WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017 a

A nice gift!! What kind of bulbs, redstar?

 

Where to start? Oh! I suppose here would be best.

In the last few weeks we've done a lot of work in the garden. It's tidying up time and usually takes the longest time of all the jobs and needs a lot of effort and muscle. So the three of us (includes Michael who helps in the garden and does the really heavy work) have finally cleared most of the leaves and started the cutting back, weeding, compost spreading and lawn edging as well as checking and dumping plants that haven't survived the last year or two in the nursery beds.

At least all the leaves are now down from the trees (much earlier than usual) and we have filled two compost heaps, nine wheelie bins and 16 tonne bags with them

A lot of the ornamental grasses and shrubs have been cut back and burned (weekly bonfires) and we can now get to the weeds. The other two do most of the weeding (too much bending for me) and do the worst of the weeds. Michael then turns the compost heaps, with the rotorvator, that are ready for spreading and hauls it to the beds.

The conifers and large shrubs that are, more or less, out of the way have now been cut back and two days ago I was, finally, able to get the pressure hose to the paving in those areas. I did about 300sq ft of paving and got all the surface muck off it. I still have to spray it with Wet and Forget.

We found, two days ago, that one of our big Euonymous has sooty mould. The shrub was 8ft high and 7ft diameter. So we cut it back to 7ft x 5ft and burned all the cuttings. I then used the pressure hose on a lighter setting and gave the whole thing a heavy washing.

The Wisteria had broken some of the wires and pulled out a few vine eyes so we then had to work on that. We pruned it back and left Michael to do the heavy work of getting it wired back in place. He has also started on the ivy on the walls - we cut it back to keep it 2ft from the eaves. It's a good time of year to do it as we don't want to disturb the nesting birds (mainly wrens, robins and blackbirds but one year we had goldcrests). His next job is to start clearing the gutters now that all the leaves are down.

I've started on cutting new edges to the lawns (some of them are dry enough to do so ) and weeding in the gullies and shall continue today. As that includes some bending I'm restricted to one hour of work to two hours of 'not work'.

Have a Merry Christmas.

 

This is where we've been working on the front garden and clearing the winter debris by cutting back, removing leaves, weeding and spreading compost.

The front verge, by the footpath, has had a good going over and the grasses and crocosmia have been cut back but we never manage to get the nasty weeds out from amongst all the dozens of Iris tubers. Although the compost hides the worst of it.


This is where the ground was completely covered in Vinca. It took a lot of digging to remove it and we started at the back, the other month, and planted the bergenia (weren't flowering in the woodland area). We've now cleared right to the front, planted some plants from the nursery beds and put in a load of bulbs.




This small part is a real struggle to work on the weeds as the ground is solid with roots from the 60 year old lilac tree (can just see a bit of its trunk in the top left). I can see some more weeds in the picture


We're still working on all the nearer part of this bed. I've removed half a wheelie bin of moss and now we have to weed it. There's a lot of strawberry weed in it.


Whoops! I've just spotted a slight wonky line in the lawn edge!


During the growing season this bed is so full of burgeoning shrubs and perennials that we can't even get into it. That doesn't seem to bother the weeds that run riot underneath them.


The Alchemilla never likes to let go of its dead leaves and removing them whilst bent over is too much for my back , so Mrs Shiney will have to do that.


Turning the compost and humping it all the way to the front I leave to Michael, when he turns up! The compost that has been turned is just a year old. When that's been cleared out we shall move those leaves into the bottom of the heap and put another six tonne bags full of leaves on there. Then ash and horse manure will go on it, plus a tonne bag of grass cuttings, and then grass cutting early Spring to mid-Summer. It will all be rotovated a few times during those months.

 

Today has mainly been clearing out gutters and tidying the new, long bed along the driveway.

 

I'll be doing some more lawn edging today, if the ground isn't too soggy after the rain, and hope to finish the front garden edges.

Then I'll start on the edges in the back garden and give myself until March to finish them. It takes that length of time because some of the beds get a bit too soggy and there are lots of tree roots that cause my nicely crafted straight lines and curves to wander all over the place - and, of course, because I'm too lazy

 

I looked at the garden as I went by.