What are we doing in the garden 2025

We mowed the lawn for the first time in months.
Harvested yet more figs and picked some apples and pears to give to the men doing our new fence.

 

Those little Carexes are ideal for that kind of job @lizzie27. I use various types of evergreen groundcover for that purpose
I'll just have the Smarties @Plantminded
Yeh- the wet is the problem for lots of plants here @Obelix-Vendée . I do have the raised beds, so I could possibly find a wee spot in one of those. The ones against the house aren't so good as the walls are cream/white, so I use stronger colours there, but the new bit at the pergola/fence [faces south west] would be a possibility.
I planted out the sibirica Iris yesterday that's been sitting for a long while in it's pot. Let's just say my back is suffering today due to the 'soil' I had to dig out. It didn't need watered in either - over 11mm rain since yesterday evening. I doubt a Gaura would have lasted long if I'd tried it there!
I got a few other bits and pieces done as well as doing that - mainly checking that Bob was ok, and Mum had enough food. Worse than having the weans! He was even tootling around and pecking at the ground near the wee nest box, after sitting on top of it for a while, so he's quite happy. He found a new place to spend the night - round by the back of the shed, on a little raised bed with ferns in it. Plenty of little dry, sheltered bits for him due to all the containers I keep stored round there too.
It's raining again, but supposed to clear up. Not holding my breath as the forecasts have been very wrong this week, but if it clears, I'll get round to that front bed and see what I can do there. I have an Erythronium in a pot that can also get planted near the pond, if my back can face digging that clay out. At least it'll be a smaller hole! Not much else needing done - I fed the toms and the sweet peas yesterday, and nothing else needs food. I'm rearranging part of the main boundary bed, so I expect I could get a couple of plants in there if my back can stand it, but the soil there is good, so that would be easier. Other than that, just some deadheading and checking everything.

 

If you can cope with the colour @fairygirl there is a gaura with red foliage and pink flowers that might do against your pale walls. Oenothera lindheimeri Gaudi Red ('Florgaured') (G) | gaura [Gaudi Red] Herbaceous Perennial/RHS

 

That certainly looks like a good one @Obelix-Vendée - thanks for that. Many of them are pale pink, which I loathe, but strong pink is good, and the red foliage would work with the dianthus etc that I have in, or nearby, those beds, as well as the peony foliage as it goes over.
I did a search last night [always a bad idea!] and Burncoose do a compact white one, which I've bookmarked. The tall ones wouldn't be so good for the raised beds, as they're now all quite narrow in depth, so I have to watch what goes there. Thing like V. bon and lilies are fine, as they're not broad in habit.

 

I have a taller white one @fairygirl and it's as airy as verbena but shorter than usual this year cos of the drought.

 

I am still picking a few sweetpeas every few days and am reluctant to dig them up to make room for the tulip bulbs I grow in their containers.The Ipomea flower buds are still developing, I am not really expecting them to mature fully, I have to leave them as I planted them amongst the sweetpea plants.
The kale plants stripped by caterpillars are begining to shoot leaves again so I am leaving them in situ for the time being.

 

Not a fan of violas then @fairygirl? Sorry, I've eaten all the Smarties .

I like the look of Gaura too. One of the garden centres near me had the dwarf white one but it had sold out when I returned to buy! The standard size one is in the herbaceous border at my local botanic gardens. I was put off when I saw how it had got battered by wind and looked untidy. I try to avoid any plants that might need staking.

 

I mowed front and back grass for the first time in months last Friday. Today I have just mowed the back one again, it had grown at least 2 inches over the week. Front one will need doing this weekend too.

 

I challenge anyone to walk down their garden this morning without accidentally getting tangled in a spider's web! First still day in ages and they are out in force.

Beautiful misty morning with the sun breaking through. Just how Sept should be. I desperately need to start some cuttings so they can get going before the temps dip. I also need to sort out all my pots, currently gathered together in wind-resisting formation.

 

Same with sweet peas, I keep thinking they're finished and then finding another little posy. Also the purple french beans, I still get a meal's worth every few days.

I bought a Daubenton's kale in the spring and it grew beautifully and then got totally stripped by the caterpillars. I have cut it right back now and it is sprouting some new leaves.

The Zinnias in the back garden, growing in a pot, look like this:


And the ones in the front, growing in the ground, like this:

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Not a leaf left, every petal munched!

 

I can't move for them. I've taken to carrying a pencil with me so I can break them rather than just pushing through and then finding a big spider sitting on me.

 

Someone told me that a famous producer of vacuum cleaners had one of his junior gardeners walk through the garden between hedges every day in autumn to get rid of the webs before he walked there
Reminds me of that ghastly colonial thing of a "jam boy".

 

I do my best to tiptoe round without disrupting them, but the one attached across the patio door is a challenge, as my limbo skills are not up to it.