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 know the feeling, I planted a tree peony at the edge of a lawn. I was chuffed last week to see new leaves poking through the grass. Then DH strimmed it. I’m hoping it will come back.

My wisteria is not flowering yet and my peonies are only showing promising buds.
i plated three budleia a few weeks ago, showed them to DP. Went away for the weekend, came back and he had mowed over them…. 😤

Ive just received some blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes and i am about to plant them now

Both my courgette seeds have germinated really well :) I've got them on a south facing window above a radiator and they seem to love that. Just potted them on and growth has stalled, but hoping they pick back up again soon.

Got about 5 tomato plants that are on their third pair of true leaves and another 3 who are struggling, not sure why.

Sunflowers also doing well, but morning glory has put out its initial leaves then stopped.

Got compost in one of my three outdoor raised beds and lettuce and cabbage has started sprouting. No signs of carrot, Dill etc. but suspect it's too cold yet.

Very mixed bag this year...as usual!

I have three wisterias and they always nearly get binned as it gets to this time of year and no movement but then start of April I get some buds and leaves and then a few more. Mine are pot bound though and due to go in the garden next week in the new raised bed although I might leave them until after the summer now and then move them!

We have found amazing expanding trellis in the Range of all place and it’s only like £3 for 1.8 m x 1 ft

The lawn had another mow yesterday, it’s the 4 cut this season.
Checked on all my cuttings, roses, salvias and willows and all still appear to be alive.
Sweet peas pinched out and bits in a glass of water to see if they root.

I moved a compost bin yesterday. So much lovely compost, around half a tonne of it. Been moved to behind my polytunnel.

I need to get a range of herb seeds out this weekend and get some sown.

4th mow of the season? Blimey. Haven't done mine once yet. Yet another advantage of lots of moss in the grass.

Me neither!

Ours got it's first cut yesterday, we usually do no-mow may but the dandelions were out of control.

I've chosen my oak barrel planter, and the location where it will sit and it should get 7 hours of full sunshine for most of the summer so I am looking forward to planting that.

The onion bed that I de-weeded before planting onions is now overcome with sticky willy but I'm just going to leave it, the onions are growing and there's enough real estate in that bed if it would like to grow. I will pull it up in the autumn.

I've got a verbena I need to replant elsewhere so that will be a today job.

In my pea seed snail with 24 pea plants only 1 pea has come up. Didn't pre-soak the peas so they're possibly all just delayed.

I will be mowing for the fourth time tomorrow hopefully. We had some rain during the night and although not a lot, I don't think I will have to water the masses of pots that are decorating the back garden.

Earlier this morning I checked some of my plants/seedlings that are now in my mini greenhouse planter that is in the garage. The tomatoes are really looking good and are just about making a second set of leaves and the best thing of all, my Bishop of Leicester dahlia has leaves coming through.

None of the other dahlias are doing anything at all but I'll keep them going a bit longer and if by the end of the month there is nothing showing, I'll dump them in the compost bin. I may or may not buy something already growing in the garden centre or supermarket, they usually do well in my pots.

Today I found some timber in the street for what will hopefully become a small pergola behind the shed, to support honeysuckle and Stephan jasmine (jasminum x stephanense - what do people actually call this?), and still hide the usual behind-the-shed grotty corner.

I won't mow until autumn, I practice cat friendly gardening and they love the long grass. I'd claim it's a wildflower meadow, but with my 2 cats and the other 5-10 or so that like to lounge here (the other cat owners have boring gardens), very little wildlife hangs around for long. I've been experimenting with bird feeders, but I think I'll need a very, very long pole. There was a minor fledgling pigeon incident yesterday but thankfully it was able to fly to fence height.

@Liquoricethyme B&M have trellis for £4, 180x60cm. So double the width for a quid more! It is only willow though, so it'll only last a couple of years.

I did a plant swap at church and foisted a load of plants on people as they passed the church door.
I think I came back with marginally fewer plants, but at least they’re different ones to those I brought with me.

I found a potted acer in an alley back in December (think I posted about it on the previous thread), very pleased with how it turned out. Does anyone know what variety it might be? It had a B&M sticker on it, if that helps.
(Edit because I wrote B&Q instead, sigh)

I am in the Channel Islands so nice and mild, I was mowing every 10 days or so but this last mow was only a week later.
I use the mulching plug so like to keep on top of it as I am unable to compost anymore due to my awful neighbour.

I'm not a church goer but if my local church arranged something like this that would be fab. It is central within the parish and I think a lot of local gardeners would benefit from this simply due to the location and it's accessibility, plus connections to the faith school in the area who run an allotment club.

Pricked out the teeny weeny snapdragon seedlings into bigger trays. Never grown these from.seed before so interested to see if they make it.

I'm doing the same. Have most in the greenhouse but just put out a few seedlings into a bed outside. Really hope they work.

I did this on Friday. I've also never done this before but they are pure white, Royal Bride I think and if successful I will have to find somewhere to put them. They are in my greenhouse planter so protected whilst they grow on.

I did scatter some of the seeds directly into the garden (actually, I just chucked them around) so it's possible that I might get one or two growing where they fell.

@Agapornis I have one with similar shaped leaves which is an Acer shirasawanum Moonrise. The leaves are a bit redder on mine though. It could be one of the other shirasawanums? Aureum?

edit - mine isn’t quite out yet or I’d take a pic.

@Coracao cheers, I got the similar looking results with an image search. Might have to wait until summer or autumn to find out its true colours.

Yeah, mine are in the greenhouse still. Its bloody cold here in Scotland. I think mine are red and white...Hot Lips or some such name.

I have wandered about to see what is sprouting but otherwise just watered stuff that needs watering.

In the greenhouse I have mixed salad leaves, radish, rocket, and snow peas all popping up, and on the kitchen windowsill the cosmos are shooting up. I’ve put them in the greenhouse now, as I need space for more flower seed sowing.

Still drumming my fingers for the tomatoes and chillies I sowed in the propagator on the 1st of the month. They should be up in the next couple of days I hope if I stare at them often enough 😁

I did the cardboard thing in my bigggest bed. I would take a pic , but it needs a bit of zhuzzing. Haven’t decided what to plant yet. I normally decide first, then rush the preparation so thought I’d try getting the space ready. Don’t know If I have any viable seeds. It was so much quicker than weeding and digging though.
I weeded around my leeks which seem to be very slow growing, and my elephant garlic, which isn’t. Thinking I may just scatter wildflower seed on the shadier bed. I had broad beans there last year but it was just too dry, I should have watered them. Do sweet peas need hardening off?

Yes sweet peas do need hardening off if you've grown them yourself from seed, but if you, like me, saw ASDAs multi pack for £5 sitting outside on a cold early spring day and decided you absolutely needed them and then proceeded to forget to buy bread, butter and ham like you were supposed to, then those sweet peas are probably already hardened off from sitting on the trolleys outside the shop all day.

It was really windy here this weekend, so I didn’t get outside. It did drop Sunday lunchtime, but I was already out for the day. I did go to a garden centre though and got a couple of pepper plants, and a strawberry mint, which I’d never heard of before. It’s a mint plant, but when you rub the leaves, it smells like strawberries! I had just been in the process of saying I won’t buy mint, because I don’t really use it much, but I changed my mind 🙂

I put some seedlings outside to harden off, but they were a bit flattened by the wind when I got home. Hopefully they recover.