What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

As our Stellar cherries are doing so well, I've put a net over them to discourage the birds. It's fixed to two bamboo canes up against the fence panel and just draped over it. As the tree grows I can raise the back end of the net further up the canes.

It's a piece of the same net I used to stretch over the koi pool to keep the leaves off in the Autumn, being black it's "invisible" so didn't spoil the view from the French windows. Nor does it now.

 

[Sean Regan]

Pruned some off some of the top growth of our three quinces along the party fence. I don't like them growing too tall as the lawn doen't like too much shade, it encourages moss.

Sprayed the acer in the front garden. Greenfly love this as the leaves have a sticky excretion at this time of the year. The leaves are its best feature as the blossom is green and hard to see.

Pruned back some of the two viburnums. In a "straight fight" they'll beat our rhododenrons and azaleas for space.

Admired some of our clematis, which are starting to flower.

 

[roadrunner]

I don't cut grass much anymore in my yard, since I only have about 100 sq/ft (9.3 sq/m) remaining in my yard. One would be forgiven to think that I don't have to do yard maintenance any longer; however, the truth is far from that, unless you don't mind having a jungle for a yard.

In the growing season, I have to go around and cut trails thru my yard, so I can get around and I also have to cut away certain plants from my cultivated plants, so they don't get covered over. Once you get into the habit, it's not bad, much rather do this than walking lines up and down the yard. And all the cut-downs make great mulch.

That's what I did today and I got to repeat it about every two-weeks. So less time than cutting grass and much more fun

 

[Purple Marauder]

I set up a couple of trellises for my cucumbers and black eyed peas. I planted them this year on a whim as I have never tried to grow them before. They have really begun to take off. I had to get something up quickly. I used a tomato cage for the cucumbers and rigged up a series of tomato stakes and some jute cord for the peas. Next year, I think I'll be a bit more prepared.

 

[Black_Thumb]

We are finally getting around to putting in some raised beds and I finished the tiers on the back slope for other types of plants as well. It's a work in progress so please forgive how sloppy it looks right now but here are a few pics of what we're working on. The soil in the raised beds is a mixture of top soil in the yard and organic garden soil but I think I need to add a lot more garden soil next time around because here in the desert climate of southern California, it is usually over 100 degrees and the soil dries out and gets very compacted and I think that might make it very difficult for things to push through. And watering is always a challenge (too much, not enough...hard to tell).

The last photo shows the tiers better. We have strawberries, blackberries, and raspberries there but need to add some more. I buried chicken wire under the soil because of the stupid groundhogs. They have recently become a big problem. I've tried some humane ways to get rid of them but they are relentless so I'm going to have to kill them, I'm afraid. They destroy everything. I'm open to ideas on how to deal with them too so if you have any advice on that, I'm all ears.

 

[lasunshine]

Same here,I can only grow rocks for grass.

 

[Simple Gardening]

Amended our brand new garden with compost. Wondering if we used the right amount for our garden size??? (We are newbies) Here's a link to a video of it, advice and opinions in the video comments would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

 

[lasunshine]

Look like you off to a good start.

 

[Sean Regan]

Just a check for aphids. Nothing else needs doing apart from a bit of watering later.

The first of the roses in pots are coming out. I'm not saying these are particularly worth mentioning, but I'm very pleased that the foliage shows no sign of any insect damage or blackspot and looks very healthy. I've given them more attention this year feeding and a spray of a "rose tonic."

This is Olivia Rose Austin. One of the several bare root roses we bought on-line from David Austin in November last year.

 

[Sean Regan]

There's always something to do isn't there? Bank Holiday or not.

I had to replace the front support bar under the bottom tread of these tea-house steps.

The original was rotting away. The problem with timber today is that it comes from "sustainable resources," in other words it has the density of forced rhubarb so won't last long. I used a bit of the tanalised stuff I had left when I renovated the pergolas.

I jet-washed the outside of the wheelie bins. They now look nearly new. They needed doing. The bin men shouldn't have to handle bins with muck on the outside.

