What are we doing in the garden 2025

That looks a good crop @Allotment Boy.

 

Yes - a meadow would surely contain grass @NigelJ , but hay, as a product, is only grass [various types] and if used in the way it was originally intended/used - ie a livestock food, especially for horses [although not so much nowadays] it wouldn't be suitable if it had all sorts of other, potentially dangerous, plants in it. Fine for small animal bedding I expect. I would simply describe those 'hay' meadows as meadows! There must be more to it though - every day's a school day.

Anyway, I prepped the little area for concreting, and I'll get that done today. It's only about 6 inches by about 6 feet @Retired. I had to shift my storage cupboard etc to get access as it's a small space. Other than that, I started on moving the water butt. I knew it probably wouldn't be ideal where I'd put it due to the conifer needles, and despite the netting over the gutter, it's not great. I'll put it on the other side of the shed, but that meant removing plants from the new bed I created, and a bit of jiggery pokery. I was able to use part of the kerbstone I'd dug out from another area when changing the large raised beds in spring, so that was handy. I'll get on with that today as well. I'd leave it until spring, but I have a little nest box suitable for sparrows or robins on that side of the shed, and sparrows were investigating, so I thought I'd crack on with it while the weather's decent enough.

 

There is an area around here that is basically public land, each year they let it grow and cut it presumably for animal feed, I assume you would call it hay.

Early summer the area is totally yellow with dandelions and buttercups, probably other plants as well.

 

Hi,

Nothing in the garden today. As usual with Meadowmania orders the Yellow Rattle seeds are now quickly with me. I intended to broadcast them shortly to give them a good start for next year but I'm considering not reseeding the wildflower meadows next year. I might go over with weedkiller next springtime and leave them bare for a year to get rid of everything allowing a fresh start.

@Logan and another member kindly suggested I cover the meadows to exclude light but I've browsed the web and it can take up to three years or more to fully kill growth. YouTube videos often suggest using cardboard but this would look unsightly. Being on this valley side the garden is fully exposed to strong wind.

I appreciate I'm downright stubborn wanting to do the garden as I want and not as nature wants; nature will of course win in the end when I'm gone but I've seen what my wildflowers look like in a good growing year and want to keep repeating this.

The broken petrol rotavator is now in the workshop so just another job to occupy my time; normally I enjoy working on machinery but now being on my own I have so many demands upon my time.

Kind regards, Col.

 

Shredding started some of the tree pruning, strawberry tree is getting out of hand and leaning on the fence.
Cut some branches off yesterday and managed to take a lump out of one of my fingers with my new chainsaw

Nothing drastic but it's a bit sore today.

If it hadn't been for the chain brake I'd probably lost the finger.

 

Ouch!

 

Hi,

I bet you said OH Dear @pete. Good luck with it healing up.

Kind regards, Col.

 

ow! Oww! ever so ooooow! @pete

By contrast we just had our flu jabs this morning, as we were good children, we rewarded ourselves with a trip to Jaques Amand near Stanmore. More tulips and a new pale blue crocus bought, had to be done.
Later this afternoon more tidying up, removed a lot of the brown and crispy Hosta leaves from the potted ones. Filled the green bin ready for tomorrow's collection.

 

Hi,

I'm a pin cushion again tomorrow morning; a jab in each arm; Covid & Flu; I'm so excited looking forward to it. It's not so long agao I had five jabs for assorted infections but I'm not at all complaining; this is our marvelous UK NHS looking after me as I age.

I always take along a box of chocs as a thank you of appreciation which are always well received. Many take our NHS for granted.

Kind regards, Col.

 

What I is doing in the garden today.
Digging holes and putting a hyacinth bulb in each one, then digging bigger holes and putting a number of daffodil bulbs in each, then back to smaller holes and putting a Sweet William plant in each one, remembering the green bit ends up above ground. Then fill in holes and water as required.
Then holes for a couple of tulip bulbs and a couple more arum tubers.
After that dig holes and put a garlic clove in each hole, fill holes.

 

I'm sure you didn't use any naughty words at all @pete
I did something similar many years ago when cutting my Dad's hedge. Cut part way through a finger with the hedge trimmer. Long story, but I was taking my daughter out later for tea as a treat while her sister was away with the school. Taped/bandaged it up so that I didn't bleed everywhere, and hid it from my parents as they'd have panicked. Took a while to heal, but there's no visible scar. All part of the fun eh? Hope you heal up well - take it easy today.
Re that hay - hay as a feedstuff is technically just grass. I expect it can be used for other animals, but for horses [which is my area of knowledge] you wouldn't want anything else in there. Apart from anything else, it affects the overall nutrition of the product.
Anyway, didn't do anything yesterday apart from the footery bit of concrete as I didn't feel very well. Not sleeping properly due to some stress concerning my younger daughter, and I just felt shivery and generally rubbish. Feel better today, so will try and get on with the water butt thing, which will no doubt take longer than it should. I've got plants that need putting in, so maybe some of that, plus some bulbs to shift into their posher pots for spring etc.
Do sweet williams survive winter for you @NigelJ ? I bought some in late spring as they were a real bargain at the time. They've been great, and I collected some seed, but not sure how well they'd do if I sowed now.

 

@fairygirl

Yes; don't they with you? RHS have them as H7 so good down to<-20°C. Or is it the damp that gets them.

 

It would be the damp , yes @NigelJ . I wonder if I could put the ones I have undercover for winter? I never think of them as perennials so I've never tried that. They're in pots/baskets, but I could experiment with them a bit if you thought that was worth doing.
I've only grown them occasionally, and it's a very long time since I had them. They would have been plugs or small plants purchased too, rather than seed sown ones done myself.

 

Being lazy I grow them as short lived perennials, I also grow wallflowers the same way, I grow or buy some every year dot them around and over the next few years they either die off or get weeded out, but there are always some.
Down here the damp doesn't seem to bother them although at the moment damp is not a problem.

 

Have finally worked out why one of our newly weigela plants isn’t growing as fast as our other second new weigela plant. It’s a flaming hydrangea! Mis labelled.