What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

Didn't like the second template, too many, "freehand elements."

So I did a third and cut them all out, this afternoon. There's still a bit of cleaning up and rubbing down to do. Then they'll need a coat of Cuprinol, then painting to match the rest of the balustrade. Then any inconsistencies between them won't notice.

They aren't perfect. The geometry isn't too difficult but transferring it onto an uncooperative piece of wood, (the grain wants to push the pencil anywhere but where you want it to go), then cutting by hand with a jigsaw, you can't ask for too much. I used five fine cut jugsaw blades.

I'll attach them to the frames with a half inch "washer" of dowel top and bottom, as the rondels are as large as I could make them out of the timber available, so won't fit the frames without them.

This will be my last "project" in the garden this year. It'll soon be too cold for any DIY in the garage.

 

[Sean Regan]

I finished installing the rondels today.
I went to the local woodyard yesterday and was able to buy two 3mtr lengths of dowel for just a pound each, as they'd reduced some old stock, I expected to have paid around £5 a length.

I 've fixed two lengths of dowel either side of each rondel, secured with one screw to the rondel, as they and the dowels are only glued top and bottom, but they are a "tight fit." They'll stop any chance of them twisting.
From aesthetic viewpoint, it might have looked better with lateral dowling from the midle of each rondel to the middle of the side of the frames, but I kicked that in to touch, as attaching lebngths of dowel to the rondels would be difficult and impossible for me to achieve a completely straight line down the length of the balustrade, given the rondels are not quite all the same. (I'd have noticed).
I gave one a coat of paint last night to get an idea of what they will look like.

But today I was working against the expected rain, so just gave them another coat of clear Cuprinol. I'll wait for a couple of dry days before painting them. I'm reasonably pleased with the result.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Prepared the ground ready for planting broad beans, showers and some heavy rain yesterday, but the ground is still pretty dry, at least its not rock hard any longer.

 

[Sean Regan]

Golf in the morning so didn't start in the garden until nearly 3.00pm. Gave the balustrade rondels a coat of Dulux Woodsheeen.
Mowed the lawn and collected a lot of leaves that had fallen off the big tree in the front garden. Lots more to come down yet.
Planted out the two packs of cyclamen I bought in Homebase on Saturday for £14.

Beat the rain. Lots more expected tomorrow.

 

[Logan]

Nothing today but tomorrow start planting these polyanthus

 

[Logan]

Honestly, the first 21 seconds of that blew my mind right out of my other end. You can literally just create a plant from a freakin' log cutting?! Wow

Yes it's amazing how he does it. He likes to experiment with different cutting ways.

 

[Sean Regan]

Wasn't going to do much, but noticed the bottom step to the tea-house was a bit "rocky." Turned out it was rotting away. Rain off the roof misses the top step but falls on the bottom one.
Here a few years ago.

So I ripped it out and replaced it with a bit of the wood left over I'd bought for the pergola balustrade rondels. Gave it a coat of Cuprinol and painted it. I need to get another rubber mat for it from Wilko tomorrow on the way home from golf.

 

[Amateur Gardener]

Cutting these tree trunks into smaller pieces to make it fit the yard waste bins.

 

[Marck]

Today I wandered around my damp! garden and admired everything.
Last night, the first rain of Autumn fell, the first rain since early May. It was also the first rain of the 'Rain Year' which officially begins for California on 1 October. It was only about 1/20th of an inch (more is on the way =)), but it's cool, soothing moisture has put me in a celebratory mood. It was also enough rain for the termite alates (winged reproductives) to become active. They were flying out of the ground in droves this morning. First Rain Day really should be a state holiday in California, though the logistics would be difficult, as it would fall on different days in different parts of the state.

 

[NativeOddity]

I picked up dog poop. Does that count?

Lmao

 

[NativeOddity]

Today I cleaned out part of one of my garden beds. I have allowed a few tomato plants to remain in my trellis and cleared away some foliage to expose the fruit alittle more to capture whatever sun they can get. I harvested some collard greens and pulled the remaining plant matter from my mini watermelons I harvested yesterday.

