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.

Lovely day here. Pottered a bit, tying in the climbing roses, moving pots around, scattering some seeds here and there.

DS has a hospital appointment this morning but should I be so lucky as it ends up being a short appointment and he manages to get to school then I am really looking forward to pulling some more weeds out front and re-potting the verbena today.

I also haven't planted out the sweet peas yet and they're getting leggy so they will be having a lovely trim and then planted with a bamboo cane obelisk.

I am also doing my annual boiling of the weeds in the cracks around the patio that just can't be pulled out.

Ah you have reminded me that I have a pot of sweet peas in the shed that really must go out this week (though the ones I planted out a week ago haven’t exactly taken off yet).

I have a dahlia just sprouting in a very big pot so I might build a cane wigwam in that and bung them in there, see how they get on.

Looks like we haven’t yet had our last frost, it’s often mid April, but the forecast is showing zero degrees on Saturday morning before the nights slowly start to warm up, reaching 10C overnight on May bank holiday Monday. Very late compared to last year which is probably why everything seems so sloooow!

Grey day here today and 10 degrees but apparently sunny and 18 on Thursday! I have to get a lot of bits to the tip this week which is a trek across town and will take a toll on petrol annoyingly, so going to tetris the car as much as I can today to make the most of each journey.

Yesterday at the garden centre I found a reduced Dicksonia fern (half price!) which I am hoping I can rejuvenate as it had some brown fronds and yellow tips. Have repotted it into a slightly larger pot and then into an old brass cauldron I found and lined with a bin bag when clearing out the lean-to. It is now in the living room on the back wall opposite the main window, so out of direct light but in the brightest room. If anyone has one and has any suggestions I would be grateful. I am a sucker for the reduced items at the garden centre and swear they see me coming!

Nothing done today but noticed the mice who visit my greenhouse have found my bag of dried mealworm and had a feast. Well played,mouselings,well played.

Tied in hawthorn shoots along the back, south boundary. I'm praying that the council workmen leave well alone.

I only managed to prune the sweet peas, didn't get them planted. Pulled a few weeds from some pots, watered some new strawberries in, and fixed a leaning tree post.

NDN, lovely woman, also my arch nemesis, caught me outside and started a ramble out our local MP, so all of that ate up my 2 hours of free time after I'd dropped DS off at school. The rest of my week is very busy so was really hoping to have some uninterrupted time outside. April is slipping away and there's still so much to do.

My Farmer Gracy order arrived yesterday whilst I was at work. Some echinacea, some geums, and a couple of other bits. I had hoped to have the front raised beds ready by now, but it hasn’t happened - I was digging out ivy roots and found a metal rod sticking vertically upwards, only about 3” below the surface of the soil. DP will bring his angle grinder and cut it off for me, but that means I have to wait for that before I can fill the hole in. I might have to just put some of the plants in pots for now.

Yesterday was very windy and quite chilly and today looks to be the same so I doubt I will be doing anything in the garden until the wind drops which is probably going to be Friday.

My tulips are almost finished, a couple of pots are still bravely standing up to the windy conditions but will probably be finished by the weekend. The azaleas are coming out, a white one, pink one and a lovely lilac one and my geums have flower heads almost out, Lady Strathairn and Mrs Bradshaw.

The blue penstemon I bought last year is now pretty big and has a lot of heads on it so I am really looking forward to seeing what that will look like once it flowers.

I have buds on all the roses, Guernsey Cream, General Sikorsky, Ernest Markham and Blue Angel clematis are all doing really well so I expect to see more colour coming out over the next week or so.

Summer is a coming, thank goodness. 😃

Snap! Got those 2 bare roots from Farmer Gracy some weeks ago. I pot them up and they’re looking quite healthy, ready for planting out soon.

@MaggiethecatThat’s good to know, I’ve never ordered from them before. I did wonder if I would be able to put them in pots short term and then get them in the ground in the next couple of weeks, I wasn’t sure if they’d get upset about being interfered with. I have a tendency to overthink things. I have to remind myself, they are plants. They want to grow. It might not be the best approach, for optimum performance this year, but they’ll be happy and settled for next year. I hope.

Presuming yours are bare root too so the instructions should be to soak them for a couple of hours and then pot them up to start them off.
Just checked the dates and these were potted up on 29/3. Will
plant them out after frost risk passed.
As you say, they want to grow so don’t worry!

Yes, bare root. I opened up the bags for ventilation, and put them somewhere cool and out of the sun. I’m not sure I’ll be able to pot them tonight, I’ll try though.

Grrrr. My peat free potting on compost is crap. Topped off the raised beds with it and put my peas in there last week; it's now dried to death and my peas are wilting.

I have put some Nepeta in my borders that should have been planted a few weeks back. I have given them a good trim so hopefully they will be ok. Have planted up the rest of my patio containers and must not buy any more plants. I have no more room. I’ve given them all a seaweed feed.

Some of the potting compost available is really awful. Fibrous,dry and full of bits of wood. Very disappointing.
Been dealing with indoor plants today in the office. Never want to see another peace lily again. We started with one a few years ago and now have 15 as I keep splitting and repotting them.

Not just bits of wood. Bits of plastic and even pebbles (for weight?). Just wrong.

Agree on the compost. Some of the pots I have filled have formed a hard crust on top and I’m not impressed. I’m going to sieve the rest and mix some slow release fertiliser and grit into the bags I have left.

I’m sure it’s why my tomatoes and chillies haven’t germinated, even though I did nothing different this year. Lots of people in Facebook groups having similar issues with poor compost, even expensive stuff.

I think this is why my peas haven't really germinated. I did a seed snail for them and out of 24 I got 1 pea. They're watered and kept humid, but the tops go dry and crusty so fast.

I'm all for saving the peat bogs but wish peat free compost was a lot better than it is!

Yep, I have the crusty tops too!

The builders are back! If they touch the clematis on the joint fence, I will be extremely annoyed.

Summer is going to be looooong, messy and noisy by the the sound of it and I know it will put me off going into the garden or reading on my patio. 🙄

I’ve potted up my Farmer Gracy plants today. Some of the echinacea roots were quite long, but had shoots growing as if they’d been horizontal, so I had to find a seed tray for those.

I need to go and get more compost tomorrow, and then I’m going to tip out the strawberry pots and re-plant them, seeing as the big raised bed isn’t going to be ready any time soon. And I’m going to see if I can get hold of some tyres, to grow potatoes in.

Woo hoo, DP just came round with his angle grinder to cut off the steel rod that was poking up in the front raised bed! I can get out there tomorrow and get some plants in there now!

DH has finished the left hand side raised bed. Although he does want to put a few more panels on. He has filled the bed with compost and I’ve planted up a pot bound honeysuckle and a climbing hydrangea. Everything in a pot has (or was in a pot) has had a lovely seaweed feed and a lovely water and now it’s up to them!

Never buying miracle gro 'compost' ever again. Had to mulch my pea plants with the precious little homemade compost, some decent John Innes potting on and some old pot soil today in the hopes it'll trap moisture in the crusty top once watered well.