What are we doing in the garden 2025

I have posted recently about a small container pond I want to place on top of the root of a leylandii I cut 4 years ago. Today, during my lunch break and also after work, I did my best to reduce the height of it. This was my second go at it.

It was really difficult. I already knew that the wood was super hard (and wet, surprisingly) but I thought that if I drilled many holes, I could then finish the job with my mattock.



But even that wasn't enough. In the end I had to literally carve the wood, as much as I could, using the drill.


It wasn't a perfect result (I would have liked it even a bit lower), but besides the process being very unpleasant, I was conscious of the neighbours (hearing drilling sounds for a considerable amount of time is not fun). So, it is what it is. I do think it looks better now and when I add plants around it and within it, it should look OK I think



I am going to have a long bath now, and research small pond plants for shade...

 

I have read (not tried) that pouring epsom salts into the holes (and plugging tops to avoid washing away) helps to rot the stump. Maybe worth doing - it looks like a hard job otherwise.

 

Good morning @CarolineL That's an interesting one, I've never heard it before.

I can confirm that it is a hard job. When I bought my house in 2018, it had 11 conifers, 7 of which were large leylandii. I gradually got rid of them all but with the large leylandii I have not been able to remove the roots (even for the best case one, I managed to get it a few centimeters below ground level and cover with soil). It would need a mini digger to get them out I think.

This one however was the hardest one by far. The others got dryer and a bit more brittle after a few years and I was able to bring them down further. Not this one. There was liquid coming out of it as if it was still alive, a lot of elasticity which made things harder, and then some specific parts of it really felt as hard as stone. It was weird. Definitely not a job I would want to attempt again.

 

When I had Leylandii like trees removed the other year I got the stumps ground out, now two years later the remains of the stumps are rotting quite quickly and the rest of the roots are definitely dead still hard work though, but they are deteriorating, the wet winter means a number of the ones I've found this spring have been quite wet.

 

Yesterday was a battle against nature.

Have spotted some box moth caterpillars so mixed up my first batch of nematodes. As a determined recycler I was hoping I could use an old spray bottle but soon realised that I hadn’t thought through the logistics. The amount of box and therefore spray vs the size of bottle Anyway managed to do a little before my hand and the bottle ceased up and have now ordered a proper 3L sprayer due to arrive to tomorrow.

Next task was squishing hundreds of scale insects which have appeared, seemingly overnight, on the GH peach tree. We had a bad infestation a few years ago but only a few since then. Now they are back in force, not a job I enjoy. Easy to deal with but yuk…that greasy feel and light but eurghh smell

After all that we took down another of our inherited cherry laurel trees. OH has a new small chainsaw which made light work of it and I now have a new, neat log wall in the wild area. This one was a similar height, about 6m, to last week's but more sturdy and fatter. OH is just off to the tip with one of the two builders bags of leaves and smaller branches.

I’m now eyeing up another laurel but shhh.. haven’t told OH yet. We have about 6 or 7 left, some give us excellent privacy and screening from the neighbour’s, but hoping to whittle down numbers to the essentials and then infill with some shrubs of our own choosing.

I also managed to drop a tray of newly germinating cosmos so one of todays jobs will be sowing some replacements.

 

No posts from me for a while due to concentrating on gardening in fine perfect gardening weather . So lots done in recent days , mowing , sowing , tidying and the garden looks so much the better for it. Biggest satisfaction was transplanting my established blueberries from their pots into the ground. I have neutral soil which azaleas are happy with so i am keeping fingers crossed and will top dress with ericaceous from now on. I also filled a section of the north hedge with ribes cuttings which i took 12 months ago and which have not only thrived as cuttings but i didnt lose any so i am chuffed with that. My early pluds were spanted ( thats what i told my wife yesterday , i think the sun had got to me) yesterday ( rocket , never tried 1st earlies before) and when i checked just now a local cat has already discovered a fresh bed to….Anyway i have a criss cross of canes in place to deter them now. I am not anti - cat they regularly patrol the garden hunting for critters such as rats and i am happy to see them padding around. Sadly i also discovered a dead blackcap in the middle of the lawn , not a mark on it , beautiful little bird . Thinking of avian flu i bagged him up and put him straight in the dustbin. Thinking of birds my hanging baskets are under siege from tits who are nest building , at my expense , with great success. I leave basket planting as late as possible for that reason but they have stripped 2 hayracks to soil level already and are carefully picking what they can without being struck by an avalanche of compost. Next job is to convert the outline of the greenhouse i dismantled last year into a cut flower border. I just hope my back and knees are up to the task. Finally , just picked the final bunch of daffodills for the house , 7 large vases this year and still plenty of colour outside - a really good monthsworth of colour. Anyway , i need to crack on much to do …..

 

Well I now have a number of dahlias shooting in the greenhouse, I will take some cuttings from some of them.
This afternoon I'm going to turn and sort out the compost bins.

 

Deadheading, watering, mooching

 

Argh! Don’t mention compost bins!
I have just rebuilt our compost bays - they have successfully rotted through two sets of ancient floorboards. Third set threaded and propped into position on Sunday, and cut to size today. (I know, a bit of a back to front way of doing things, but it’s a case of finding the best fit, and then working with it.)
I weeded the middle veg bed, which is starting to look a little clearer now. Yesterday I took out all the self-seeded verbena boriensis plants that have come through from last year, and planted them around the garden, watering them in well, as the soil is bone dry.

I cleared another 5 metres of the edge of the drive on one side, weeding around the self-sown geranium sanguinium that is growing in the edge of the grass as I went past.

Rescued the pond plants from the dog, who was fishing them out of the trug, one by one, before plucking the leaves off, and going onto the next one. I have someone coming to collect them on Thursday, to stock a wildlife pond on an allotment, so hopefully we have not lost too many dragonfly nymphs.

I’ve used a pruning saw to cut through a stubborn side shoot on the cherry-tree stump, so now the whole thing is out,to below ground level, and I can level off the ground where it used to be.

I’m now officially keer-nackered, doing all that with a cough and lungs that do not seem to be working at full capacity. Off for a little nap, before trying to move some of the ready-to-use compost up to the veg beds…

 

Planted tomato plants in the tunnel. Sowed yet more carrots again in the tunnel. Last lot no germination. Sowed some melon, zucchini and french dwarf beans in pots again in the tunnel. The pea beans have at last started to germinate. Then carried on weeding next to the grape vines and the gravel beds. Arums seem to be taking over the place.

 

Organising and tidying the bit next to the shed today. The poly greenhouse will go there and it’s next to a potting bench. Any veg will be in pots there too. I’ve shifted some paving slabs to make another area for pots (which serve as a privacy screen by the the only open fencing in the garden).
Coffee time now!

 

No show from my dahlias yet @NigelJ ….still hoping…….

 

Watering the polyanthus and blueberries in pots.

 

Watering everything in pots - in greenhouse, frame and outside. My waterbutts are nearly empty, and I'm on a meter

 

Started to strip the Allotment shed roof in readiness for replacement. One section of the insulation was saturated , in spite of the recent dry weather.