What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

Managed to do a bit in the garden this morning, but took these photos through the French windows just now.

I've put some net over the smaller acer palmatum, as it's moving into its growing stage, so I've tied it down for a few weeks, to retain its dome shape.

I doubt if I'll be able to improve the patio drainage, as I won't be using the big drill until all the water has drained.
At the moment, we're getting sort of "soft hail."

I moved the birds' ground feeder to the bed on the left under the azaleas. Nothing bigger than a blackbird can get at it as they have to squeeze through the wire fence. They don't have a problem with it. This will keep the mess off the patio. The wood pigeons were always hanging around the original feeder and making it, despite not being able to get at the food because of the wire cover protecting it.
The three pairs of blackbirds have been finding live food on the lawn, which is a good sign.

I keep 'arry's feeder in position with some dry and semi moist hedgehog food and a bowl of water in it, in case he makes an appearance.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Out in the morning, we went to the hairdresser.
Weeded the strawberries I planted out last year, took all the flowers off them last year, so should do well this year, Planted out some potatoes, just a few for taste now and then, put the last of a compost heap I have been spreading into plastic bags to use later. Then I started digging over the site where the heap had been and there had been another next to it, it will make a nice bed.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

32 degrees here, lots of wind. If I get out will take a wheel barrel and pick up the branches that have fallen.

 

[Sean Regan]

It was dry enough to play golf this morning, no rain at all, but it rained this afternoon. So I've done nothing, probably the same on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as rain is forecast for each of those days.

Manchester, has historically, got a lot of stick because it rains frequently, (why the cotton industry was based here).
However, if any friends or relatives from, "down south" from where we originally came, phone for a chat and ask about the weather, whatever it's like, we always say, "It's fine!"

 

[Black_Thumb]

I mowed the front yard today. The back isn't ready yet. I normally cut them on the same day, but I didn't have time last mowing to do them both, so now they are out of sync. I pulled a half a dozen more dandelions, a bunch of wild violets, and some other stuff that I have no idea about. My wife built a bridge over the stream out back, and I finished up some more work on the chicken coop. I put some new mulching blades on my tractor, and I LOVE them!! Pushing all the grass clippings back down into the grass surely will help.

 

[Sean Regan]

Fine and quite warm today, but too wet to do anything apart from a check round.

Pleased with the progress of these lily of the valley, near the window in the shed, we bought from a shopping channel.
The offer was for nine, but we received ten. Two of them have two shoots.

Two each can go in the new big glazed planters on the patio steps, which house clematis and a climbing rose, they'll get plenty of sun there.
My wife did suggest we put them in planters of their own. But I said we've enough!

We've accumulated over the years, 21 smaller 34cm ones and three of the big 41cm ones.
They are nearly all Apta Cambridge ones.

They've reached a silly price now. It wasn't so long ago, the 34cm ones were "two for £40." They are now £37 each! and the big ones are £50.

Every year I drastically prune this acer at the end of the summer, if I don't, it'd grow to a ridiculous size. But it's really tough.

It's already recovering, producing lots of new buds.

You can train acers like these any way you choose. Before "I got at it," eleven years ago, a year after we bought it, it looked like this.

A tour round the garden shows up jobs that need doing.

One of them is this pagoda.
Unlike the concrete lanterns I made, which remain in their "natural state," I've always painted it.
I made it with about eighteen molds and built it up in three sections on its double paving stone base.

Like the lanterns it has a central core of fine concrete mix, but the outer skin is more mortar, as I wouldn't otherwise have got the detail. It would therefore have been subject to erosion over its 36 year life, without being painted. Even so, some of the detail on the edges of the roofs is wearing away.

The guard rails around each of the upper floors are made from hardwood decorative trims set in the concrete and are still in perfect condition. But the rest needs a good scrub down to remove some moss and a re-paint and a few of the red finials on the corners of the roofs need replacing, (where I've broken them off in passing).

So that's a job for when it gets a bit warmer and dryer. The tea-house too, will get a bit of a tart up, as I've got nearly 2.5 ltrs. of paint left after painting the new troughs.

 

[Black_Thumb]

Rain today, but at least I was able to apply some weed killer and grass food to the lower portion of my backyard. I did run out about halfway through the lower back, but I'll pick up another bag today, and when it dries out, I'll finish putting down the rest. It is unfortunate that I was not able to get the entire lower back done, but such is life. My main focus was on getting the front yard all done, and I did.

