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.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead Maybe your brother could also try growing veg? That's how most gardening men I know got into it, usually it starts with a single chilli plant.

@Agapornis I luff the idea of a Roman mosaic patio! And funnily enough I too have been picking up general debris in the garden today - stones and bits of rubbish.

Also deadheaded a potted herb that I spotted needing a tidy but can't remember what it is! Thyme or oregano maybe. Has a scent but I'm not 100% sure! Will look at my wee her

Not sure if it counts as "gardening" but I've been working on my driveway again following the rust-removal I did this week. I STUPIDLY decided to top up the stones on the driveway last year but didn't colour match properly. So now that the sun is shining, the stones that don't match stand out, glowing! That makes it easier to pick them out. Have done a bit today and just left the trug out the front so that whenever it's sunny/I have 20 mins/I see any out of place, I can just pick them out and chuck them in said trug.

Aha, I could trick him into this. Get him to plant a chilli seed then quickly swap it with a £5 chilli bush from ASDAs gardening racks in a few weeks. He would be both flabbergasted and amazed.

@Agapornis Thank you, I felt I’d outed myself as the world’s most ridiculous gardener. It has spurred me on to reach last years leaf mould and dig out some of the good compost, and bag it up. Maybe tomorrow. My stones are probably also too big to use as grit, but I do it anyway altho not with seedlings, obvs.

Are you confusing your brother with your niece and nephew 😅 surely he's old enough to learn delayed gratification... But yeah it's a bit late. I forgot to sow chilli seeds this year, but am down south so fingers crossed that anything I sow this weekend will still be fine.

I intended to plant out/pot up some supermarket coriander today, but it's raining and miserable so I'm hiding inside with the cats.

You would think so. He's definitely undiagnosed autistic though lord knows how cos he was non-verbal until he was 5, and has always struggled with delaying gratification and poor object permanence.

He really wants to grow a single flower though to give to his partner. Just the one though. Any more and it's too much responsibility. 😂

I’m going to happily lurk and enjoy your efforts from indoors. My health is currently curtailing my gardening, I actually have asked a local gardener to come and sort me out and today he started on my front borders. It’s a real transformation!
I’m hoping he can come back and do the back garden too 🤞🏻

waves

I'm back to the gardening threads after a lapse.

I weeded the border between the side exterior hedge and the driveway. [Driveway: a few slabs with eroded gravel in between.]

Picked up a pot of orange viola from Freuchie/Bridgend Garden Centre yesterday and planted it at the butt of the side hedge. I'm trying to dissuade dog walkers from allowing their animals to defecate there.

Happily, the remainder violas that I purchased at B&M [Cowdenbeath] last year and planted in patio pots have come away beautifully this month. I think that some of them must have seeded themselves - and yet they seem to have come true. (Only two or three plants seem to have survived the winter, so the rest seemed to come from nowhere.)

Some of them are orange, the pot of organ viola for the driveway hedge.

I've weeded out more weeds, including a whole load of wild garlics, and ive transplanted gooseberry, redcurrant, lambs ears, heuchera and bergamot cuttings I took last autumn, all of which have rooted and are regrowing.

Ive also devised a plan for the coming 2 weeks when my OH gets back from the UK.

1 to 2 days of weeding
1 to 2 days of splitting and replanting
1 to 2 days of bulk planting including what we took indoors over winter
1 to 2 days of mulching.

This should get most of the remaining work done ready for the coming season.

I am off the thread for two days and come back to 50 new posts!

The FOMO in me is strong.

Pigeons: they use my garden as a trough AND a toilet, sadly. The mess is maddening. I net the top of my chicken run to keep them out of that but I can't net all of the beds (though I do net some of them too).

The rooks create different problems and I forgive them entirely. They break off dead branches from the trees in the allotment and the cherry tree in my garden to find bits of twigs for making nests. A great many dead bits fall down on the netted chicken run and the allotment paths and my bed under the cherry tree. They get a free pass though because they are nest building, not stealing my food that they then return to me in the form of large wet lumps of slimy grossness. I hate pigeons and we have a lot of them.

Treated the back of the summer house now that I can get access after last autumn's tree cutback. Also cleared out some crap and did a dump run. Reluctant to clear leaf litter etc as still a bit early so sowed seeds in greenhouse and bought a couple of shrubs to go in a gap. Oh, and a beautiful purple sage for the herb bed.

This week I picked up a number of 9cm pots of paratia pedunculata, as suggested by someone on here, sorry not sure who (Jimmy? was it you?) which I will put in the now dug up front lawn. As a lawn.

I went to a wholesale nursery and OMG!! Wanted to buy so much!! I did grab a bunch of dryopteris felix-mas Crispa Cristata just because I couldn't help myself. And a few other things not many <ahem>

Nicotiana, pom pom aster, tangerine chillies and aubergine seeds are started, in the propagator.

It was me! Does your nursery do online deliveries? I can't find it anywhere and it's on my list.

I tidied my shed and made a wee box in there for things I need when I'm outside: sunglasses, SPF lipbalm and most importantly: HANKIES! My nose runs constantly when I'm outside, especially if it's cold. (It's not a hayfever type thing).

<drums fingers impatiently for things to start growing>

Lowden Nursery near Bath, doesn't look like they even do a website but I cleaned them out of pratia anyway. They didn't have a lot.

They also had them at West Kington Nursery but they are strictly trade. I got lucky, my SIL spotted the plants at Lowden and gave me the heads up.

Ah drat. I'm not local, but I could definitely have wangled a family trip out to Bath and then slipped and fallen into the nursery, accidentally.

Exactly my situation. My eagle eyed SIL and a family visit made it all possible.

I decided my very yellow bunches of daffodils needed a variety of colour and have bought several pots of the cream coloured ones which I've planted round there.

While I was there some pots of primroses and cowslips also fell into the trolley and looked so sorry for themselves when I suggested they might go back that I bought them home.

I've planted one of each under our apple trees and the rest in the corner under our very vigorous climbing rose, where I tend to put wild flower types.
It looks like the white bluebell seeds I threw down there last year might be actually growing to my surprise too.

I also treated myself to long handled trowel which is brilliant. No more back ache!

The garden is very overgrown.

Filled up the brown bin with ivy and brambles.

I planted a new anemone leveillei bare root plant, moved a campanula, planted a potted narcissus I got from Tesco and put out some pots on the front window ledge. (Tulips, violas and grape hyacinths)

If your SIL happens to see any more I'd be ever so grateful for a nudge. I'd frame it to my family as a cultural trip and a fancy brunch... to the garden centre.

Took last years garden trimmings to the dump today, got told off for wearing crocs by the chap who works there.

Popped back to b&m and picked up a 6 cell tray of poppies to go in wkth the volunteer foxgloves for this year.

The clear lacquer spray paint arrived so when the kids paint their plant pots I can seal the paint in, and then they'll be sowing their strawberry seeds in.

I'm definitely not utilising child labour for our small PYO strawberry farm

B&M has poppies? Oooooh.... (I have oodles of volunteer foxgloves where the Norway Spruce was taken out last year.)

They do and they look quite healthy as well

Woohoo! My local nursery and garden centre too!
👋🏻
p,s. West Kington are open to the public on certain weekends, they’re literally a couple of miles from me.