What have you done today in the Garden?

We had piggyback plants in Western Washington State, that grew wild. They aren't as popular as they used to be, but I still like them.
I put together, and filled another raised bed. It's dark but I will take a picture tomorrow. It will be my asparagus bed. I dug up some raspberries and a rhubarb root ant took them over to a teacher' s (I used to work with) house.

 

On No-oo not moles. They are a pain in the caboose. Traps are the very best way to get them. Unless of course you don’t grow a garden… they are maddening… little devils how they manage to find food they way they do is just weird and they are blind too. And the mole battle is on…

 

OH No-o not your garden too… traps are great way to snap their little head off. They are so sneaky. Cat too are great. We happen to have a resident bobcat that helps out. I have had 3 acres totally covered in mounds every 14” . It’s was awful. Then the ground squirrels moved in the garden and tunneled around the foundation of the entire house, barn and out buildings. And of course you have heard my raves about the gophers and deer. It’s a jungle out there and this time of year the bunkers are locked and loaded and ready to blast, trap, or whatever is necessary ..I can’t say… but it took me nearly a year of constant mowing 2 x’s a day to finally get rid of them all.

Good Luck. Get EM .

 

After trimming a few small trees and large shrubs I added all the garden trimmings and larger branches to the grow island. It was a burn pile. After not burning for a few years it turned into a grow island out in the middle of the pasture , things started growing. Branches from trees , shrubs other cutting as well as a few bulbs or two are setting up home in that small non-burn - grow island. It shrinks down every year and new plants start to pop up. It’s an interesting little experiment. I haven’t burned the last 7 years. Even in hot summers plants thrive out on that island with no water in summer heat. It’s in a growing climate all of its own with absolutely no gardener to care for it. Now if I could only figure out how to design trees and shrubs that are self-trimming I would be a happy camper.

 

Oh no Pac!!!.....We can't kill them . Have to say it's now about 2years since they last set up camp in our larger central border , we did keep up a steady flow of action of daily...twice on occasions of disturbing and destroying their 'runs' + we use scatter granules to deter them.....Big Cheese comes to mind to the make. Anyway eventually all action ceased ,hopefully made their way back to the surrounding fields. It's not really a large scale job over here for normal sized gardens unlike most of you over in USA and Canada as you all seem to have larger acreage.

 

Been planting out this morning.....a bit of a slow process as I woke up with a very stiff knee this morning, might be due to the slight dampness in the air after our short rain burst yesterday.
Had to lop off a broken branch from the Budleaia and adjust the ties around the stake of yet another Lavatera.
Might dig up a Dahlia as it's in a bit of an unsuitable place really. It's from some of the original tubers I removed from our parents garden that I took on selling up their property after their passing. My sister had one plant that I grew on for her but unfortunately it died after just a couple of years......so we will try again.

 

I was not able to do anything yesterday. I had chores inside I needed to do and then I had to have some down time before I went to knitting club. All of my plants are pretty happy. I just have to do a bit of weedingand trying to get my lawn under control so it doesn't keep creeping into my garden

 

Haven't been able to do much today not because of the weather but, potted on 4 fuchsia plants and 4 fuchsia cuttings.

All of you have been very busy.

 

I planted out 4 Malabar Spinach plants with cutworm guards around their stems and did the same with 3 watermelon seedlings. Did some deadheading and weeding, then it looks like we have rain coming. It has gotten really muggy out so, I put my stuff away and am done for today.

 

Pac— Thanks for your sympathy and wishes. No luck so far. They are now under the beans and strawbs and spuds. I am quickly becoming irritated.
I will have a looksy tomorrow.

 

Not much today as it was laundry and shopping. I did feed the hedgehogs and replaced the camera cards. I took a few photos whilst I was in the garden.

This is our tortoise shell rhodo. It's always the last to flower only a few are out as yet. We bought it well over a decade ago. It was reduced to clear, as every bud was frost damaged. If I knew it was growing to get this big, I wouldn't have planted it so close to the lawn. Over the years I've removed some of the lower branches and the rest are wired to stop them spreading. If I hadn't, they would have been half-way across the lawn by now, The lilac one is much newer.
You can just see another rhodo, I've already dead-headed in the bottom right-hand corner. We bought it at the same time as the Tortoise shell one and it was the same size and similarly reduced.





This camellia has few flowers on it each year, as I always prune off new growth later in the year, to stop it growing too tall. We like it for its leaves.






The rockery is doing well.




I bought a dozen begonia bulbs on eBay in March and was disappointed, as by the end of last week only one had come up, but now four more are starting to show, so I guess the rest will eventually.






Earlier this year I thought this acer palmatum Taylor was dying, but I kept watering it and although a lot of leaves have died off, the rest are flourishing.
It did the same last year.
Some small branches will have died off, but acers do that every year.

 

Sjoerd sorry to hear about your troubles with moles, i don't have that problem, but some do around here.

 

Spent 7 hours in the garden planting out, emptying out pots with bulbs in ,refilling them with fresh soil ready for their new summer occupants. Two big borders are finished now moving on to the next ones. Everything is taking me double the time to do plus I'm working on my own as hubs twisted a muscle when he was cutting the hedges.
I also potted out the Cucumbers and some more Tomato plants. Sowed some Rocket and some more Lettuce.

 

I did get some weeding done and burned part of a brush pile before it started raining again. Allegedly it will be sunny for a few days. I sure hope so.

I have hordes of maple tree seedlings. My silver maples made lots of their winged seeds this year and they are all sprouting. Also the squirrels have been planting black walnuts willy-nilly around my gardens and yard. I really don't want more maples or black walnuts. I have been pulling all the walnut seedlings that I can find. I did give a few away recently.

Thankfully my #2 PECAN tree finally has a couple of baby leaves. They sure are slow to put out leaves. I wonder how long before they have pecan nuts?

I almost forgot. I did harvest rose hips from one of my rose bushes. It was covered in rose hips.

 

You know you can just mow over all those seedling trees. They don't grow back after you mow them. It's the same as any other seed, once the stem is gone, that's it. No need to pull them up.

Pecan trees are always the last to put on leaves in spring and they take 6-10 years to fruit.