What did you do in your garden today?

[Colin]

Hi,

An update. I must be getting soft; I had done the supermarket shopping and back home by 7:30 this morning then spent the rest of the morning in the garden grafting as usual.

At last I've finally reclaimed the ground at the very top of our rear garden; the pictures below show how it was last year and how it is now; it had become badly overgrown with the hedges and the grass was full of moss and weeds. In front of the laurels was an 8' tall Snowberry hedge that I brought down to 3' tall but this hedge was marching down the garden the Snowberry being very invasive. It's been nothing but hard manual graft for the most part; the laurels I attacked with my petrol chainsaw but the Snowberry hedge proved to be a real pain and amongst it were holly; brambles and mile a minute vine; English Ivy had taken over any ground and was climbing the trees; in all it proved nothing but work.

I not only removed the hedge and shredded it i dug up the stumps and roots of which there were many; the ground yielded piles of stones and a big concrete slab all now sorted out. Where I had removed the hedge the soil was now nice and soft so was easy to rotavate but the grass sods turned over last year gave me lots of grief; this morning I've been over with the rake and removed lots more small stones plus this time I've removed the sods from the surface; I rotavated yesterday and this being the third time started to bring positive results; the ground is now looking much better.

The stones and other rubbish I've placed at the base of the wall where the sods will eventually break down saving running up to the tip.

Yesterday 24 Aubretia arrived from Parker's and these are now planted in the hope of providing ground cover; four Hydrangeas are still to arrive; I'm finally planting rather than grafting much to my delight; I'm still unsure as to what I'll now do with all the reclaimed ground but I'm not in a hurry; I might leave it alone regarding planting and just enjoy playing with my rotavator until all the sods are finally broken down.

I've put in many hours in freezing conditions wrapped up like an Eskimo in order to regain the ground; I knew if I persisted I'd win in the end but I wouldn't regard this kind of gardening as fun.

Kind regards, Colin.

Aubretia as delivered from Parker's.

More grass sods and stones etc but I'm winning now.

Hostas putting on rapid growth.

It took a lot of grafting but success at last. Please note angle of new fence; Standing upright is a challenge.

Remaining laurels after severe cutting back; trunks like trees.

Our bungalow is down there.

The grass sods and other debris against the wall out of the way.

This is how it was last year totally overgrown and with more moss than grass.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Sowed some tomato and beetroot seeds.

D you mix them with radish?

 

[marlingardener]

Colin, we could use you in the north pasture to rid us of bindweed and Johnson grass.
The only thing I did in the garden was nip out before the rain and cut a bouquet of Dark Lady and Esperanza.

 

[Logan]

D you mix them with radish?

No, I've put them in toilet rolls, in the concervatory. I'll pot the tomatoes on when big enough and put them out at end of may, after all danger of frost has gone,the beetroot I can plant out as soon as they come up.

I could sow radish inbetween the parsnips, but will the slugs and snails get them, I don't know.

 

[Logan]

@Colin you've done a great job there, well done.

 

[Logan]

I cleared a space to put a potted rhubarb in the front garden.

 

[Sean Regan]

Didn't do a lot, as it was golf in the morning, some "justgetme" shopping on the way home after lunch. Then spent an hour programming my new leccy piano. But I did manage to tidy the front garden. Shaped up the small hedge between us and next door and pruned the three big viburnums.
They'd take over given half a chance and the rhodos and azaleas would always come off worst.
They begin to encroach over the unseen curtilage wall and start to restrict the width of the pavement, if I don't do it each year.

I then washed down the rail of the pergola next to the pool and the exterior of the tea-house, ready for some painting tomorrow.

 

[JamieB]

Makes me feel like a slacker, all I’ve done today is work from 6am to 2. Busted my butt, still got chewed out by my bosses boss, but she cooled down and explained why she was so upset. I wasn’t alone in that screw up, but I took the blame. Which is why she wants me as an assistant manager there... darn my work ethics! I work too hard. I’m good at that part, it’s the paperwork I hate.

 

[Sean Regan]

I did quite a bit today, either side of doing a bit of shopping and bringing home fish n' chips for lunch.

