What did you do in your garden today?

[Sean Regan]

Nothing today as I had other jobs to do.

Tomorrow I may get into pruning the overhanging branches of next door's trees,

I do this every year as the can overhang by several feet wth a year's growth.
The thin branches my Barnel telescopic pruner can manage and it holds the bit you've cut off until you relax your grip on the handle.

The thicker branches will need my Fiskars telescopic pruner. "No messing with this."

But I'll have to get my big adjustable ladder out and use it in a stepladder configuration over the acer in front of the tea-house to protect it, as these heavier branches might damage it when they fall. I'll just brace another ladder against the fence to get some height.

The branches on the tree nearest the shed are much thinner and anyway, I can reach most, if I stand on the roof of the shed, as always.

 

[Sean Regan]

First job was hand stripping most of the leaves of this acer. It's just a case of running an open hand down through the branches and the dead leaves all come away.
Still more from the top, which are less accessible, to be removed. That's from where the new growth is coming. There's a lot of dead would to be pruned off, this will give the rest of the branches more room. I don't think it will need much retraining as most of the branches are in the right place. You can see where the lawn has failed to grow because it's always in the shade. I'll probably take six inches off the "skirt" all round.
I have to be careful. I like them to keep the "dome shape." Take too much off and it'll look like a cocktail umbrella.

Then I got in to the right-hand tree of next door's

I got quite a bit pruned off that overhangs our garden. Less tree...fewer leaves to collect when they fall off every year. I've still the top to get at and the other tree.
The tops of both overhang our garden by about six feet.

It doesn't look much different.

But what I took off filled the green bin. I only got it all in as I chopped it all up into small bits. I'll do some more next week once the bin has been emptied.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

feed them Lead. I've always found this works.

You remind me of the old boy who lived next door at our last house. I was telling him that there are rats in Gloucestershire that have developed immunity to all the legal poisons, he lifted his arms and 'sighted' down an imaginary gun "How about a bit o' lead poisoning?"

 

[Oliver Buckle]

That acer without its leaves is quite something, Sean. Intricate.

Filled back my last hole. As I dug it out the earth that was going back went into bags, so after the wood came soft stuff, like twigs and leaves, then some of my compost, then the first bag. Then I mixed up some commercial compost, farmyard manure, blood and bone, wood ash, soot from the woodburning stove, small sieved burnt clay and epsom salts, sprinkled some over the top, mixed it in then added the next bag of soil, and repeated until all the soil was back in.
14 out of 16 broad beans have sprouted. Went round the pots with a plant label stick and knocked over att the little two leaf weeds, then took them out of the cold greenhouse and stood them with a sheet of glass to the east of them to get a bit accustomed ready to plant out, also some winter onions which are well germinated.
The broad beans are for seed, I already have the ones for the house out there, I thought they would make good green manure next year, growing when I am not using the ground over winter. Also I want to get a few things out of the cold greenhouse so I can put my amaryllis in there, I was going to leave them out for the cold, but I am afraid the not too cold but wet will damage them, I can bring them back out if it turns cold and dry, but tbh that greenhouse has so many holes I probably don't need to.

 

[big rockpile]

Turned Compost Bin and Repotted some plants.

big rockpile

 

[Sean Regan]

Spent a couple of hours in the gardens.

Weeded and mowed the front lawn, then did a leaf collection from the drive and the front garden with my "grizzly," garden vac.
Then collected leaves the same way from the back garden.
As the green bin was already full, I did what I often have to do. I put a piece of cardboard on top of the contents, then by using my step stool I could climb onto it and by jumping up and down on it a few times, gained an extra foot of space.
Now it is completely full. So no more tree pruning until after bin collection day, on Wednesday.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Spent a couple of hours in the gardens.

Weeded and mowed the front lawn, then did a leaf collection from the drive and the front garden with my "grizzly," garden vac.
Then collected leaves the same way from the back garden.
As the green bin was already full, I did what I often have to do. I put a piece of cardboard on top of the contents, then by using my step stool I could climb onto it and by jumping up and down on it a few times, gained an extra foot of space.
Now it is completely full. So no more tree pruning until after bin collection day, on Wednesday.

My missus insists she wants the bin, for myself what I couldn't compost I would burn and collect the ash. That way I have free compost for the garden, potash, and terracotta from the clay lumps I have dropped in the fire. Difficult to see where you could do any of that in your garden though, you are already using just about every inch.

