popular What have you done today in the Garden?

AAnightowl it’s disappointing when plants don’t do well . I have experienced lost plants in several different locations where plants have just disappeared over the years. Snapdragon’s are a fav plant/flower .

Nice to hear your fruits are lookin OK. Do you make pickles from the cucumbers? And oh dear tomatoes are slow growing. Hope the manure tea does the trick and adds new life to the garden fruits. It’s nice that your growing season is long enough for watermelons. Here not so much, unless they are started in a hot house early and then planted out in June by the time the soil temps warms up.

Nice to see you check in. Sending the garden fairies to watch over your garden.

 

I meant to address this earlier and was distracted as usual. Oreti you were previously a hair dresser. What an interestingly profession. Now it makes sense when every once in awhile I remember your comments ..”It’s hair washing day” ! My DIL is a hair color expert and stylist. She is always busy and has a lot of clients.

Now clipping a few shrubs in your beautiful grden just comes natural for you.

 

Yes I was a hairdresser ending as a salon manager for 15 years . Loved it . I went up to London during my 5 year training period to the Wella Hair Colouring Studio. So much to learn about the blending of colours to match skin tones.
After our brood arrived , all 3 arrived in 4 years., I decided to change my career path and went back to college . I had to study, attending mostly in the evenings, as I wanted to obviously spend my days with our babies.For 3 years I studied Early Years Childcare and Education and gained the qualifications that would allow me to open and run my own Nursery but as my aim was to be with our own children fulltime I opened up a scaled down version from our home, expanding it a little more once all our brood were in school full-time. Fortunately that was another career that I loved and continued in that field for the following 27 years. Still in contact now with some of my ' loaned babies' who now have babies of their own.

I consider myself very fortunate that I was able to retrain and create a new and rewarding career for myself without it having impeded on our family life , the children were tucked up in bed as I headed out the door to attend my college classes. It amazing how you can muster up the stamina when young!!!!

I think you are referring to @Logan on the hair washing day....I don't have specific days ,it gets done most days, especially after being in the garden.

 

Didn't do as much as I wanted today although it's been fine and warm.
I hadn't cut the lawn in over a week due to the frequent days of rain, so it had grown well.



But my Flymo got it back to how it should be. The thin patches have almost disappeared and there's no moss.





Even the new turf under this acer palmatum, which is in almost total shade, is doing well.



Then I did a bit of pruning the tops of the quinces on the side fence and did a bit of leaf collection.

Then I hit a problem.

I was going to attend to the front garden, but I found the drain under the kitchen window was partially blocked by moss that the recent heavy rain had washed off the roof into the gutters and then into the drain.
I removed a lot by hand and the rest with my wet and dry vac.
It wasn't completely blocked, just very slow. What happens, is that if it gets restricted, the 4" pipe from the drain to the inspection hatch half-way down the drive, which only has a slight fall, gets built up with stuff off the roof and anything that goes down the kitchen drain.
It's happened before. It took about fifteen 5lt buckets of water dropped into the drain "from a great height" to clear it. You know when it's cleared when after the final bucket-load is dropped into it "the drain gives a gasp and a death rattle" and all the water has gone.

 

DHR your garden looks terrific. Well groomed and everything from A-Z is perfectly appointed.
And oh those downspouts/roof drains .. they can be a maintenance issue. Especially since moss is always something to consider on roofs. I just had the tile section of the roof , gutters and downspouts pressure washed. Lots of debris and needles. We have snow and ice in winters which can cause a freeze here and there blocking the drains and downspouts from the roof. It’s always something to prepare for when fall leaves and winter approaches. Nice you were able to clear it out. Good job.

 

@Pacnorwest yes it was me about washing my hair, i used to do it every other day but these days don't need to.

Started planting the wallflowers and watered some of the polyanthus, the ground is still dry 3 inches down, needs a lot more rain.

 

Opps sorry… forgive me my memory sometimes is a bit foggy when it comes to all site posts over the years. Thanks for clearing “Hair washing day “ up. Actually …Today is my hair washing day. Hope I don’t clog up the drain again to the septic tank .
I just had the main drain cleaned out and inspected. The pipe cam showed all good. So it should be good for another 15 years. That is since they found that the ground squirrels have caused a few low spots again where the pipes need to be dug up and lifted so they drain the way it should. Oh the many maintenance issues of homes.

