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.

Painted my fence! Planted some dwarf sweet peas and some dahlia tubers.

@Wipeywipey did you add anything with pectin to your peony jam? Our first batch didn't go quite as planned but I've got my secateurs ready to go and lop some more flowers off.

I planted loads of wildflowers and some strawflower seeds a friend gave me.

I weeded the lawn but the ground is still cement like here, so I ended up snapping weeds off than I would have liked, as I just couldn't get my weeding tool in deep enough. We had 2.5 hours of light rain on Saturday, which is the longest sustained period of rain since late March here in central south east England. Definitely need more. The forecast shows some more over the next few days.

I pruned some low branches on a tree (not sure what it is, must identify it) and also a laurel bush I have as well as some of the neighbours large and overgrown shrubs that are leaning over my fence.

The rosemary bush I moved from a pot to the front small bed as definitely croaked, as has another pot shrub that I moved (name not known). However, one has survived, so that's something.

Gave the buddleja a Chelsea chop and weeded the flower beds.

I think we were too harsh with our Buddleia last winter, it’s barely shooting now, let alone ready for a Chelsea chop!

Well I was perhaps grossly optimistic about the weather staying dry enough for me to do some strimming today.

The weather report says the rain will stop by 9 am but it's going to be cloudy all day with a high chance of precipitation throughout.

I might just go for it anyway unless it absolutely pelts it down.

Please ignore our hectic kitchen, but I think we finally got the peony jam down. Thank you @Wipeywipey ❤️

Used a mix of our red and pink so neither plant looked too naked. We did add extra pectin as the syrupy texture of the first batch was just a bit too thin for us.

So glad - I haven't been on here for a few days so missed your previous message. Mine wasn't as firm as it usually is with fruit in, but it did set. I suspect the syrup would be good with yoghurt or something though! Glad it worked out, I really like the taste so I hope you enjoy it too!

Currently waging war on the weeds in the back garden. I feel like everything I do makes them stronger.

It's mostly very very well established dock plants and I feel like I've tried everything at this point. The good bad and ugly short of just dropping a nuclear bomb on them.

The swimming pool will be going up tomorrow ready for filling over the weekend.

Seen as my veg beds have gone to pot this year I'm just going to pull up everything and sow some rye grass to keep the weeds at bay this year and then I'll chop it down at the end of the year for mulch over winter.

My weeds arenttoo bad this year, mainly because I’ve reclassified most as wildflowers. Slugs and snails though are rampant. I hate the little tossers so much, but can’t bring myself to hurt them. I have done my very favourite thing in the garden today, wandered around snipping flowers for the house

You sound like my daughter. She sent me photo of slugs that had entered the kitchen of her uni house and she said she could not bring herself to kill them. Placed them back outside of the house instead 🙄

I read somewhere a long time ago, so forgive me if I'm misquoting or misremembering parts, but it basically said if you get rid of slugs more will just come in but if you just leave them they self regulate their population through pheromones I think? Basically per square metre there will only ever be roughly X amount of slugs because a lack of pheromones attracts them due to no competition and too many deters them due to too much competition so you'll never get rid of the buggers all you'll do is stress yourself out if you try because it'll seem never ending.

I did try beer traps a few years ago and that worked but moving the beer traps to empty them made me 🤢.

I think it was the same place I read that if you have a slug problem with your hostas the trick is to plant more hostas, because the pest pressure is the same but spread over more plants and it gives each plant more of a fighting chance.

I think it was either the last thread or the thread before someone posted their relatives hosta garden and it was one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen. If you're still here stick your hand up and post the photo again because it was bloody lovely.

Also one phrase that stuck with me was that if your plants aren't being eaten then your garden isn't part of the ecosystem. Given the news about bird feeders and water stations being linked to higher rates of disease, it is something I am especially considering this year. I don't do bird feeders or waterers anyway as there's plenty of natural water around us, but I do still want to see them in my garden so if that means a few volunteer plants for the slimy little buggers then I guess I can't object and I've got to be all for it 🤮🤮🤮

If the very lovely Sir David Attenborough finds some creatures repulsive but can still conserve their ecosystems then I shall keep calm and carry on... with disgust.

On a different note, we made a peony jam sponge cake with the syrupy stuff.

I can't wait to give it a try later, with a blob of cream.

Sadly the strawberries were not home grown, they came from the great farm of Tesco.