Planted out a good few things, not everything. I managed to grow some tiny garlics last year and planted them out a little while ago, they were all sprouting so I dug them up and separated the cloves that were splitting apart and planted them out separately. It's a decent bit of ground, last year these were the last eight or so I just bunged in without much preparation. I am hoping it is like onion sets where the initial size is not really an indicator of the final size. The originals were bought to grow in UK and the main crop did okay in decent earth, so the genotype is there.
Picked a very last cucumber, it is about 1 and 1/2 inches diameter, and some sweet peppers, there are more there, but I can't see them improving or ripening, we'll have them green. Chopped some wood for the stove, not really gardening, but in the garden, and quite good exercise.

 

[Sean Regan]

Yes, there's not an inch of spare space in our garden.

The garden saw some changes in the 1980s.
Before I built the tea-house, there was an old cedar greenhouse in that corner and the back half of the garden was a vegetable patch, which was there when we bought the house. I grassed over the vegetable patch and got rid of the greenhouse and replaced it with this screened off area, before I built the pool. I had a compost bin in there too. The tree in front of this screened off area, is now the big one in our front garden.
I moved it as it was in the way when I built the tea-house. It was in the middle of summer, the wrong time of the year to move a tree, but I took the chance and it survived.

I also made that big ornamental screen for the back end of the garden.

Ours was separated from the garden behind, by just a low wire fence at the time.
With the screen, this made the aspect from the patio doors in the lounge more interesting.
But then I built the tea-house and had six foot post and panel fences erected along the back and down the left-hand side and replaced the screen at the back of the garden with the bamboo.

 

[Sean Regan]

I did a bit more tree pruning today. I used next door's green bin as mine was full. I managed to fill the other one too, even after chopping up stuff small.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

I did a bit more tree pruning today. I used next door's green bin as mine was full. I managed to fill the other one too, even after chopping up stuff small.

Wish you lived next door to me, I would be digging holes and burying your waste all over the place
Saying that, I have found it pays to be a bit careful with prunings, sometimes they start growing, I tend to dry out the woody stuff, burn it, and add clay to the fire, the mixture of terracotta and wood ash is lovely stuff, can't get enough, I break up the big chunks of clay with a shovel and put it through the riddle.

Barely went out there today, cold, damp and horrid, seemed like it was starting to get dark from about lunchtime. Cleared up the greenhouse a bit, then mixed up a rich mix with compost, manure and soot from the wood burning stove and planted some red onions in pots to see if I can grow some really big ones, just for fun, I already have half a dozen going, now I think it is fourteen or fifteen, that is a lot for just two of us, winter onions don't keep all that well.

 

[Sean Regan]

The result of my pruning yesterday.

There's still some branches at the top which will hang over our garden, but they are too high to reach without a tower. They won't cause too much shadow in the late afternoons as they won't be "bushy."

Did nothing today as it was a golf day. This afternoon I got one of our Stressless chairs into the back of my car. Tomorrow I'm taking it to Preston to have it re-padded and hopefully a new headrest made. It cost a couple of hundred pounds or so, but that's just a fraction of the cost of a new chair.

 

[big rockpile]

Mulched bunch of stuff. Got some other stuff but I want to wait until it gets colder.

Had real nice surprise. Was by the Greenhouse.

I started couple Lilac Bushes from the farm. Been babying them being carful not to mow and water them regular. Well they brought gravel in and buried them well one came through the gravel last year. Looked and the other one came through.

big rockpile

 

[Oliver Buckle]

It's great to get a bonus like that. I found a little bay tree that must have grown from seed and popped it in a pot a couple of months ago. It's looking okay, I am wondering if it will grow true or if its smell will be different at all, too small to start damaging it yet, but I got a slight whiff when I brushed it to make sure it was what I thought.
Wonder what colour your lilacs will be, I had a really white one once, but mostly they're lilac

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Didn't do much, took half a dozen buckets that had had peppers in and were finished out of the greenhouse and stood them ready for processing, stripped out the cucumber that was behind them, dumped all the vegetation on the compost heap, Moved my lilies into the cold greenhouse, refilled and relit the heater in the other one, not that it is going to be that cold, but I use a copper pipe as a chimney so it does dry things out a bit, there are some dahlias and things where the foliage is going over. I'll take it off when it's really gone, but I don't want to encourage moulds in the meantime.
Then I went in the other greenhouse and tidied up a bit, made up some mix and potted some onion sets I missed when planting out a while ago.

 

[big rockpile]

Raining again yeppy!

Trying cutting Snake Plant and rooting pieces.

Watered inside plants and Dead Headed some Geraniums.

Went to the Greenhouse and some Christmas Cactus I repotted the other day is budding out and going to Bloom. My son said I didn't know it had a name and always thought it was ugly.

Cut some Lettuce and pulled some Radishes for a Salad.

Cut a Cabbage Head.

Thinking of setting up for Rain Water catchment. Was thinking just to water garden but we're not happy with County Water and we've drank Rain Water for years so we might run it into the house.

big rockpile