What did you do in your garden today?

[DirtMechanic]

I took out 2 blighted fruit trees, a pear and a crab apple. The lawn needed the light and they had gotten large. Also took a JuJube tree down. The deer ate the fruit but it is an invasive tree with a multitude of small date like pitted fruits that get spread everywhere.

 

[Sean Regan]

I started to strip some of the dying leaves off this wisteria in the bed at the bottom of the garden.

This one.

It climbs around with some help of some wires an old 8ft stump of a tree that died over ten years ago and we took down.


This one.

It had rotted away below ground level and was a bit wobbly. So I detached the wisteria and rocked it until it fell over and I was able to drag it round to the path.

It took a whole bag of my compost to fill the hole. fortunately I remembered we had an old tall bird feeder that the birds didn't like so it ended up on the rafters of the garage years ago.

So I sank it into the ground and tied the wisteria to it.

Job done.

Well not quite, will have to get youngest son to come round with his chain saw. It won't go in the green bin!

 

[Sean Regan]

Had some bad news. The chainsaw is busted. so when I came home from golf this afternoon, I used a bow saw, to cut the tree trunk into three pieces so I can get in my car tomorrow and take it down the tip. Took a lot of effort as, being as it was a prunus, it was very hard wood.

This is it in all its glory in 2004.

I've no idea why it died. All the old kitchen units and fridge freezer in the tea-house had to come out when I bought the jukeboxes.

 

[vette-kid]

Picked up a load of soil. Hopefully tomorrow it will go in. Believe it or not, bags were cheaper and better than anything I could get from the supply yards.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Picked up a load of soil. Hopefully tomorrow it will go in. Believe it or not, bags were cheaper and better than anything I could get from the supply yards.
View attachment 47251

I admit to 60 bags of black kow compost piled out front. I do not think it is a coincidence they are yellow too. It must be used by stores like a fishing lure for gardeners.

 

[vette-kid]

Almost there. Took several large logs, half rotten, broken up in the bottom. About 60cu from of soil in top. Might need to add some after it settles a bit, but got the bulk of it done anyway.

 

[DirtMechanic]

Looks like yard art!

 

[vette-kid]

Looks like yard art!

Sort of. I can't get a good pic, but I cut the angle to follow the sidewalk that goes around the house. Just trying not to make it an eye sore.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I wait for the foilage... There is a showcase about hydro that has some interesting piping..why not some pvc pipe for deep heat of summer moisture?

 

[Gail_68]

Looks like yard art!

Designed very well in organisation

 

[Gail_68]

Nothings been done here since the weekend ...as we've had nothing but rain till today and i'm still leaf collecting when I venture out but the colds hit the plants which was still surviving, so they'll be cut back this weekend for winter.

 

[DeborahJane]

Turned my oblong herb garden into a circular one. Looks much better from my bedroom window. I moved the Kaffir Lime to be central so hope it survives. I dug up the 3 long leaf parsleys and seperated them and had enough to place a parsley circle all the way round. Love it when I haven't had to buy anything and it looks established. I thought I might plant creeping thyme on the outside to save the mower going too close and knocking the bricks out of place. Not sure how to secure them. Maybe stakes, loads of them or quick set cement in between the bricks. Would appreciate any ideas.

Update on herb garden move. The kaffir lime leaf was happy for about 2 months and then started dropping its leaves. Looked miserable and I thought that was it bur low and behold it is starting to come good. Just thought it was good info to pass on. It's worth hanging in there.

 

[Gail_68]

Nothing will be done again today but I shall be out the weekend and thermals an all

 

[Sean Regan]

Nothing today as it was a golf day.
But I did put the Christmas lights up around the front door this evening.
It takes a it of organising. It's one set so you have to start on the right, loop them over to the left then bring them over to finish at the end of the transom window.

Tomorrow I'm going to strip the dying leaves off these wisterias, they are the last ones. There's two, they cross over in the middle. I do it ever year, rather than wait for them to fall off in dribs and drabs.

They aren't like this now they're all yellow.

I'm thinking about stringing some Christmas lights over the front of the pergola

I've the "fox proofing," to finish off down the side of the tea-house.

Yesterday removed this temporary measure I fitted to the skirt.

This is where the fox was digging.

I made a small channel along the edge of the paving slabs, put down some gravel, them mixed up some concrete and made a half round barrier a couple of inches above the level of the flags for the length of the skirt.


I topped this with a layer of dyed cement mortar to give it a sandstone colour. there's still a couple of inches between the top of the concrete and the bottom of the skirt.

I've always found if you make the concrete just damp you can lay mortar on top while it's still wet, if that isn't too wet either. I do use a bricklayer's trowel, but I always finish off such jobs with a sightly wet soft paperhanging brush, to get a really smooth finish. I filled in the gap between the flags and the concrete fence panel on the right.
Now some of the water that runs off the tea-house roof will run towards the back fence and into next door's garden which is lower than ours and they've a flower bed there so it will quickly drain away and the rest towards the path and the garden, as I made the flags crown slightly, half way down. It was a hard job yesterday, as there's a gap of only eighteen inches in which to work. I'll give it all a good wash down tomorrow and get off all the "cementy" marks I've made on the tea-house wall with my hands.

 

[Sean Regan]

Stripped the dying foliage off the pergola on the back of the house, gave it a bit of a prune, more ever one to come as usual, between Christmas and New Year. Put up the fifteen quid 3000 multi-coloured lights I bought in Wilko's.

It was a bit of a pain as they wanted to entagle themselves and get caught on all the pruned wisteria branches.

I was surpised how bright they are, though my camera shows a blue glow that's not really noticeable.
They are plugged into a socket in the garage, they share the same timer that controls the permanent red berry lights on the pool pergola. I like the reflection off the koi pool, the movement of the water makes them twinkle.

Tidying up around the tea-house will have to wait until tomorrow.