What did you do in your garden today?

[Oliver Buckle]

Two of the back fence concrete posts and two double concrete base panels are being replaced tomorrow morning. This may damage a bit of my "bamboo forest," how badly I don't know.

I am reminded of an old friend who did fencing, she put an advert, Lady fencer, I have small feet and tidy up. She got a lot of jobs from that.

 

[Sean Regan]

I am reminded of an old friend who did fencing, she put an advert, Lady fencer, I have small feet and tidy up. She got a lot of jobs from that.

I did a bit of fencing in my teens. I belonged to a club.
Just foil and épeé.

My grandfather, who was the maintenance man at a big London hotel, found a few blades in unclaimed lost property, left by a guest a few years before. He gave me two. One was a foil with engraving down the blade, which was stamped "Toledo."

I once caught my mother with it. She was poking it up the lounge chimney, trying to clear some of the soot!
I wasn't best pleased.

 

[Sean Regan]

Got a bit done today.

The "fence man" came and replaced two posts and some base panels. When I could see the job was done, I guessed they'd be clearing away the rubble, so I walked around the crescent and rang my neighbour's doorbell and said that it looked OK, my side, but asked if he was happy with it. He was, (well he would be wouldn't he? I was paying for it!). But I checked anyway.
I noticed they'd only used three concrete base panels. "Fence man," noticed I was noticing it, so he told me they'd only used three so he'd knock £20 off the bill. Whether he'd have said that if I hadn't bothered to go round and look, is anyone's guess. The bamboo was completely undamaged.

I then had the nightmare of threading new cables between the bamboo and the fence panels for one spotlight and two Japanese lanterns and fitting it in the trunking.

There's two wires attached to posts at each end of the bamboo, it keeps it upright, it's always been a bit floppy.

The trunking will protect the cables from the attention of hedgehogs, squirrels and foxes. Something has had a go at the old ones in the past. It's only 12volt so they never killed anything.

Got into the second of the acer palmatums.

I removed this much dead wood.

This was about the usual amount.

Removing it and some were quite long old branches, will allow me to balance out the branches, wire them up so they'll "set" in the required position when the plant wakes up in the spring.
It always looks a bit sorry for itself at this time of the year.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Dug a trench about 6foot by four a good spit deep, roughly lined the bottom with wood then dumped a lot of leaves and twigs on them. It will take more, but I made a good start and raked up a lot of rubbish, I'll be incorporating some burnt clay and wood ash as well.
Weeded and thinned out a bucket of carrots. I have three buckets going, it's nice to be able to put them up on a surface to work on. I have built a little frame with two steps that holds two buckets on each step. The idea is I can work on them easily and avoid carrot fly, possibly. I will let you know if it works.

 

[Sean Regan]

I did a bit this morning, mowed both lawns, got half a mower bin full off them and cleared some leaves from the front garden and stripped some dead overgrown clematis from the side fence.
I'm relieved that the bamboo didn't get damaged when the new posts were fitted. It's there as I didn't want the aspect of a fence seen from the French windows. I think it would look ugly.

I think it gives the impression that the garden is bigger than it is.

I noticed when I went round to check on the work from that side, the people who live in the house behind ours have painted their side of the fence grey and made a feature of it. Maybe because they have a patio there. Their garden is in the shade of their house for most of the day.

It takes all sorts.

The lawn at this end of the garden will need some attention in the Spring

I noticed that the bottom of a couple of the Waneylap wooden panels are rotting a bit. But as my old dad used to say about some things that might need replacing, "They'll see me out."
As I paid for the new posts, I'll let my neighbour worry about the panels.
I had a bit of a tidy up of the shed and garage and chucked out some stuff I don't need. This included a dozen solar lights. Those that use an AA battery. I've not used them for a couple of years. Although I always bring them in at the end of the summer and remove the batteries, over time, the battery terminals rust and make poor contact. You can use a bit of wire to make a better connection, but I can't be bothered any more.

