What did you do in your garden today?

[Meadowlark]

...Cut this courgette as the other few on the plant weren't growing

It's been my experience that regular harvesting of zucchini fruit promotes the growth of more fruit and vice versa.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

Andrew,
I bet you felt really good doing what you did,?

 

[Sean Regan]

Actually, nothing in mine but a lot elsewhere.

Our neigbours in the adjoining semi are quite a bit older than are we, if you can believe that. He went into a care home a few months ago and she followed him today. The house is to be sold. They have no family.
For years they never did anything to the garden, a friend came round once a month to cut the grass. But he stopped bothering.
They could afford to have their garden looked after, but didn't really care. They were away a lot when he was still able to drive.

I've always had a problem with their bindweed, growing through the party fence and strangling my azaleas, which she thought was a nice plant,
As the house is now empty, I went round with a bucket with the intention of getting rid of it where it was creeping through. I actually need the green bin there was that much of it. Anyway, I cleared it all, including that which was growing over the bench seat on the patio near the fence. It filled the bin.

Hopefully the new owners will take more care of the garden. For the most part it's a blank canvas, being mostly grass with just a couple of overgrown beds.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

Hi Sean,
Yes i know what mean ref bindweed and living in a semi, If you've followed my verious post you'll see one we're i said as a kid (5yrs and just started infant school) My dad told me to tell the teacher we lived in a semi,
All the houses in our street belonged to a group of jewish people,
Now this semi was'nt built as such but the strees near us and our street got bombed 'hence next door' was no more next door and our house became a semi, "With pink wall paper outside and a lot of damp inside" But no garden.

When i married we bought our first house and that was a semi but with a garden and only the inside had wall paper on the walls,

We had two old ladies living one side "both never married, both church people (twice on sundays) and played the piano sunday evening,
(Jesus wants me for a sun beam, just to shine on you)
They we're known as the god squad, But we never had any problems with them, The eldest sister died on the Monday and the younger on the following tuesday,

We like im sure you, just hoped we wouldnt get any bad people moving in
And we did, he was a drunk and the police visited many times,
They left after 3 years and the second lot arrived, and they we're ok but we decided to move further into the countryside and the golden rule was "No neighbours" and detached and i do mean detached not one of these 6 foot devide line idea's
So we went looking and came across the cottage near Bala Lake (7 miles away) up a mile track and the nearest neighbours were 2 miles as the crow flies across the valley,
Now it had been lived in by a dewarf man who was part of a circus and again he died, this place really needed work doing but the location (in summer) was smashing, (in winter) it was a case of leaving the cars down the track and walking to the cottage,
But Sean you could sit on the loo and see Bala lake on a good day

But the thing was we kept to our rule "No semi and if poss, No near neighbours, Its the only way to enjoy your life if like us your a dog lover
"Music lover," and can live without street lighting, waste collection, & collect your mail from the local post office,
Oh and put up with the lines going down most winters,

 

[Sean Regan]

As I went into the garden this afternoon, there was a bit of a commotion under the Stella cherry tree. A blackbird had managed to get in under the net. When it saw me, it panicked and tried to get away. Their first instinct is of cours, to fly up and so it flew into the net. I stood still until it managed to extricate itself, which took it a bit of time.

I've removed the net and picked all the cherries, some of them aren't quite ripe and quite a few had been "sampled." Still there's about getting on for a couple of pounds of decent ones. They're in a tub on the windowsill in the kitchen, I'm hoping they're going to ripen.

Next year I'll have to make a better arrangement with netting.

I cut the lawn, it's slowly getting more like it should be, the small bare patches are closing up and the colour is more even.

 

[Sean Regan]

Not a lot to do toady as it's quite wet out.

I'm quite pleased with these hebes, such a brilliant colour. It doesn't show as well with my camera.

I've been considering the problem I have with this rhodo. It gets masses of blooms each year, but keeps growing, it's now getting very dominant in this bed.

I'd like to cut it back, but it's not like the camelia next to it, I don't think you can chop it back as I do that each year. I could cut it back to the nodules on last year's growth but that won't reduce the height by much. Alternatively, I could remove a few of the front branches to give the small one in front of it a bit more breathing space. Digging it out and moving it back is another option, but the hose of my leaky hose system runs past it about a foot behind it. Something to think about.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

How about winning the lottery buying next door and taking the devide fence down ?

(I won 4 euro this week)
Dreaming,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes this property comes with the castle/ the ocean and fishing rights, plust the golf course,

 

[Sean Regan]

Just a bit of tidying and changing a record in one of my jukeboxes.

