What are we doing in the garden 2025

The four Buddleja I savagely pruned last week all have buds developing despite the lack of rain.

 

I shredded a big pile of extremely dry and dusty apple and pear prunings, glad I was wearing safety goggles, should have had a face mask on as well but can't breathe well with those.

 

Thank you @Bluejayway @ViewAhead and @fairygirl

 

I use a heavy iron bar for making holes for supports.
Not much help if you don't have one but comes in very handy for all kinds of things.

 

Not sure what I'll do today, but I might try and do the compost as I did something different yesterday that I'd been putting off, and it was a really tricky, awkward footery little job. I needed to make another raised bed for a clematis, which involved making a box to add to the existing raised bed next to the pergola, but will give extra height and therefore better drainage. I have the clematis, but it needs potting on or planted, so I thought I'd get on with that and then plant it. The only problem is - I have sweet peas in the bed which are doing brilliantly in the ground due to the weather this year [typical!] and it would mean removing those, which I don't want to do, and I doubt it would work covering them too much. If I leave the clem until they're done [about mid October] it'll be too late for planting it, so I'll need to pot it on and wait until spring when it'll be suitable again weather wise, but the clem will also have grown more and be harder to easily plant in the bed. Sigh...
It [the box] still needs the top edging done, so I'll do that today. I'll also need to top up the seed feeders again. The good spring weather has meant a huge increase in successful broods of the small birds in particular, and even though it's costing me a fortune, it's great to see.
I got my hedging along the boundary all trimmed yesterday, which took a while, and there's still a little bit to do, but that can wait. Potted on some lettuce, did some deadheading, and a few other things.

 

Capel Manor yesterday, planted another Nandina and some ground cover in a couple of spots.
The Nandinas and Skimmia planted last week have survived ( well all bar one, which I suspect was on its way out anyway, at least it wasn't one I planted ).
Didn't get to Allotments after as I needed to get home. Plots today.

 

Frustrated that after yesterday's meagre exertions, today my movement is limited and uncomfortable. Ah well. Still pleased to have got something ticked off my ever-expanding "urgent" list.

 

Thanks for that advice @shiney. Unfortunately I've been told by the Council that I can only communicate now with their Insurers and not to contact them directly. I doubt whether our local Councillors will be of any help at all - they'll toe the party line which is Lib Dems.

Our own insurers told us that our policy only covers subsidence damage to terraces if the main house is damaged - which it isn't.

I'll continue fighting if only to waste their time and money.

 

A piece of reinforcing rod would be good for them.

 

Their Tree Inspector admitted to me that they wouldn't now plant trees that close to a house but said back in the 70's they didn't know any better -which is a nonsense. I think it was most probably the developers of the cul de sac that planted six sweet little trees to make it look pretty and the Council later took over the responsibility for their maintenance. They are all very close to our very long boundary wall. One huge Norwegian Maple was felled back in May because it was in a dangerous state, the second is going the same way fast.

 

This is the effect I'm after, though as the plants haven't been growing in this formation up to now, they don't meld as seamlessly together as they would if they had been positioned like this since March. I thought I had got away with removing the grasses without my resident frog noticing, but he was sitting on the edge of the bits remaining with a grumpy expression on his face this morning. TBF, frogs do look quite grumpy normally, but he was definitely exuding discontent. The mystery is how he gets up there (it is an 18" leap) ... and why, when there are lots of clumps at ground level to enjoy.