantly and waiting patiently for the next harvestable stems

I did that last year and I do it every year in our tyre planters. It does feel like every year I have to add another layer of cardboard and then compost on top but the roots do a good job breaking through it and it does compost down.

can you just put it on top of old weeds and gone to seed brassicas?

The brassicas may need pulling first, but yes just lay on weeds as long as the surface is fairly level. Dampen, then a layer of compost. No other prep because the point is excluding light from the weeds and leaving the soil as unmolested as possible.

Sorry to hear about your intercostal, Zebracat. On me it's my knee pit (don't know what else to call it). A pain in more ways than one.

I hauled out the daffodils,leaving a few flowering ones for pollinators. Daffs are lovely after a long winter but pretty boring after that,and the foliage hangs around for ever! So, out they came. I may plant them.in the grass in the autumn and see if they come up again. We dont usually cut the grass until end of May so not a problem
Planted loads of bulbs and rooty things, plus the cosmos seedlings which have been hardened off. Also put red geraniums into the terracotta pots on the stairs as I do every year and gave some lavender plants to the neighbours who gave me a bag of logs in return. I do love a good trade off. Now my back is knackered, but a good day's graft done.

Hope you feel better soon. The cardboard method -

1. pull out any huge weeds bindweed or plants eg brassicas or potatoes
2. thick layer of brown cardboard - take all staples and sellotape off. Nice thick layer of cardboard
3. manure (well rotted if you have some)
4. compost rake over and plant

most plants we were taught on my course grow in the top 10-15 cm of grass, don’t compact the soil (crushes air gaps out of it) and you want air pockets etc

I have been gardening 40 years but only seriously the last year or so, sounds silly but I posted some allotment advice elsewhere and got ‘told off’ and rubbished and it’s my ‘mental health thing’ I do to help me so it’s put me off offering advice. Everyone at our thriving allotment uses the cardboard method or the Charles Downing No Dig as I think it is formally known.

The bottom bed is in now and three cherry trees planted, one Star of Venice climber, one gorgeous and very looked after Rose that had been potted up and moved and kept in a pot for a year since we moved and a very dry bay tree are in.

DH and I ache all over and have loaded and moved 54 bags of compost from B and M to our home each one is 50 kg. It’s been a huge task but I could cry with joy a year of planning and revising and planning again to turn this horrid new build garden into a paradise we can sit out in and our own little bit of heaven. We sat at the top of the garden on the top layer of decking with a cup of tea and about 6 little birds, blue tits, robins, chaffinches were all jumping about the trees on all the feeders. We have woodland and pond out the front. And the sound of birds is magic.

The raised beds are 50 cm deep in compost and more soil underneath and a metre wide.

Lots more to do - the side planters and adjust the fairy lights etc but the plants now have what they need to grow. More brackets needed and of course the middle bit of the lawn needs raising about 40 cm with top soil but it is getting there.

I tightened some old and put up some new trellis wires for the honeysuckle. It's become massive over the past year, which is good, as it'll hopefully finally cover up two ugly fence panels.

Admired the wisteria flowers which are looking very promising. The two warm days really made it come out. On Wednesday I gardened in shorts for the first time this year! Shame the forecast is four cold days.

I bought more than I've been able to plant. The three clematises seem happy enough in their pots...

I'm still not over the fact I accidentally chopped down all of my wisteria last year 🙃

It grew back just as tall before the end of the growing season but no flowers for me this spring.