Away looking after a relative for 10 days so I came back to an asparagus bed colonised by grass and fat hen. It needs more oomph than I have right now, but I've weeded about a third of it and the chickens are enjoying the results

I've sown french beans, dwarf peas, oak leaf lettuce and planted out the plantain seedlings.

The tomato plants have some flowers just opening.

Mowed the lawn and picked a dozen peony buds for the house. They are Duchesse de Nemours and smell of lemon drizzle cake.

More hedge cutting. Tied in more of the hawthorn rear boundary hedge as well. More of the hawthorn blossom has opened and the lilac flowers are now in bud. Ditto, the crabapples. The morello cherry blossom is nearly over.

Cleared a bed of forget-me-nots and sycamore seeds. Mulched with mushroom compost and planted uchiki kuri and candy roasters (it is a big bed). So many beds still to clear. Getting there slowly.

DH and I were sitting in the front garden at the end of day and a couple walked by and stopped to say how much they loved our garden 🤗very satisfying!

You are so right , Jimmy, it’s a privilege to be part of the ecosystem. I have hostas by my tiny pond and they are not nibbled, just the brassicas, think I might just chuck a packet of cosmos on that bed instead. I really am crap at veg, don’t know why I bother. My elephant leeks are the size of pencils and starting to flower😒. I visited my son the garden designer today. He has a minuscule but perfect courtyard garden. Came home and was inspired to finally tackle the horribly neglected stand of black bamboo. Although I think it may be about to flower and die any way, but for now it looks all Japanese and intentional.

Removed Box hedging….bloody caterpillars..my will to fight them has gone :(

I'm laid in bed at the minute and all my muscles are shaking. I strimmed, raked and disposed of the debris, did a million trips with the kettle to pour onto the really stubborn dock stumps in a bid to at least weaken the bastards, and then started pulling grass up by hand that had grown on top of the weed membrane I put down years ago, never got round to covering, and has rotten away from being weathered, then pulled up that weed membrane and tackle these very thick woody buddleia that have either self seeded or had the pleasure of support from bamboo neighbours sky rats.

It was a team effort to be fair, but I do think some of us, not naming names, but definitely not me, were doing busy work and not hard work. I half expected that nice Mr Titchmarsh to pop his head over the fence and tell me the family will be back in 1 hour, cut to the ground force music, play some 90s advertisements and then suddenly it would be completed after a 5 minute interlude but alas that was merely a daydream.

I think I'm going to have nightmares about bloody buddleia. If I manage to even get to sleep.

That cake was gorgeous though.

Due to have the work in the garden finished today, (fingers crossed) it was delayed due to the rain we had as they needed totally dry day to carry on. Hoping it will not carry over into the weekend although I doubt I will be here as the weather is absolutely glorious for about the next week.

I have pots that need to be moved back into place but I did something to my back on Monday shifting some furniture in the house around, I should have known better but although it's not quite so excruciating now, I am being really careful with what I do outside. Carefully potted up my Minibel tomato and made up to tubs to go out the front of the the house with trailing double geraniums, million bells and some pale blue lobelia. I'll have to wait for my brother to come next weekend and get him to shift some of the containers for me. He'll be thrilled 😆

The garden is looking really lovely with quite a lot of colour, all the roses are heavy with buds, some already open, lots not quite yet, two clematis have flowers open, I have even noticed a small flower on the Agapanthus I bought last year in Poundland, it's got more leaves now and I spotted the start of a flower yesterday. It's a blue one so hopefully each year it will get bigger and better.

Looking forward to the days ahead of sunshine and warmth and my back getting back to normal.

Happy gardening everyone!

Mowed my lawn yesterday evening. I fed it a while back, but we didn't have enough rain until recently for the feed to have kicked in properly. The rain finally fell last week and I can now see what a crappy job I did of spreading the feed!!! OMG, I can literally see where every grain of feed did and didn't fall in the semi-circles I obviously distributed it in. Looks a right bloody mess, if I'm being honest.

I'll be moving more stones into the area that will be a small patio over the next 3 days. However, I'm going to take heed from the experiences above and not overdo it! It is such a slow process but will eventually release two beds from under their stony, weed-meshed prison and I can transfer loads of stuff that is in pots and hopefully have to do less watering!

As always at this stage of No Mow May, the lawn is absolute chaos. 9 more days until we have a bit of tidiness