Today still clearing out all the pine needles, acorns , and tons of pine cones everywhere dropped from a wind storm a couple days ago. It’s a small truck load to rake. Slowly will move it all to the area to mulch. We had rain the past few days , sunny today and hoping today it will dry out the debris enough to use the blower to get the needles off the garden plants , roof, and driveway.
A quote from Rudyard Kipling "Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade".

 

Meant to address your previous interesting career choices and experience. All very well planned out and your children are very lucky.

Now … how you managed to fit in such an extensive garden too…as we gain time as we age out of certain responsibilities … just goes to show ya ..To fit gardening into a busy life, remember it's a therapeutic escape, not another task, until the garden plants are well established …then… the editing begins…endlessly…

 

Opps sorry… forgive me my memory sometimes is a bit foggy when it comes to all site posts over the years.

Don't worry @Pacnorwest it's fine.

 

Finished planting out the remaining Wallflowers and some Dianthus cuttngs this morning.
This afternoon we picked some Apples and Pears and walked over to my sister's to give them to her.

My next big job is to tackle the nursery area in preparation for overwintering certain plants. The big lean-to coldframe has ,like the greenhouse, become the dumping place for discarded pots and seed trays . There are also a fair few unrecognizable and unfortunately very dead ' cuttings ' in numerous pots too.

This is going to take me a while to do as it has been neglected and allowed to build up this year. It was and to some extent still is a difficult area for me to work in for any worthwhile length of time as the shingled ground still causes my knee a fair amount of discomfort. So it will be a task done is small stages.

 

Mowed the paths. Deadheaded. Took down Veronica’s, Geraniums and other plants to begin covering the beds for the winter.
More harvesting.
It is a lovely fall.

Oreti—Good luck with all that work. Careful with that knee.

 

Great job Oreti sounds like you’re staying strong and doing well with your new knee. I admire your ability to keep it moving during such a challenging difficult time healing from knee surgery.
also… cleaning that greenhouse is a chore. I don’t even want to talk about mine. It’s looks like a tornado hit the inside. Of course it wasn’t really a tornado mostly a couple of chipmunks that dug into every pot they could see. Lil buggers.

Today was haircut day for the weeping blue atlas ceder. Whose bright idea was it anyway to plant a weeping tree across garage doors in the first place? Looks tidy now. Still have more to do … later……maybe. Just have to scoot the clippings on the tarp over to the pasture to mulch. I know it still looks messy but believe me it’s quite an improvement from all the wild hairs sticking up everwhere. Now it has a nice buz cut.




This afternoon I was also up on the roof clearing the scuppers… full of pine needles from a wind storm. One of the vast disadvantages from living next door to a forest full of 100’ Doug fir trees. Well also found a few tennis balls, a purple ball with a ball inside and a frisbee. Mm… mmmm…Roxy toys. She was watching me up on the roof.



I also have had the wisteria blues . Mostly was very unhappy bout missing the spring wisteria blooms this season. Have the ground squirrels to thank for that. It also got a haircut today and cleaned out some large crossing branches with the telescopic chain saw pruners.. battery op.. I luv that tool. Front entry looks much better without some of the large branches across the front entry . Well I think it looks a lot better. Some days I do threaten to wack the whole thing down.

Trimmed the clematis and cleaned the window. Then… Moved all the summer porch plants out and into the greenhouse, and cleared the porch of garden Nickknacks for winter. Also Ordered new awnings for six windows that will be a different color . Takes 5 weeks for the delivery.


Cleaned up all the potted plants on the front porch. Cleared the bench and collections of just stuff. Also trimmed the weeping blue atlas across the arch of the entry gate.

 

Gosh Pac.....how do you manage to do so much in one day???? And what about getting up on the roof ...I can't even think about it let alone attempt it, I'm glad that Roxy was keeping a close eye on you.

I love weeping trees, one of my childhood homes had a huge Weeping Willow on the bank of the stream that ran through our garden, use to love playing in amongst it.
We actually walked past the house last Thursday and sadly the tree has gone and so has the garden, it's all been hard surfaced now and is a parking lot for all the family cars.

 

Thanks Sjoerd .....and yes I will be careful with my new knee, if treated kindly then it treats me kindly too.

 

I finally, took three days, got every single flowerbed, bush, tree, berry plant and bamboo deeply watered. The grass is perfectly brown and dry except along the edges of places that got watered. If it doesn't rain this week I'm pulling out my deerskin dress and doing a rain dance !!