What are we doing in the garden 2025

Draught tolerant! Is it a windy spot, @Selleri?

 

You know what I mean!

And hey, I'm a person who sews seeds and moves lawn...

 

Had a potter around thus afternoon. Mowed the lawn
Cut back some unsightly astrantia, deadhead heleniums and salvia and various other things I quite like doing these jobs while sitting on the grass on a dry sunny day . Took a few helenium cutting and fed / watered the pots and tomatoes

 

It's been a sociable weekend so it wasn't all about the garden, but I did the usual deadheading, some weeding, moved a few of potted plants around, removed crispy leaves from some plants, added food to the roses for the last time this season and did lots and lots of watering. I had completely underestimated the effect of the wind of the past week in relation to drying the soil (hence the reference to removing crispy leaves ...) I do find watering tricky to gage sometimes. And there are different views online e.g. some people water very regularly and others only water potted plants and plants which haven't been established yet. As appealing as the latter option is in theory, I couldn't not water during a warm and relatively dry period.

 

@Selleri be careful with water mint as it can take over.

 

Be careful of that watermint going bonkers @Selleri , although you can always send 'the child' in to weed it out!
It's best in a container - to keep it...contained....
I bit the bullet and did the wobbly post, which took a while as it wasn't straightforward. I think the bad weather last week probably didn't help, but I had to pull it forward and secure it first, which was tricky. I made sure I covered it all before the rain was about to start, so fingers crossed it's ok. I almost decided to leave it until this afternoon, when it's to be drier, but I need to go out later, and once I'd started it....
Didn't do much apart from that - cut the grass and did some deadheading. Filled feeders again! I propped up/secured some of the Ligularia stems which had suffered a fair bit in the storm. It's a pity as it's a real favourite with the bees, and it got a bit trashed. Gardening eh?
Not sure much will be done today, apart from packaging some strawberry runners to post. Some more painting and footering in the shed probably. It's looking quite good now.

 

@Perki , may I ask how you took your Helenium cuttings and what you did next?, for example, did you put in water? or straight into a pot?

 

Decades ago we made a "rock" area for different irises. While we have weeded the area it has got out of hand and the ivy is the main plant. So the next project is to recreate what we once had.
Hard work though!
And it is in a hot place.
But once a project is started then it has to be completed.
Had a stop and picked more figs. Amazing harvest. Having given loads to our son yesterday and to neighbours today and then the ones we picked got us back to the numbers again.
Mustn't grumble just need to eat them faster.

 

Yes, I see the plant in action daily in the local pond, and Google was rather vocal about it's tendencies. Container and child labour is the plan!

It has been raining all morning (hooray!) so just a tiny amble to admire and unadmire roses.

I'm so happy my Climbing Iceberg made it, I took several cuttings over a year ago before moving house, but only this one rooted. It hasn't done anything at all so I very optimistically planted it in a large planter with evergreen winter flowering Clematis (Wisley cream) and wished the couple a happy, long life together.

I had the parent plant delivered into my office pre-pandemic, the box didn't have my name but our mailroom hero pinged me that they have a delivery which says "live plants" and something about climate change (Climbing Iceberg- I can see where he was coming from) so he thought it might be for me. We had around 800 people in the building.



Now this one is not quite such a joy, it was reduced to clear in a reputable garden centre, and labelled as "Ballerina", allegedly with tiny, almost wild looking, often single flowers

In my opinion, if Primark did fake flowers, this would be a hit. The colour is very fake, a bit like acrylic nails of Rose world.



Tonight a big watering ahead of a little holiday trip.

 

Seeing the garden going downhill with this current heatwave and drought, I’m not quite ready to give up gardening at all.
I collected seeds from the white Astrantia in my old bed on the north side. It took me 3 hours waiting time to get the soil wet in the pots. Everything is so dry, it’s almost impossible to believe there will ever be rain again.
I’m just back from the garden where I have sown the seeds.
I have ordered 4 other seeds, Echinacea purpurea, Astrantia alba, Helenium Helena red, and Linaria Canon went.
I chose the Echinacea and Astrantia in case my plants die and the seeds can’t be used.

 

Mostly watering duties today ... and tomorrow ... and the next day ... I quite enjoy it. I aim to do 10 watering cans per hr, as that spreads it out. Good weight-bearing exercise.

Meanwhile, I am wondering where to site this cotoneaster, but, as it seeded itself and I don't think it is an offspring of my others as the leaves are very small and a lighter green, I'm not sure what direction it wants to grow in. Will it go up ... or out horizontally? If anyone can identify the type, I'd be most grateful. It is about 6" tall currently.

 

Took the last part of my Laburnum, that I grafted around 1985, down, it had been slowly dying back for the last few years and had become a bit unsightly even by my standards.
It had had its day and was fantastic when in full flower.

 

@ViewAhead, I would hazard a guess that's cotoneaster horizontalis. We used to have it in s previous garden hanging over a dwarf wall. Covered in bright red berries in autumn?

I have a feeling that it's now an unwanted species in the wild as it seeds itself around rather too well - that, and spread by birds of course.

 

Its been years since I last did Helenium cutting I were successful with sahin early but cant remember how I want about it then. These are waltraut its a great mid size helenium , I've took 6-8 inch cutting and potted them up in a 9cm pot compost / grit sand and left them in my propagator ( turned off ) in the house in a shaded area, Used rooting powder also .