What have you done today in the Garden?

6am start before the wind starts. I sprayed the pastures for tansey ragwort and poison hemlock , and weeds weeds galore. Sprayed the entire perimeter for blackberries and posion oak. took 4 , 12 gallon containers to spray the entire area.



Grass pasture is really dry . No rain in weeks.



Treated all front driveway trees for Gypsy Moth. Use pellets to sprinkled around the base of the
trees, then water in well.


Replaced the pump on the pond waterfall.


Found another ground bee nest … ughh..

 

The plan today was to do some wisteria pruning and then give the rails of the rose patio balustrade a second coat of paint.

But I was greeted with this view from our French windows, this morning and it's still raining!







I'm pleased with the annual growth of the azaleas in the bed next to the main patio.
It's far too thick for wood pigeons to try to "flop" through them to get at the small bird feeder below the canopy.






I'll just have to content myself with watching cricket, golf and later tennis on TV.

 

Looking fabulous Pac despite the dryness of the
grass pasture it still holds such beauty..
Reading up on ground bees ( in general) it's reports that some types of ground bees are quite docile...fingers crossed that's what yours are .
I also read of how and why some bees die after using their sting....pretty gruesome death and sadly Honey Bees are such poor victims.

https://www.livescience.com/do-bees-die-after-stinging.


Well after a morning of hw / laundry I finally made it out into the garden yesterday afternoon....by which time the muggy heat had really built up !!

Attempted to tidy up the nursery area but due to it's position of remaining a sun trap for most of the day the idea had to be abandoned unfortunately.

I did manage to salvage a good harvest of nice leaves from the remaining bolted lettuces before composting them. Planted out some more mixed variety ones that have been nurtured away from the drying sun/ heat. They are looking good and should see us through for another couple of months.

Harvested a few more cucumbers and picked enough blackberries to see us through the weekend.
Hubs began the attack on the sprouting weeds on the paths but after a hour ..and without shade I managed to persuade him to stop....oh the powers of an Ice Cream!!

Early evening we did the rounds with the watering cans . what a tiring chore!!

Today so far just worked my way around the garden deadheading...why oh why do Petunias get so sticky!! I recently read somewhere that there is no detrimental effect on the plants if not deadheaded. A study was done and they just happily continued blooming away!!
Unlike, it seems, most flowers who are actively encouraged into survival mode and throw out more blooms when fading ones are removed. Only issue is fading Petunia blooms look awful....so needs must.

Not sure what to do as the new supply of Wallflowers have obviously loved our weather and have romped away. Could really do with getting their roots into the ground as they are so big but need to hold off for at least a couple more months. Might try and see if they can be block lifted and sunk into deeper troughs.

 

Nothing much today, picked all of the red and white currants, just got the blackberries and do some watering later.