 

[Sean Regan]

Had a near disaster yesterday, the wind blew over one of the more bushy roses on our "rose patio."

I say "near disaster" as all ten roses are in ceramic pots on three-wheeled plastic pot movers. It happened a couple of years ago and the pot cracked. They're around £30 a pop now and a bigger problem is to find one that's a match or even a near match and avoid a queue at a garden centre now, if I actually had to find one. But I was in luck, the pot was intact.
Pot movers usually only have three wheels to make them more stable on an uneven surface, but they aren't so, if there's any wind.
For the last couple of years I've been taking the wheels off at around this time of the year, to make them more stable, which you might think defeats the purpose, but if necessary you can slide them a bit with your foot.

Anyway, the jobs done.

I got up on the tea-house roof, (fortunately, my wife couldn't see me from her chair in the lounge!) and attacked the trees in the corner of next door's garden and the garden of the house diagonally opposed to ours. I gave them a trim where they were starting to overhang the roof. My concern is that these branches will eventually start to rub on the roofing felt and damage it and I needed to prune them before they got too thick.

 

[jasper]

I hand pollinated my squash.

 

[Sean Regan]

As a point of interest. I re-felted this roof ten years ago, with the assistance of our youngest son who came over to help. (He got the mucky job, I laid the felt) By then, this building was over 20 years old, but we were both up there together and I weigh 12st and he nearer 14st and I built this so well it easily took the weight of the pair of us. It shows that it is best as I did, use a non-tear polymer roofing felt. It's worth the additional expense, as even after ten years, it's still in perfect condition.

 

[Sean Regan]

I scarified the lawn with my 35 year-old B&D scarifier. Still going strong, though I had to replace the belt ten years ago. Mind you, it doesn't get used that much,

I set it on the middle position for the roller, as otherwise it would tend to rip stuff out. It means going over it in both directions a few times, but I don't mind.

I poked out a nest the wood pigeons were making in our big acer in the front garden. It was more, "a collection of twigs."
We don't like them, they make too much mess on the patio. They're rubbish at making nests, but try every year.
But I was annoyed as I used my Barnel telescopic pruner to poke it and over extended it which is easily done, which meant I had to completely take it to bits and put it back together again. A real fiddly job.
I was concerned as I'd had the same problem with the one I had five years ago and back then couldn't mend it. So I had to replace it as I need it to prune that tree each year. They've gone up to £99 now, so I was glad I was able to mend it this time.

 

[Sean Regan]

Did nothing more than feed the birds and have a (short) stroll round today.

I like to "see what we've got" and make plans for next year.
I start getting into pruning the wisterias from about now when they are past their best, getting rid of any straggly growth thsat goes on all summer. Later I'll prune off the dead blossom, it'll save a daily sweep up of the fallen ones.

But with this new one I'm letting it do its own thing for a bit.



Firstly, I want it to bush out a bit over the canopy of the pergola and at the same time let the ends cascade down further, for about a couple of feet. I'll tidy them up later in the year.

I could get into this phlox and weed out lots of whispy bits of grass, but I won't untill the blooms have died off, which won't be for a bit.

I'm pleased with our giant lily progress. I sprayed them a few times for lily beetle a while back and there's not much damage. I've only found about three beetles this year.


These will grow to up to a foot above the height of the fence.

They always lean over, looking for the sun above the fence, I usually have to get in there and tie them up in a couple of weeks.

I always believe that with random plantings, there's no such thing as an unwelcome clash of colours in nature.

Our second new David Austin rose is starting to make an appearance. Roald Dahl.

We must have had this small bloom rose for over thirty-five years in this old concrete tub, but it is so pretty, yet every bloom no more than a couple of inches in diameter. It suffers from blackspot every year,
Not so badly this year and I'm removing any trace as I see it.

Another "inmate" of "the alley of shame," is starting a "bloom protest."

The lawn is starting to recover from my scarifying.