It should be golf tomorrow, but it's likely to be chucking it down, so I won't bother. l'll do a bit more tidying. The vinyl floor in the tea-house needs a clean. I've an old floor steam cleaner I keep down there I can use for that.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Went back to my trench. Raked round my paths and got about a barrowful of leaves and twigs together, then I found four bags full of half rotted stalks and weeds, spread them over, then found a heap of stuff that was twigs and leaves I had mowed and left in a black bin all summer, there was a very full wheelbarrow of that. Next up I found some bags with grass mowings in from last summer, white with mycelium and that rotting grass smell. Then three bags of burnt clay and ash. I went over each lot as I put it in with rake and shovel to flatten it out and incorporate it a bit with the layer below, started putting some earth back on top, taking out the clay lumps from the bottom layer, but it got dark.
Thinking I will be able to grow some great runner beans on that next year.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I'm relieved that the bamboo didn't get damaged when the new posts were fitted. It's there as I didn't want the aspect of a fence seen from the French windows.

Glad it worked well. I love the way some people create illusions that gardens are far bigger than they are. There was a chap on gardener's world had a really quite small garden filled with huge tropical type plants with a winding path through them, looked great, a beautiful jungle.

 

[Sean Regan]

Nothing in the garden today. It started raining about 11.00am as was forecast. If I'd played golf, we'd be half-way round at that time so I wouldn't have been best pleased.

Did a good tidy-up of the garage, the "freezer room," the shed and the tea-house, including cleaning the vinyl floor in there.

Put a lot of large cartons in which various new appliances had arrived during the year, in the paper and cardboard bin. I needed to stand in it to compress what was already in there, so more would go in!
I've quite a bit of polystyrene packaging and boxes to take down the tip this afternoon. Then I'm done.

 

[big rockpile]

Watered, Repotted, Hung some Plants in the Greenhouse and planted Mint and Basil.

big rockpile

 

[Paulhope18]

Today I spent 30 minutes using the GO Power+ LB6504 650 CFM Variable-Speed leaf blower to blow all the leaves from my garden. After a rain, a lot of leaves fall.

 

[Sean Regan]

Quite sunny this morning, so I had a few jobs to do, people to see etc., but I had an early lunch and got into the garden.
Dug a lot of grass out of the rockery. It can be a bit "baby and bathwater" with the phlox, but when I'd finished I sprinkled about 30ltrs of compost over it. It's going to rain later so that will get washed in to the phlox. Stripped some dead foliage from a few clematis and pruned a jasmine right back near the kitchen window. It likes to take over every year.
It's golf tomorrow morning and delivering a few presents to friends in the afternoon. Then it's the weekly shop on Thursday and then I'm finished for Christmas as it looks like rain on Friday so no golf.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Woke up with a pink eye, a bit disabling as it is the only one. Rainy , so chopping some kindling in the garage, when suddenly there was a queen wasp. It flew up into a gap above the window, I took three or four swipes with my gauntlet glove, but couldn't see any reaction, put the glove on to investigate and it was in the glove, stung me on the wrist and flew away. It's somewhere in the garage, another warm day and it will probably come out again. I'll be waiting.
It was, really warm, midges in the garden, but very wet and windy overnight, stuff blown around the garden and great pools of water. Tidied up, but really could not do much more, it was so wet, so came in early and sat about feeling sorry for myself, saw the pharmacist and putting ointment in my eye, if there is not some improvement fairly rapidly I shall pop up to Moorfields A&E, I am a patient of theirs for glaucoma, I am immunosuppressed, and it is coming up for Christmas when there will be no doctors, so I think it is worth consulting the experts. Hopefully I will wake up tomorrow with significant improvement though.

 

[big rockpile]

Started another Composting pile, Shredded Leaves,Watered and got the New Edition of Square Foot Gardening.

Been reading it and seems to fallow the K.I.S.S method.

big rockpile

 

[Oliver Buckle]

K.I.S.S. ?
Kick It Stop and Swear maybe?

 

[big rockpile]

K.I.S.S. ?
Kick It Stop and Swear maybe?

Or could be Keep It Simple Stupid.

big rockpile