What have you done today in the Garden?

@Sjoerd, you could give paid tours of your allotment. It's that nice.

 

Very neat and organized veg patch @Sjoerd !!

 

I seem to have missed a bunch again...

My yard is still a mess between my mowers still being down, and lots of rain. I will play catch up when my friend can get here and fix my mowers and I get enough dry weather so I can mow. We have more storms on the way according to weather reports.

My bush beans are up and going, and my compost pumpkins are beginning to sprout. My strawberries have blooms and some berries, but none are ripe yet.

I did burn the brush/trash pile by my driveway today. There are still a lot of honeysuckle vines in that mess. I hope son can replace his weed dragon soon... That would be more helpful. I have tons of honeysuckle vines elsewhere that will be quite difficult to get rid of. I think my birdy friends spread their seeds...

Here are a few pictures I took this week. Sorry if weeds invaded my pictures...



Okay, I did not get spaces to ID stuff...

the bottom one is a purple allium. I did have lots of purple alliums and even planted some more last fall. Only one bloomed, and the others seem to be missing?

The rose in front of the lattice work is my Knock Out rose, Home Run.

Another dark pink rose is called Purple Pavement rose. I have no idea why.

The blue iris is a hybrid. Dame's rockets are in picture #2. People here confuse them with phlox. Dame's rockets have fuzzy leaves and only 4 petals on the flowers. They also bloom in April. Phlox have smooth leaves, and bloom in July and August, and have 5 petals. Also, the Dame's rockets are a low rosette most of the year. Phlox are tall most of the season.

A couple of my hostas are here also. That big clump gets lavender flowers in summer. I need to divide that clump and put some in other places. I forget the color of the other hosta. I have some large plain green hostas that get white flowers when they bloom. I will try to add some more photos later.

 

Annie—Thank you so much. It gets much more attention than the flower half…and there is much more planning and timing involved. The flower section has already had the succession planned, so they just sit there looking pretty when given the cue. Weeding the flower plots is a year-long chore, however.

Daniel— What a nice thing to say, mate. Cheers.
Well, I do not often have to give tours but sometimes someone comes along with a question, or wants a cuppa and a natter. I am always ready and willing to suspend garden work in lieu of sitting in the shade. Any excuse to put the kettle on.

AA— what a beautiful selection of blooming plants. Thanks for this inspiring display.

 

Didn't do much today, apart from making this video of our pink wisteria.



But whilst I was making it, I was reminded that I did need to do something with the gable end of the garage. The wood was rotting and really needed replacing.
The left-hand side is coming adrift.

My wife often accuses me of "looking for jobs," (as if she can't find me enough).





Anyway, I went to the wood yard at lunchtime and bought the wood.
Just a case of cutting it to size and sanding down the edges and corners. Plus, making a ferrule for where the two halves join in the middle. I got it all done and did a "dry run." Assembling it all. Then took it down and painted the backs of the bits.
I've golf, lunch, then shopping tomorrow, but I'll probably be able to put it all back up again and paint the front in situ. when I get home.

 

It's been raining all weekend so I just haven't done anything

but I found this cute little stray!!

 

Today I picked a shirtfull of babyboomer cherry tomatoes and gave some to my neighbor. I had about 50 of them in that one picking. Lots more to come too !!

Then, I noticed that my peach tree had suckered !! First time it's done that in the four years it's been in ground. So, I dug down, removed the soil from the suckered area and cut four, all clumped together, off. I left the cut areas exposed so that they scab over and don't (hopefully), re-shoot.

Then I got out my electric hedge trimmers and trimmed the variegated Ligustrum hedges. I put the clippings under the hedge for mulch.

Now Iam waiting for my summer squash, which I cut up and par boiled, then dunked in icewater, to finish drying on towels in the kitchen so that I can freeze it. This year is the best year for squash. Not a single squash bug in sight so far ( knock wood) !!

 

Been out most of the day but managed to pot up some rose cuttings I took for Tetters last year



There's a bud on one of them but she wants me to cut it off

 

Yep, Lord Awful is really good at rose cuttings. Those six are of 'Rambling Rosie' A super, long flowering rambler that grows out front on the dividing fence line.
These six, when established will transform the fence line now the old tatty lavender has been removed. We've sown white clover under that fence for the bees, and the roses will give them a bit more variety.
I usually prefer to remove flowers as the new cuttings are moved to their pots so they can put all their effort into growing strong.

 

I am gonna change my name to Cattle Panel. I made 7 more tomato cages. She has 20 Celebrity tomatoes in the cages, and 2 Juliet. It will be a Wall-O-Maters in time. I also used short panels to trellis the climbing beans.

 

The right garden is almost all planted. I did the last thing this morning which were the onions. At the end where the black tower is; I'll plant one more tomato (after I get it hardened off) and pea pods on the sides. Monday I planted lettuce, carrot, and beet seeds. The space at the end (where I stood to take the picture) I will probably put drying beans in.

I replanted the apricot and peach trees that my coworker gave me. She has both and these were started from pits in her compost. I don't know where to put them so they have a new home in a planting bag. I forgot all about them, but they made it through the winter.

I found a place selling gooseberries, so I brought one home. I just ordered a pink champagne currant from MIGardener. I haven't received it yet, but it should be coming soon.

Those are my potatoes behind it. I color coded them, the gray bags are baby yukon, the blue are huckleberry gold, black are amarosa fingerlings and the purple are wild purple.

And I couldn't leave without showing you the buds on the strawberries. They were doing nothing where they were before, but they love where I moved them.

Now I'll go back and read all the posts!

 

I will try to get a few more photos in here.



this is my Thompson/Concord cross grapevine. I think this one is 5 years old? The bird cage has no bottom, so I use it to protect my grapevine from deer. The pink thing is my shoe.

I seem to have lost some of my new photos... ?

I did work on burning that brush/trash pile by my driveway some more today...It is still burning after 2 days. That is the pile full of honeysuckle vines and seeds...

 

It was golf in the morning, then lunch, then a bit of shopping. So after I had got home and made us some cappuccinos, I got into this.





The paint on the back of the wood had dried overnight. So it was just a case of screwing it to the garage and giving the front its first coat of paint. It'll get another tomorrow. It only took an hour, finished for, half-past four.
As I already had the paint, total cost, twenty quid.




Starting to get a bit more colour around the garden.














The rockery has mostly recovered.



















First rose on the patio fully out.






First clematis out.

 

Since it started sprinkling, after I got home from shopping and putting groceries away, I brought two bags of potting soil into the potting shed, ( I bought four bags this morning, 3 bags cow manure and 4 bags garden soil) but it was so humid out I decided to wait to repot some of my houseplants. All I accomplished was spreading two bags of mulch and a bag of manure divided amongst my winter squash and my potatoes. After that it was a bit heavier rain so I'm inside for now.

Oh, and I removed some of the older leaves from my winter squash, (they need more air circulation to stave off mildew) and added another trellis to the opposite side to keep the plants from trailing out into the grass.

 

DM— that is gardening on a grand scale. It is a pleasure to look at.

Willow— things are looking good there.

AA— you have some good protection.

Riley— i could look at your garden all day long.