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 was busy yesterday so just had time to water my greenhouse and seeded beds. The garden is looking very pretty, so we are going to eat our lunch outside if it warms up a bit. I am going to write a list of all the little jobs that need doing and stick it on the fridge so I can just tackle one if I have 20 minutes . I’ve got some stuff in pots that has waited far too long for a permanent home. And other pots with spent bulbs that are adding nothing and need to be emptied. @DameProfessorIDareSay, I decant potted primroses to the backs of borders and under trees, and they grow huge and floriferous, they actually need dividing and rehoming too.

I’m impatient and want beautiful trees overnight 😊

Whereas I’m a stingy gardener and will wait a decade for a free tree to grow rather than pay loads for a mature one.

Well, I’m both impatient and stingy 😂

This weekend I have mowed the lawn, 3 buckets of weeds and a Fiat 500 full of a buddleia for the green tip tomorrow.

Spent hours yesterday pulling horrific amounts of ivy out of a fence. I cannot believe how much there was. Also cutting it back on walls. All growing from the neighbours garden. Damn them.

Too tired to do much today. Just planted out some runner beans and crossed my
fingers. They have been the food stuff of choice for slugs for the last few years.
Sat out in the rocking chair with a glass of wine and read my book.

Soil has finally warmed up enough so I seeded my lawn with a grass and micro clover mix today. Also put some snapdragons and strawberries into pots.

I’ve had two days back to back in the garden so have got loads done. Did wet and forget for the patio after cleaning it yesterday, weeded and re-levelled the whole border, cleaned all the pots and replanted them, put all the furniture back on the patio, cleared away all the dead camellia buds, and cleaned all the scale insects off a holly bush with a toothbrush (v satisfying). Also splashed out on some quite big choisia plants for the border to try to break up the sameness with some bright golden green. Cleaned everything and put it all to rights. I’m so tired! Must learn to do a simple job and then sit down. It looks lovely though - worth it.

I've already noticed bamboo shoots and that horrible bindweed coming through into my garden, also from next door. It's a never ending job trying to spot it and do something about it immediately.

I like them but they don't touch their garden other than to reluctantly mow it around five times a year.

Don't get me started on the other side with the brambles ... 😫

"I decant potted primroses to the backs of borders and under trees, and they grow huge and floriferous, they actually need dividing and rehoming too."
I’d love to do that @Zebracat but the only space I have would be under the new fruit trees that are needing a bucket of water chucked on them once a week, so pots it has to be for now.

Snow peas are in as of yesterday and reaching for the trellis. Sweet peas looking much perkier today after feeding. I have sown more Cos, parsley, spring onions and some ox-eye daisies (and given my seed box a sort out).
The malva have been moved into the greenhouse, having failed to germinate so far in the propagator, and the rudbeckia seedlings are springing up beautifully so they can just stay on the warm windowsill. Propagator can now be cleaned and put back in the shed tomorrow until next year and I have my main windowsill back!
Tomatoes seem absolutely fine in the unheated greenhouse, as do all my tiny plug plants. Looks like we might still get a couple of nights this week of 0 degrees C so can’t relax yet, but so far so good and ready with the fleece if needed.

I have re-potted an olive whose pot was being taken over by dandilions. Hopefully it prefers it's new home as it was quite hard to detangle it without losing a few roots. My main objective today was to tack some wire netting to the top of my pergola to coax my jasmine across it. It has managed to make its way up the leg but now seems to be a bit unsure of grip, so I am hopeful this will help.

I put my self seeded chamomile into my fruit tree pots today alongside the olive to deter weeds and bugs when fruiting. I have repurposed an old sink and pedestal into planters for some butterfly mix in one unused corner. I also planted some freesias both inside and out in various pots.

I have a young very bold young robin that seems to be keen on me moving big pots around to provide him with bug discovery. If I am not careful I will spend my days rejigging the garden in attempts to get him worms...he nearly landed on my shoulder like a parrot this morning!

I have scarified the back lawn. I pointed out to dh that the scarifier does a better job of cutting the lawn than the lawnmower. I will get a new lawnmower out of him... he is wavering...

@DameProfessorIDareSayCan I ask about your rudbeckia? I bought three big ones a couple of years ago when no bloody thing in my garden had flowers on it, and it was payday - I thought they were perennial, but clearly either they’re not or I accidentally killed them. When you raise them from seed, how closely do you plant them to each other, and how many do you put in? I do love them, but never get round to seeds (am a fair weather gardener). There’s a nursery up the road that has a good range, though, and I could get some small plants from them. I just need a bit of planting advice if you don’t mind.