I gave the pool pergola rail and panels a lick of Dulux Mahogany Woodstain, at around fifty quid for 2.5ltrs. it doesn't come cheap, but if you're just over-painting, it goes a long way.

Did the same for the exterior of the tea-house and the two troughs that sit either side of the steps.

Painting the crown (which needed a good brush and vac. as it collects catkins from next door's trees and some moss, necessitates getting up on the roof with a ladder and not falling off due to the slope of the roof. lifting off the crown to paint the woodwork under it, putting it back and painting the castellated trim. Fortunately my wife couldn't see me, as she believes at 78, I shouldn't even be using a step stool!

(excuse the sun in the lens).

Preparation of both is an ideal way to check for rot, but there wasn't any.


I then changed the koi pool filter pump from the winter, 9000 ltrs., ph., to the summer one 15,000 ltrs. ph. They don't pump at those rates due to the head height of the intake. I also scrubbed down and re-pointed the waterfall which isn't connected in the winter. It'll have dried off by tomorrow, then after a bit of a scrub it'll be OK to turn on.

Then everything got a good water. Had the lawn sprinklers on for the first time this year and the leaky hose system that feeds all the borders and the rockery, that I've left running until it shuts itself off later this evening.

I've resisted shaping the two acer palmatums as yet as they're doing their best to conform to the mushroom shape I like.

The flox on the rockery is going from strength to strength.

The patio-side azaleas are beginning to show, it's always the red ones that flower first.
There's no colour coordination.

 

[Logan]

Watered the blueberries, 4 newly planted lavenders and the parsnips.

 

[Logan]

Did a lot of watering and pulled some more rhubarb.

 

[Tjohn]

Finally!! Asparagus and Rhubarb are showing! Also planted peas and beets, started the strawberries, and prepped the greenhouse, ready for some nice spring temps.

 

[Sean Regan]

It was a golf day so didn't start on the garden until around 4.00pm. I ran one of the jukeboxes in the tea-house for two hours, a good bit of "preventative maintenance."
Having pointed up the waterfall a couple of days ago, I gave it a good scrub with hot water with the wet n' dry vac running so nothing ran into the pool. The lime in cement isn't good for fish, but as there's 3000 gallons of water in the pool any trace would be pretty harmless.

I's more a token feature, the water supply is just a valved bypass from the filter pump in the nearby pump sump through a length of garden hose buried in the pool concrete collar. You'd be hard pressed to hear "the tinkle of running water," above the noise of the multi gallon per minute return from the filter. It's more for visual effect particularly at night under the lights. I use yellow die in the cement mix to match the York stone, it's a bit noticeable at the moment but will "algae- up," over a few weeks.

The naff-looking bit of wire and net is my "heron deterrent." The lip of the waterfall is about the only place where there's some "sure-footing," to get close to the water.
But the fish like the waterfall, they tend to hang around under it, you can just about see one. It takes too much effort to stay under the filter return without actually swimming.

Did a pool water quality check for "everything," five different test-tubes of pool water with different testing gents added. I rarely bother as the results are always good. Bound to be as the pool isn't over-stocked, it has a big filter and I run a 24/7 trickle change of tap water through a dechlorinator to waste.


Gave this a bit of haircut.

Well pleased with the new wisteria, looked a bit dead three weeks ago when we bought it. We'll see some blooms opening by next week!

Gave everything a good water.



Pleased with the growth of these dwarf azaleas, they're just there to hide the big plastic tub of the sambucus.

We're "knee-deep" in gladioli, sort of "here and there." They are nearly six inches tall already. We got about thirty-odd free from a garden centre for spending over fifty quid just a few weeks ago.

 

[Logan]

Did a lot more watering the plants.

 

[marlingardener]

Picked lettuce and the first of the sugar snap peas, then tackled some hackberry saplings that appeared in the flower beds. Oh, hackberries, how do I hate thee?
My husband came home with 24 bags of mulch for the path to the workshop and to finish off the flower beds and around the fruit trees. I think I know what we'll be doing tomorrow.