I go to my garden everyday so I will keep you posted

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Years ago I heard an old lady in her recollections say they used to put a candle under a flowerpot in the bedroom to keep the ice off the windows when she was a little girl. I tried it with a big terracotta pot and found the pot gets thoroughly warm all over, and I have used it in my greenhouse when there is severe frost ever since, but candles are quite dear, the cheap household ones don't last long enough for overnight so I have always been on the lookout for a cheap oil lamp. Yesterday I found a video on YouTube showing how to make one using a jar with a hole drilled in the lid, a piece of tin can rolled around the drill and then pushed through the hole, and a piece of cotton-wool rolled up for a wick and pushed through the tube. My 'Storyshack' is at the bottom of the garden where I don't have electricity and I have wanted to warm it a bit to keep my books dry so I made a lamp and installed it on the back of my desk with a length of copper pipe from the hole in the flower pot going through the roof (about 30") so I would not be putting all the water from the combustion into the shed. The pipe got really hot at the bottom end and was hand hot where it stuck out the top of the roof, so with the flowerpot plenty of warmth, a bit of extra sophistication I hadn't had with the candle in the greenhouse and this morning all the alcohol had burnt off since yesterday afternoon. I can easily make an appropriate size hole in my plastic greenhouse roof, maybe even two. A heated greenhouse this winter!
My daughter phoned me yesterday, she has an upstairs flat with half a garden covered in decking. Last year she grew a good few things I had given her in pots, but now she has plans. She has found a cheap plastic 8'by 4' bed on line and has a pallet she found to put it on. A dustbin that was abandoned in the street has been commandeered for making compost in, seems like the family trait of collecting junk and putting it to use has been inherited I remember my brother had a bee smoker that he had made from the wing of a mini that had been left in a hedge after someone crashed.

 

[Marck]

Why do some people use the phrase "talk about the weather" as a gloss for dull, bland conversation. I will never understand that.

This morning, I am happily marveling in most-welcome wetness (and tidying up), after a single rainstorm gave much of California more rain than it received in the entire 2020-2021 Rain Year, which begins/ends each 1 October. Truly a land of extremes.

 

[Sean Regan]

Nothing today, too wet for golf let alone gardening.
But I did get a few "gardening related" jobs done.

We'd ordered two David Austin bare root roses that were scheduled for delivery today.
Not that we needed more roses (don't ask why) as we've fifteen in green Apta ceramic pots on the patio and two in old stone ones.
(I like these Apta pots, as they come with a ten year guarantee).

Cambridge – Apta – Inspiring Britain's Gardeners

apta.co.uk

"The plan," was to remove two of the older roses from the ceramic pots and put them in plastic green pots with the four others along the side of our drive. (l like order). Releasing the pots for the new roses.
So not having any spare green pots, today I had to visit three different garden centres before I found some!
I had to "hack mt way through a jungle of Christmas tat," to find these.

I'll be going through the photos I took in the summer of the roses, looking for, "two volunteers."
If it stays dry I'll do the swop tomorrow as the roses arrived as expected.

I also bought some more long green plastric plant stakes and some green wire.
I put a wire fence around the azaleas (and 'arry the 'edgehogs 'ouse) to the side of the patio, to prevent cats hiding in there and pouncing out on the birds or the squirrel on the patio. You can just see the fence bottom right in the photo.

My wife told me she'd seen one in there yesterday, only noticing it when it attempted to jump out on a blackbird on the patio. Fortunately, it only succeeded in slamming itself into the wire fence. I'll use the stakes to string some wire across a bit above the fence I've noticed where the azaleas aren't thick enough to prevent a cat from jumping over the fence to get in there.

The suspect bit is to the left of the pergola post.

For the last couple of weeks it's been mostly about leaf collection every few days. A lot from the acer in the front garden which has gone from this in June

To this today.

It'll be getting its annual prune later where I take a foot off all over to stop it getting too big for this small garden.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Lots of rain here, hope to get out and pick up some downed limbs for the burn pile. and some recently cut up limbs. Too wet to start the leaf removal projects. but soon, then the burning will start.