Today's plan is to prune the wisteria so it is trained upwards. The weather is not on my side but I just need to eat the frog and get it done.

It's been my plan for the past few days but I've not been able to bear any weight on my foot following a rather clumsy stumble into the breakfast bar, so it feels like I've thrown away all the lovely sunny gardening days by being startled at a packet of ketchup falling out of the fridge.

I'll laugh about it one day.

I actually achieved what I'd set out to do, and the sun came out so it was lovely doing a small task and just enjoying being outdoors.

Glorious day yesterday. I repotted some acers, a fuschia and an agapanthus. Fed the sweet peas. A friend gave me some geranium and herb cuttings so I’ve attempted to pot them up.
Much colder today and I was at the garden project where I volunteer and I weeded eleven billion creeping buttercup plants.

There's not much I can do in the garden at the moment, it's been really windy and is going to be the same until Friday. I have some work starting on repointing the path, cleaning the patio and resealing it and moving pots around for starters next week. More work to follow.

Last week my friend got a beach hut to rent for three year from the local council, I'm going to share the cost as we did once before when my dad had one.

I think the garden may get a bit less attention on the days when it is sunny and warm as I will be down there gazing across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. The garden might have to look after itself occasionally. 😃

That sounds lovely @Myblueclematis

I think all my seedlings are dead.

Been planning DSs birthday party all day and forgot to open the conservatory door to let some cool air in. They're all wilted and flopped over flat.

Builders are in for my tiling job so everything I couldn't move/get to has now been put into the garden (on top of the bluebell patch sadly). It will make me go through it all and determine what can stay at least.

This morning I built a cold frame so that my seedlings and radishes can survive without the lean-to for the next week or so as the builders are working at mine around other jobs so I have no firm timeframes. I watered my window boxes and put a few new seeds in that I had forgotten about but I don't hold out much hope for them as the packet was probably about 15 years old!

Yesterday I checked a few seedlings that I started off a few weeks back. I had a free packet of Antirrhinum seeds, pure white ones. I wasn't very optimistic at my growing attempt but I checked them in the mini greenhouse I bought recently and they are doing quite well.

I'd like to hope they will get large enough to plant out either in pots or in the garden so fingers crossed. Also, my tomato seedlings are growing very well, I hope to have at least four to five of them to give away.

It's still really windy down here south coast but today I am going to a local garden nursery to get summer plants that might well have to stay in the garage for a week or two but I'm hoping to get my favourite geraniums, trailing ones and some million bells callibracha for baskets and tubs and anything else that might will take my fancy.

Just having a cup of tea break.

Went out to the next door neighbour lopping brambles in her garden that have crept through from our side.

I said don't worry about those I'll just drop DS off at school and then I'll come round and do it, I need to lop these hedges anyway. She said oh no you don't need to do that I'll do my side and then you can use my green bin as well for any of your clippings. I said are you sure because if I'm honest I think I'm just going to cut them back to the ground and rip the roots out because they're too much to handle and it might fill your bin up. She said yeah no problem all my garden is paved anyway so I never use my bin.

Then the neighbour over the road overheard and offered his green bin and brought me his saw.

All very lovely kind gestures, but now they're all stood outside talking to me but I can't make out what it is exactly that they're saying when my head is inside the bushes and I'm lopping and sawing away so I keep having to stop and start and I am really bad at restarting once I've stopped.

I feel bad ripping everything out because we don't use bird feeders, and round the roses I actually don't mind there being brambles at all and we see a lot of birds in them when they're in fruit but round the hedges it's just too hard to separate the brambles from the hedges along the adjoining fence. I've done one bush, and I don't even know how it had leaves because the stems just crumbled.

My corn and beans germinated on my south-facing windowsill mega fast this week! I'm so pleased; the last couple of years ive had issues with them rotting but maybe peat-free seed sowing compost is the way to go after all.

Two courgette plants are doing great too and ive already potted them on. They have got about 4 true leaves each. If anything I'll run out of windowsill space at this rate before it's warm enough to plant them out.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead I feel the same about my brambles (especially since watching Attenborough Gardens series) and know that Robins can nest in them. I have left the pile I chopped out for a few days as the sun withers them nicely so they are easier to squash into the bin and I also imagine all the bugs being picked out by birds...I am hoping I am balancing the destruction with feeding this way and am leaving the ones around the base of the tree alone for now.