What are we doing in the garden 2025

I struggle to imagine that happening somehow!

I, on the other hand, may well have a dose of it. The weather has been so windy and so dry that just keeping things at a minimal level of hydration has become a chore. There's also a few poor performers I am seriously contemplating giving up on, which is not usually my mindset at all.

 

I'll have any of your spare rain @fairygirl , the last decent shower was a month ago, only dribs and drabs since. We need a good 8-10 hours of steady proper rain please.
Just been deadheading and tidying up, I took a few dead twigs off two of the potted Acers, I should do a proper early summer pruning but it's too hot out there.

 

@shiney A shredder would be a useful tool for you , that bulky stuff takes up a lot of space and impossible to manage to dispose of. Its too hot for the birds today , except for a couple of swallows the garden has been bird free today

 

Today I tidied up my dwarf pampas grass, removing all the ragged flowers and flower stalks first and then all the dead leaves and trash from the edges and centre. It’s a job I don’t really enjoy as the leaves have razor sharp edges, so long sleeves, gloves and safety glasses were needed to avoid using up my emergency supply of plasters . It took about an hour and a half, luckily in shade by that time. It would have been easier and quicker to use a hedge trimmer but I have left it quite late this year and didn’t want to destroy the new flowers that were starting to form. I also removed the flower stalks from one of my Phormiums and watered all my containers and some young shrubs and perennials.

That should make up for the lack of activity earlier in the week @ViewAhead .

 

Today I potted up some lavender bought from Sarah Raven's sale, and also a dahlia from Aldi. Deadheaded everything then I cleaned out the tiny solar pond pump.
Final job of the day was to feed everything using my hose end feeder. It's much easier than carrying watering cans, but I am not sure that it worked as there seemed to be a lot of feed left in the pot when I had finished. Next time I use it I need to make a note of the level at the start so I can check that it is working.

 

Very difficult for you @Allotment Boy when you don't get reasonable rainfall at this time of year. I think we're just over 100mm so far for this month, not counting the 7 or 8mm from yesterday into today, which is still quite low for us here. It tends to be reasonably regular here too, even if it's just smirry, light stuff, and we don't get the level of heat to dry the ground out either, despite the definite change in the last 5 years or so. I couldn't survive in the south for any length of time.

I got my gate finished, although I haven't put the bolt or handle on yet. I put some more wires/vine eyes onto the pergola for the sweet peas, and moved a few things around. Some deadheading, fed a couple of plants, and did a bit of general faffing and it was pleasant enough for me to sit with a cuppa, because the breeze helped prevent me overheating. Still had to come inside in the middle of the day though!

 

I tried to demolish the front wall of the stone trough on the terrace that I want to get rid of. I used a lump hammer and chisel and managed to prise the top layer of small, fairly thinnish, limestone slabs but had to give up on the next layer. I'd underestimated (again!) just how difficult it would be so will ask the builders to do their best with a Kangol hammer. I was in the shade to start with but gave up when the sun moved round to the south. Far too hot for hard work.

I find ivy is becoming more of a nuisance in this garden now. I suspect as it's more than 50-60 years old, ivy probably sees an opportunity to get entrenched. I can't physically dig it any longer so just keep hacking it back but might try some SBK on the worse patches soon.

 

Hallelujah! The wind has dropped and looks to be just at breeze levels for a few days. It has been really tricky with the double whammy of very windy and very dry for the last couple of months. Garden should be looking lovely in late June, but ravaged is a more accurate adjective this yr.

Do pigeons never shut up! Wretched things!

 

Today I will be getting rid of the "dead body" of a tree, and preparing the ground for its replacement.

While it is tempting to plant the replacement already, the temperature today will reach 22 C, tomorrow 27 C and the day after will drop to 17 C. So it makes sense to be patient for a couple of days. I have it resting in a cooler/shadier spot at the moment.



Later on, I want to buy some extra floating plants & oxygenating ones for my container pond, as it has been getting some algae.

 

Agree, I've thought of getting one but it wouldn't be practical on my sloping site, it would likely be heavy for me to manoeuvre too and I don't want the noise.

What has helped me most with my clearance tasks over the winter is a mini chainsaw. Makes it much quicker and easier to cut down small branches to fit in the green bin.

I only have one green bin and it's collected fortnightly, but when I have too much I just store it in garden waste bags and feed it out bit by bit, as there will always be collections where I haven't actually generated much new waste.

 

Today I pulled some rhubarb - this is the first year I've been able to harvest it, and I've taken three pickings. This will be the last one.

Then I planted up some polianthes. This is the first time I've tried to grow them, and the bulbs have been sitting in individual small pots for months waiting to sprout. Now I have 4 out of 5 sprouted so have put them in some bigger pots - one pot of 3 and one single. They had some lovely roots when I turned them out. I've not lost hope for number 5 yet.

Finally I've just been out to tackle a clump of very tall red clover that was sprawling all over the back lawn. I've taken out a lot of the sprawl and removed all the dead flowers - it looks much less of an eyesore now. Whilst doing that I spotted that there was some knapweed growing in the clump too.

Don't expect to do much else today apart from a bit of dead-heading and watering. I'm not going to mow whilst it's so dry as that will just remove the last vestiges of green. Front lawn now has ragwort coming up but at least it's green!

 

Absolutely nothing as my garden is perfect at the moment and the grass and weeds are not growing thanks to the heat. Oh dear forgot I will have to pick some rhubarb.