What are we doing in the garden 2025

My extra Raspberry plants arrived so no prizes for guessing what I need to do. These are to fill gaps in my new row(s) of ones that never sprouted, from the last lot I bought.
Different supplier, based in Scotland, hope these are more sucessful.

 

You'll likely find that the "failed" ones will pop up now and be competing for the space.

 

I have cut down all the Helleniums, and in doing so cleared the view of the young Viburnum Dawn behind them, and was pleased to see it has some nice flower buds coming on. The Goji is now in the green bin in little pieces. It won't be missed.

 

Hi,

I had another hour in the garden this afternoon; it was cold in the breeze but I want to get the couch grass out of the middle meadow before Christmas (this year) then I can buy shrubs etc to populate the meadow doing away with the couch grass and wildflowers; it's going to be a long struggle.


I'm making slow but steady progress; I'll carry on working downhill; I hope it gets easier because I've rotavated a number of times whilst reseeding the meadow. The weedkiller appears to be doing its job on the grass pathways; this grass too is mostly couch grass; what fun I do have.


Hitting one of these with the spade rattles my teeth; the soil is shallow near the top of the meadow with lots of these only a couple of inches below the surface; I don't want to bring these up if I can help it.

Kind regards, Col.

 

A productive morning. We cleared up leaves on the paths and lawn. Pruned back the outdoor grape vines. Planted out some reticulata irises. Sowed some broad beans and globe artichoke seeds in pots and into the polytunnel.
Sorted out the apples again having given loads away we now have more space for storing.
Moved a very old wheelbarrow in the orchard that we have had wildflowers in but all not doing well, especially the wheelbarrow. Need a rethink on this in the Spring.

 

@Retired, I take my hat off to you - you are certainly determined! Personally I have to say that I think you are on a hiding to nothing and I doubt you'll ever get rid of couch grass if you live in a wet climate. We have small patches of it here (in clay soil) and I keep digging it out but it always regrow. Large shrubs might help in the long run but that slope looks very steep.
I don't know what the answer is except the best solution (apart from the cost) would be to have the slopes professionally terraced with narrow paths under the walls so you can walk along them and hand weed standing up.

 

I collected 3 buckets full of windfalls for my compost bins. I couldn't be
bothered to do much more in the garden.

 

We've not done much today after having our covid and flu jabs this morning. I've just potted up the clematis roots, nerines and irises I dug out of the ex wisteria bed and OH did some more shredding.
My 3 new roses arrived this afternoon so I soaked them for a couple of hours then repacked them. DA say they can be planted within a fortnight so that gives more time for the new bed to settle. We had hours of very heavy rain yesterday evening so I'm hoping that helped.

 

Raked the leaves off the back lawn again and then mowed it. It was still rather wet so it took half an hour to clean the mower. It was almost too dark by then to see. And the damp came down quickly. The back lawn has almost fully recovered from this year's drought, but the front is struggling. The grass seed is germinating, but at the same time moss is springing up. I have plenty of summer lawn moss and weed granules left as I didn't use any in the drought. I might just use them.

 

@Escarpment interesting to see that you have a gogi berry. We bought 2 plants many years ago and had to move them out into the orchard from where we had them inside the garden. They have never done anything apart from having mildew and growing new leaves in the winter! As you are getting it out does that mean you have had no success as us?

 

Hi,

Many thanks @lizzie27 Yes I'm certainly determined to eradicate this nuisance couch grass. It's hard work but compared to the work I've carried out over the years it's actually just down to time and weather if I stick with it.


One of the 80' tall trees I took down after one of the trunks was storm damaged; there were over 30 such trees in the garden I've since removed.

The huge oak tree was overhanging the patio and kitchen roof; it had to go because Bron and I were absolutely fed up of pigeons using branches as toilet seats forcing us to clean up after them every morning. This is a branch in a controlled fall using ropes.

Here's what this area looks like now after a bit of hard graft;



Bron's memorial garden; just completed.

I don't think couch grass can control me now I'm on it's case; I hope to clear the middle meadow this year. I've already cleared a good sized area to the left bottom side of the garden it now having very little couch grass at all; any stragglers are easily pulled out.

A neighbour really grafted terracing his rear garden of a similar size to my rear garden; when I saw the finished result from his patio all I could see were walls across the garden because I was looking up the garden as I would from the kitchen window; had the garden sloped the other way it would be totally different looking down on it. At one point I fancied buying a Bobcat mini digger but wouldn't be able to get it into the garden and gave up on the idea in case I suffered an accident. It's not an easy site at all but in a way I don't mind; I'm used to grafting and all this heavy work keeps me slim and fit. I do 150 exercises each morning including touching my toes 30 times with straight legs; I'm doing OK for a 78 year old dinosaur.

Kind regards, Col.

 

This afternoon I did some more clearing around the chain link fencing in my lower garden which is being replaced with wooden fencing on Monday. I removed mainly bricks and rubble used by a previous owner to weigh the chain linking to the ground, plus a few old roots. I then put up a nest box for small birds with a 28mm opening, close to where some blue tits were nesting last year.

 

Mine flowered quite well, and this year it produced a couple of tiny fruit, but yes I had the mildew as well and the constant rampant growth with no reward. I shall use the space for something more attractive and hopefully productive.

 

I have a hillside garden too (hence my username) and some of my neighbours have done the same with the terracing. I find it quite scary to look at as our slopes are extreme, more like cliffs; if the retaining walls aren't strong enough it could be disastrous. A local builder told me that one of them had caused a lot of damage to some utilities with his work. My garden slopes down from the house and is one of the few to keep a naturalistic look with lots of trees.

 

Hi,

You'll be limited with plant/shrub choice @Escarpment on such an extremely sloping garden assuming you can get down there at all to plant anything; it's highly likely the soil if any will be very thin as it is on my garden due to natural erosion. Wildflowers do well but unfortunately quickly are taken over by grass then need clearing at the end of the season.

I'm going to extremes removing the couch grass on such large areas; when I first cleared the trees I had to dig over the lot by spade twice before the petrol rotavator would touch it even then it turned over sods as clumps until it finally broke everything down but it took immense amounts of time and effort.

I've finally admitted defeat on wildflowers; our climate has destroyed them two years out of seven; I'm once again using the spade to turn over squares of soil then I go on my hands and knees to beat each square in turn removing the soil and being very careful to extract as much couch grass as possible; I reckon a 95% success rate but it's very slow going; the remaining 5% if it pops it's head up will be very easy to pull out by hand because it's rhizome won't have had time to establish. It's a plan that's going to take time and effort but I'm in no hurry; each session I have clears more couch grass.

Rotavating has helped a lot over the last few years breaking up the rhizomes and softening the soil making the couch grass a lot easier to pull out complete with the shortened rhizone; it works for me.


Here's a decent sized area I experimented with by rotavating the couch grass against all advice saying I'd just spread the grass even more; rotavating brought up lots of rhizomes and broke up the rest which yes did grow again but were easier to pull out. This area is now virtually clear of all weeds and couch grass so I'm happy to plant it up as I've recently done with wallflowers; sedums and other plants. I'll keenly watch for any couch grass appearing but I'm well on top of this area and now I know the method works I'm clearing the meadows.

My plan is to try to clear the middle meadow this year of couch grass and anything else in the soil; working on my knees is very tiring on the steep slope with a persistant cold breeze on my back trying to resist falling over but I'm slowly winning. Next year hopefully there will only be little bit of couch grass to remove. It keeps me occupied and healthy if I don't come down with pneumonia first.

Rain is forecast a bit later so I'd better get off my backside even if I only manage an hour in the garden.

Kind regards, Col.