What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

Just cleared up after 'arry and fed the birds, it's tried to rain.

It must have been windy last night at it blew over this mimosa in its big tub.

Fortunately it's very whippy so no damage was caused.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Carried water, watered, watered greenhouses, picked broccoli mange tout and courgette (guess what we are having for dinner). Tied up tomatoes, planted out last two tomatoes in pots. When I dug the hole the ground was really dry a full spit down, so carried a couple more cans of water for them. Picked the last of the broad beans, we still have plenty, but they are in the freezer now. Pulled up the plants and stacked them ready to put through the mower next time I get it out, they compost much better that way. Planted some tulip seeds. You know, stuff.

 

[Sean Regan]

Not much today.

I got the ladders out and got up on the two pergolas to remove the multitude of unwanted new branches on the wisterias.

The abundance of blooms like these.

Is always followed by intensive growth of the leaves and new branches. We welcome the density as it gives the lounge some shade.

On very warm sunny days, walking back from the bottom of the garden, I notice how much cooler it feels as I pass under the pergola next to the garage.

 

[Black_Thumb]

Not much going on here. We've had company staying with us for about two weeks now, and my sister also is visiting from back west, so we have a full house. Last night and today, it's been raining almost constantly and I'm so thankful! We've needed this rain badly. I've been running my sprinklers, but a nice soaking rain is unbeatable (and free)!!

We did go to the nursery yesterday and bought some more flowers. My wife picked them, so I have no idea what she got. She did mention cannas, and so I think that's what she got. I'll be planting some more lilies this week as well. Stay tuned!!

 

[Oliver Buckle]

She did mention cannas, and so I think that's what she got.

How is your slug control? They love 'em.

I usually sit down to this in the morning, so it's what i did yesterday. Night before last we had a sudden downpour, so yesterday I didn't worry about the watering can, put the hose on the tap of the water butt and gave the greenhouse a proper all round soaking instead of just watering individual plants. I finished off the leylandi type bush in the front garden. It is about 15ft and conical and I had cut all the bottom bit I could reach. It looked like a giant head with a bad haircut, I thought about giving it two enormous eyes, but I got out the step ladder and cut it all nice and symmetrical, well almost. While I had the steps out I also cleaned out the light over the back door, it was full of spider's webs and dead things and is much brighter now. Started trimming the edge of the lawn where it is encroaching on the path.
Got out the mower and cleared all the path trimmings, the leaves from the round bush the missus trimmed, and all those broad beans I pulled up the other day, that should have warmed up the compost heap a bit.
I am probably running the missus round mostly today as she bashed a kerb and her car is going in to get the steering sorted, fingers crossed nothing is bent.

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

Been watering where needed and mostly talking to passers by about my cherry toms and why i plant marigolds with them and sweet peas picked, picking about a kilo of tayberries with loads more to come. Potted on some giant flowered fuchsias for sale soon. The penstemon cuttings are almost ready for sale as well.

Summer is finally here - finally!! Yesterday not a single whisp of cloud in the sky and 97 degrees. So we sat under the umbrella with a Bloody Mary, followed later by a beer and some dep fried chicken wings and fries. Today I think we are going to make ice cream.

 

[Sean Regan]

I won't be doing much for the next two weeks because I'll either be watching Wimbledon on TV or playing golf.
But I did by a reel of strong wire today for this Acer Palmatum Taylor. At the moment it's "doing it's own thing."
I'm going to make a circle of the wire and support it about 2 ft off the top of the pot on four canes. Then attach the branches to the wire loosely to get them to adopt a more balanced shape and some more horizontal, rather than stick up in the air. I'll be able to take the contraption away at the end of the growing season.

Our hebes are now almost all in full bloom, the white ones a bit slower than the others. The bees love them.

 

[Black_Thumb]

How is your slug control? They love 'em.

We haven't had any problems with slugs, but I'll keep an eye out after we get them all planted! Thanks for the tip!

 

[Amateur Gardener]

Pruning the Pomegranate tree

 

[Sean Regan]

Not doing much today as it's colder and may rain later, if it doesn't, I'll mow the lawn.

I installed my "acer trainer," just a ring of strong garden wire supported by four canes.
The branches were in quite a balanced position due to the canes I'd put in six months ago to bend them into a more symetrical location, but they wouldn't control the height.
I can do everything with the ring. A few small branches are sticking upwards and at the moment, so I'll leave them until they are long enough to attach to the ring or prune them off if they are untrainable. By this time next year the new positions should have set.

That is if the thing doesn't die off in the meantime. Like many, this acer is grafted and a real ugly looking graft at that. Sometimes they fail after the plant has established itself. You can just see it at the base, an ugly one inch length of the host plant sticking up at the side.

I had to give this sorbus a bit of help. Because of the weight of the berries one of the long lower branches at the front was dipping a bit.

So I attached a bit of strong wire between it and the trunk to give it some support. In the past the pesky wood pigeons have broken branches when they've alighted on them in an attempt to get at the berries.

 

[Black_Thumb]

Where to begin...I mowed the yard today. That took about two hours. Then I had to tinker with my power edger. It was being stubborn and wouldn't start. I finally got it started and began edging my driveway. I ran out of gas twice, and I'm not even done with half of the back driveway yet. It is about 90 degrees today with very high humidity, so after edging for two hours, I called it quits and will resume in the morning when it's cooler.

I put out two sprinklers in the front yard because I have a large dead spot developing, and I have no idea what is causing it. We haven't had much rain, so it might just be some "weak" grass. What I really need is a long and steady rain to saturate the ground, but the rain keeps missing us.

We just finished building our new deck, and so I tried to clean up around that and rescue the flowers that got buried in concrete. I think they are cannas. I need to clean up a bunch more little pieces of concrete and get some water on that grass. You can see how much damage there is to the grass in the picture above of the edger. It got pretty trashed.

Here are a couple quick shots of the deck. We are excited to finally be done with it! I built a 3-tier plant holder for my bride, so she'll probably put that on the deck and start populating it with flower pots. You can still see the concrete chunks in the grass that I need to clean up too. I should get it all done this week.

 

[Tincasteve]

Yesterday I picked our first cucumber from the greenhouse.

 

[Amateur Gardener]

Pruning the persimmon tree.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Cut lots of grass. cut down the spider warts in one of the beds, dropping to much. pulled some weeds. Today will mulch around a few things, and give some bone meal to other stuff.

 

[Sean Regan]

Wasn't going to do much today except mow the lawn as I wanted to watch the tennis.
But afterwards I accepted the fact that "I wasn't going to get grass to grow in the dark."
So I've given up with this small area under the acer palmatum.
I found some bits of York stone and made up just a damp mix of sand and cement with a bit of yellow powder dye and extended the path a bit. It's far easier to do this sort of job with mortar that's of, "sandcastle dampness." Undisturbed it will draw any more necessary moisture from the atmosphere overnight.
It didn't take long, the grass around it will recover. The colour will match better when the mortar has dried.