Today, I am going to look into doing some indoor starters of onions and tomatoes. The weather here is very, very unpredictable this time of year. Yesterday morning, we had freeze warnings, and it was 20 degrees. During the day, it was 65 degrees. Last night, back down below freezing and more freeze warnings. Today, rain and a high of 48 degrees. So, these crazy temperature variations can really wreak havoc on plants and such.

What I may do is plant the seeds I have outside in the raised beds and then cover it all with dark plastic and create a sauna of sorts. That will trap the heat for germination, as well as prevent the frost and freezing temps from hurting them. I have yet to decide how I am going to proceed with that.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Two each can go in the new big glazed planters on the patio steps, which house clematis and a climbing rose, they'll get plenty of sun there.

I have always thought of lily of the valley as a shade plant, mine grow in a bed against a North facing wall, at the last house they had walls to the South and East

 

[Oliver Buckle]

What I may do is plant the seeds I have outside in the raised beds and then cover it all with dark plastic and create a sauna of sorts. That will trap the heat for germination, as well as prevent the frost and freezing temps from hurting them. I have yet to decide how I am going to proceed with that.

I have done it with clear plastic, I know it will get hotter during the day with black, but I always wonder about the heat loss at night? There are other advantages, it is easy to check on them for germination without lifting, and if they do decide to spring into life the weekend you are doing something else they still get light. I found building a simple frame, four bits of 2"x1" and four screws, and stapling the plastic to itit didn't get wet and muddy and I could put a brick on each corner if it got windy. Disadvantage, it keeps the rain off, you have to water, which is never quite the same; unless of course you are together enough to raise the cover when it's raining.

 

[Sean Regan]

I have always thought of lily of the valley as a shade plant, mine grow in a bed against a North facing wall, at the last house they had walls to the South and East

In the past, we've had them everywhere. Once in the long bed, then some started to come up in the edge of the lawn!
During the hotest part of the day, whatever, is on the patio steps is shielded from the sun by the wisteria on the pergola above it.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I have done it with clear plastic, I know it will get hotter during the day with black, but I always wonder about the heat loss at night? There are other advantages, it is easy to check on them for germination without lifting, and if they do decide to spring into life the weekend you are doing something else they still get light. I found building a simple frame, four bits of 2"x1" and four screws, and stapling the plastic to itit didn't get wet and muddy and I could put a brick on each corner if it got windy. Disadvantage, it keeps the rain off, you have to water, which is never quite the same; unless of course you are together enough to raise the cover when it's raining.

Out in the garden and I had the sudden thought 'Yes, and I've done that with bubble-wrap, that worked well'.

 

[Black_Thumb]

I trimmed my three Dogwood trees in the rain yesterday afternoon. They had several dead branches. I felt kind of bad trimming the dead branches off because the red-breasted woodpeckers love to dig bugs out of those branches, but if I don't prune them, they'll hurt the rest of the tree. The woodpeckers are gorgeous too!! We have so many birds that come visit our feeders out by our Dogwoods! Yesterday, we had two huge wild turkeys, and we also have a lot of deer that stop in to eat birdseed off the ground. We've also had foxes, coyotes, squirrels, mice, rabbits, and nigh unto a dozen bird species stop in. Love it!!

 

[Sean Regan]

Just a bit of tying up of the new growth on the clematis. Then re-planted a bit of an azalea I'd layered a few years ago. Then trimmed a bit more off the tops of next door's overhanging trees.

 

[Esther Knapicius]

Sadly decided to prune out the Annabell Hydrangeas, was hoping for some nice fluffy snow that would linger on the dried balls hanging there, but nope. And that would look pretty. So the three of them cut back. Watch it snow now in a week. Some more tiding up. Nice sunny day.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Didn't actually do much in the garden, but this morning a tree surgeon came to look at the oak tree, I watched him do the one next door about eighteen months ago and he made a nice job. Ours is getting a bit dominating, he reckoned it at about seventy foot, so thinning it out a bit and taking off two or three meters all round should be good. He is going to give us a quote and aim to do it end of summer.
This afternoon I went out to the shop with the missus, Saturday shopping is not my thing, but I wear an N95 and keep my distance from people. Anyway, I did manage to find a watering can with a rose, my old one is a galvanised can, and for some reason they didn't do the inside of the rose, so the holes keep getting blocked with little bits of rust. It is the real thing, with brass screw fitting to take the rose on and off , and one day I will clean it out and paint it with Hammerite, but I need something now for seeds and to treat the lawn.