I put up with our squirrel practicing her golf shots on the lawn.

But I wish she would observe the golf etiquette and repair her fairway divots.

 

[Sean Regan]

Mowed the lawn as it needed it. That's twice in four days. Took a small chunk out of the blade. It's a Flymo Ultraglide hit a stome, don't know where that came from. I've had it a few years and I've had to sharpen it twice, so I've ordered a new one, £16.99 on eBay post free.
Cheap enough.


Bit the bullet and pruned two front branches off the tortoise shell azalea
Wired a branch of the azalea to the right to encourage it to grow to the left.

With that, the one on the left and the new one in the middle they should fill the gap at the front and if necessary. I can take a couple more branches off the big one in a year or so's time.

The overall look now is a bit more uniform.

I always dead-head rhodos, but never azaleas, that would be too much work.

Those I dead-headed a couple of weeks ago have already put on a lot of growth. Here's just one example.

This rose looked as if it was on its last legs in the "avenue of shame" a couple of weeks ago, so I pruned it right back and put it on the small patio in front of the shed where it would get some sun and it has put on some new growth.
I'm quite pleased as it's a David Austin, "Sceptered Isle," so probably wasn't a cheap-o.

Our Sorbus will have a good crop of red berries this year.

Second bloom on this wisteria. I usually prune them off with the unwanted growth.

Pruned back some of these azaleas to get a more even display next year. The canes below them are to stop cats which sometimes hide under the azaleas, from pouncing on the birds when they are feeding

I also went round to the empty house next door and lifted a panel on this fence to get at the bindweed at the back of our borsder that had grown under the concrete base panel from that side. Once you've got it it's almost impossible to get rid of it, as you've no idea where are the roots. But I've cleared it all for now. It was growing up the azaleas at the back and was impossible to reach from this side.

The giant lilies won't be long now, we've over a dozen of them.

 

[zigs]

Started making hay

Tetters cut it with the tractor, I'm raking it out to dry, then we'll bale it up for Sis's horses

 

[Mr_Yan]

Mowed my lawn after work
Wrapped the tomato new growth around the vertical single cord / single stem trellis I am using.
About an inch of rain over night.

 

[Sean Regan]

I spent some time in what I describe as, my "low maintenance garden."
I cut the lawn after fitting my new Flymo blade. I got the grass out of the rockery, dead headed the roses and prunded the wisterias. Then did a bit of hoeing, followed by a bit of sweeping and garden blowing and vacuuming.

That's three and a half hours of my life I'll never see again.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

Hi sean,
Have you got a garden bench ?

 

[Sean Regan]

Hi sean,
Have you got a garden bench ?

I did have a bench, over thirty years ago. I made it at the same time I made a retractable blind over the patio doors. The same year I completed the pool. You can just about see them in this photo.

But it's long gone as is the blind and the patio doors. Now the pergola on the back of the house above the French windows, with its curtain of wisteria foliage gives some shade for the lounge and kitchen.

We're not short of seating for the garden, four chairs and four loungers, but they don't get used that much. Because of her MS it's a real effort for my wife to come into the garden and she doesn't like any flying insects

This used to be the koi pool filter room I built at the back of the garage. It has a false floor and ceiling so is never damp. The two back-up freezers and a fridge, produce some heat. You can see where I have rhad to extend the floor, where previously there was a big filter and a 300 gallon quarantine tank.

The wash basin and water heater are all that's left from the room as it was. I've since moved my Budweiser beer fridge in here on an old TV stand, to make a bit more room in the tea-house, although this room is only about 8ft X 8ft. I'm pretty self-sufficient when I'm gardening, as I can make myself a cup of tea or coffee, or have a beer..or two!

I've a couple of plastic chairs in the tea-house.
It was always my ritual. During Wimbledon fortnight, if the weather was warm, I'd open up the doors of the tea-house and watch some of the matches in here, with a few beers. Bit of a disappointment this year.

 

[Peace perfect peace]

Hi Sean,
Hope your well and enjoying the juke box music, (Ive got Tiner Turner on just now "whats love"

The reason i asked "if you had a garden seat " Is because something Allan titch Marsh said in one of his books ive got and its very true,

A lot of us work away all day and then put the tools away and end up indoors as the evening darkness arrives,

He said we all should have a bench or seat that stays like a perennial flower "in the same spot to be sat on and enjoyed by only a gardening person can, He who can be perfectly happy after a days gardening to sit there and plan "Yet" more of the same again Next time.

The coori's playing "Will YE go Lassi Go,