popular What have you done today in the Garden?

Food Bank gathering today. It went well; however, I can see that we have reached the high point. We are planning to stop in first week in october; but ultimately, the garden yields will be the determining factor.

 

Nothing today as it's raining and there's a lot of sport on the TV.
I'm doing a bit of lap-top housekeeping at the same time.
I'm saving some files to separate hard drives and USB sticks and deleting a lot of unwanted cookies.

 

Last night, after the sun was fully to the West and my yard was all in shade, I set the sprinkler on the south garden. I then started weeding in the South East corner of my yard where there are two rambling roses growing. Well, I haven't given these ramblers a serious pruning in 3 years !!
Neglectful, I know !!.

So, they were everywhere and there were old shoots to remove and lots of pruning back. There was a dang tree growing in there coming up from right under one of the rose bushes!! So, I cut it down but will need to dig up the rose to get that tree's roots out. The dang tree was taller than me !! That'll tell ya how dense the rambler was. I didn't ever notice it growing in there until the rose was cut back.

Truth be told, I went a bit too far !! The rose bushes are now each about 3' tall whereas before the canes sprawled more than 10 feet long each. After pruning the rose bushes I could actually get to the weeds so, I weeded till it was too dark to see them.

This morning I finished weeding that corner out and then set the sprinkler on. After that corner is good and wet I can commence digging up that rose and removing the tree roots.
Wish me luck !!

 

Been slowly but surely working my way round my poorly looking Dahlias yesterday and today.
Very slow and at times painful task as I certainly can't kneel anymore...will I ever ,some medics say yes and some say no. I suffer constantly with my lower back so having to bend so low just intensifies it ....but having decided to ( hopefully) try and keep as many Dahlias as possible rather that start afresh with new next year will do anything to get them back on track.

I've either thinned them out...drastically..or cut then right down to ground level .Then they and the ( cleared) surrounding ground have been drenched with a milk and water solution or a milk+ bicarbonate soda one . They have been colour coded (orange or yellow wool attached ) so I will be able to compare results.
Still have about 18 left to do, but it is a task that is very weather dependent.
Earlier results are promising...so I'm daring myself to be optimistically hopefully.

Before... thought this one was a definite gonna.



..and now 3 weeks later....magnifying glasses needed to spy the green shoot.


Before..



after...


So far about 20 have been attended to..

 

Oreti from your comparison pics of before and after treatment to your dahlias they are looking so much better. It’s a difficult disease to tackle but even with physical limitations you have done a great job. I’m sending the dahlia fairy’s your way to help guard all your beautiful dahlias and keep them all safe for next season . Good job.

It’s times like these that gardening can be a real challenge and sometimes we need help with whatever is necessary to keep our gardens safe. Winter is in the air and soon our gardens will be fast asleep. I’m ready for a break from the daily garden tasks and all the critters that seem to have control over my garden despite all my efforts to keep them at bay. Lost so many plants from the horrible ground squirrel invasion. It’s heartbreaking . But I know in time the garden will find a way to heal and continue to bring joy peace and happiness.

 

Thanks Pac and for sending the Dahlia Fairy too.

Sorry for all your gardening losses too, yes I so agree with you ,it is very heartbreaking . I hate seeing a poorly plant and last thing at night and first thing in the morning I find myself having to check on them. It may sound a bit over the top but feel because it was my choice to grow/buy them then I must care for them in the best possible way. I certainly can't just compost a sickly plant without researching first if there is even the slightest chance they might be saved.

Although having said that I was initially thinking of getting rid of all our Dahlias last week but that was down to feeling so overwhelmed on discovering that it wasn't just the initial 5 of them smothered in P M but now, seemingly almost in a blink of an eye , the whole lot!!!
Having calmed down from the ugly looking shock I'm ready and willing to go into battle now. Watch this space!!
Have to admit that I'm looking forward to having a bit of a Winter break this year. I normally still enjoy finding things to do out there, saving greenhouse jobs for the wet days but this has been a challenging year where even the simplest jobs have proved a tad difficult and so slow in reaching the desired outcome. The slugs and snails were moving faster than me at times.

Really looking forward to next year and being much more able even though I still plan to streamline some things........not sure what exactly yet.

 

@Oreti glad that your dahlias are doing better.



Tried to do some more weeding and trimming the grass edge but it started raining.

 

Hang in there Oreti sometimes a winter break helps us to take the time and to let things settle and can offer a new perspective when tackling some of the toughest challenges we face from time to time in our gardens.
It’s alway’s something, good , bad or indifferent , we can over come.

 

@Oreti they say poor air Circulation contributes to powdery mildew development. Maybe try spacing them farther apart next year and in a more breezy location.

Thinking back, when I grew butternut squash on the ground, I had powdery mildew but I have grown it on Trellis since and with the good air circulation the trellis provides, no problems.

 

Air circulation is key to reducing PM in the garden, as well as milk and other spray mixtures. In my case however the gophers , voles , mice and ground squirrels were chomping on the tubers as well as leaf hoppers that spread the PM .

Also decided planting dahlias in the same area can cause disease, soil born pathogens, that can persist in the soil, while repeated planting of the same host increases the risk of disease buildup. Implementing crop rotation, and good cultural care, and proper disposal of diseased plants are good strategies to manage and prevent these soil-borne diseases from affecting new dahlia tubers.
Same issue with my maple trees too.

I also decided to stop planting gopher food and moved on to planters on the porch’s that were all fenced . And wouldn’t ya know it… the deer started jumping over the hot wired fences to get to my plants on the porches and even the squirrels, chipmunks and Belding ground squirrels came to the party . Never defeated though as I am mustering up another war plan . Yes drones will be smoke bombing these lil pests and dropping plantskidd pellets over and around the entire perimeter of the garden, home and out buildings. Just as soon as I reenergize the powers that be… that’s aging faster by the day. I’m really ready for winter…

 

I need to do weeding again, so today what I did...was just look at my garden. The spirit is not moving me to do much else in it at this time.

 

Thanks @Anniekay and @Pacnorwest .

I had given it thought about maybe needing to move them...well some of them. They have been in their positions for years as being on the milder south coast they don't require digging up and overwintering under shelter. I did move and replant some last year but unfortunately they too got P M.
I think in this case it wasn't caused by poor air circulation as they have their own spaces.
I think it was down to this years weather we had several ' official ' heatwaves that followed on from each other and a drought which seemed a lot worse down in the south.We went several months without a drop of rain. We also , like many areas here , are still under a hosepipe ban too.

I also think we had let the Lavateras grow to big this year causing quite a few of them to find themselves growing in more shade.
They have now been significantly cut back.

I will definitely take heed of all possibilities next year and keep as close eye on them.

Thanks x

 

Finished weeding the borders and trimming the grass edge, started along the path now ready for the wallflowers.

 

Polytunnel has been full of bees for past few days. Thought it was part of a swarm but now I think they've just come through on a flight path and got stuck. Been trying to get them out but they keep flying back in. Tried smoking them out but all that happened was I disturbed a queen wasp in there. The bees weren't bothered by it. This is the Queen wasp...



Closed off the back entrance and this evening most of them had gone, apart from the 50 odd I caught and let go

 

I got out early and dug up a patch of grass next to my potting shed to plant this Sweet Summer Love Clematis that I got in june through mail order. How could I resist a plant with such a lovely name !!

After amending the soil and filling my hole up with water, I added some lime to my acidy soil then popped it in. It's put on a lot of growth in the past 3 months as it was only about 5" tall.


This is what the flowers look like:


I had been wanting one of these but they were not cheap, well, not as cheap as I'd like !! . So, I waited until they put some small cuttings on sale then grabbed one. It came in an itty bitty 2" pot so, I've kept it under grow lights and potted it on twice until it had a nice sized root system that should insure survival outside.

I'm hoping it will eventually grow up the rambling rose that's next to it. That is a Cecile' Brunner with pale pink flowers so, it should look nice.
I also have two Scentsation honeysuckle to go into the ground. I got them in 3" pots in summer and potted those on under the grow lights as well. I would've had those in the ground as well but dang if I can make up my mind exactly where to plant them !! . .