What are we doing in the garden 2025

How absolutely stunning - I’d feel utterly honoured if that happened to me. Those wee birds must trust her completely and be so at ease with her. Marvellous.

 

In fairness as I mentioned, he wanted to get some of them in the ground because in spite of asking some of the juniors to water, they were obviously not doing it thoroughly enough. Not entirely their fault either I think we've all been caught out by the extreme heat, thinking things in pots are well watered but when you pull them out of the pots you get a different picture. The peat free compost just doesn't react the way the old stuff used to do.

Anyway we've been Acer pruning again with him here. We had done the basics so he was able to show us some more technique to get them looking even better. Even here in spite of a lot of watering a lot are looking a bit crispy at the edges. At least being deciduous we will get nice new leaves come next season.

 

I don't have a problem with peat free compost.

Just watering today and deadheading, the cosmos is suffering a bit from this drought.

 

I got up early to do watering as in Dordogne watering is now forbidden between 8am and 8pm. Then back to bed with coffee.

 

I'd agree with you about the peat free compost @shiney. It's fine as a mulch, but not much more- unless you sieve it, and then you're left with b*gger all! For seeds and young plants, it's terrible. Companies need to do a better job with it all, which may take a lot more time. We're fortunate up here that there still is compost available with peat in it, and much of it comes from the water filtration process, so is reasonably sustainable. I can get a really good one from the local mill which has equestrian supplies. I tried a peat free one recently from Aldi, of all places [which I don't use for shopping] and it's pretty decent. They have two types, but they seem pretty similar, and at a good price too. It doesn't dry out so readily, and so far, I'm pleased with it, so I may get it again.
I decided to start on the new base for the little growhouse yesterday, as it was breezy, and not too sunny. My neighbour across from me had some surplus slabs and edging stones which he gave me, so I thought I'd could use them for that. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it should be, so it was footery at best, and the sun decided to make a full on appearance just at that point as well ! It'll be fine though...
I need a bag of concrete to finish off the edges etc, so may get that today. It's to be another mixed day of cloud /sun, so it would be ideal for doing that, fingers crossed. I didn't get round to the removal of the shrub in the front garden, so that's another option. That will be tricky too. My daughter got me some cardboard boxes from work last night - they're for the compost bin, as I have too much green just now. The 'slab' neighbour gives me his grass cuttings too, so I can do the card and add those.

 

Yes - the consistency of the products seems to be a big factor @shiney .
You have to wonder about some of these Bills, don't you? No one seems to have common sense at all. As I often say -'common sense' - the most inappropriately named phrase in history.

That compost I get from the mill is an Irish product - Mother Earth. It's consistenly superb due to the way it's produced. I'm not sure how much peat based compost is produced up here though. Much of our peatland is protected.

 

How lovely! How many hours of patienc did it take to reach that stage of trust I wonder.

I have blackbirds etc., and a pair of buzzards that re-visit each year to raise a family, sometimes as many as 4 youngsters, but I have never encouraged them to visit my garden. I love watching them plane overhead on the thermals and hearing the young ones screaming for Mum and Dad to admire their hunting skills.

 

I noticed my amarylis bulb sprouting new leaves so must repot and feed it.
I am also "planning" to repot my Brown Turkey fig tree as per Monty Don last night. My neighbour has a mature fig tree that he keeps cutting to the ground, never picks the figs, doesn't like them. I can see a lot of fruit on it this year even though it has just been hacked down to a couple of trunks . Such a waste.

 

Mrs. S is a true Earth Mother.

I'm going to continue heating up potting soil in my sun oven. I've got about 50 liters done and in a wheelie bin in the cellar and have another same sized bin to put down there also. 150F kills gnats, gnat eggs and gnat larvae. I'm being very proactive so that hopefully the New Year's seedling growing won't again turn into a battle to stop those pesky little @#$#%@.

I had already done the soil for all of the seedling pots so this last bit will be for soil block making.

I'm debating about how long to leave the peony bulb in the fridge. This battle to get an Itoh Bartzella peony to survive is becoming a real challenge. Year three, after trying to protect it from further rabbit ravages, it came up again and was attacked again. I put a cage of chicken wire around it and it emerged again and I don't know why this next happened. The leaves shriveled up in spite of modest watering and the stem turned to a dry twig. I dug up the bulb and discovered it no longer existed but a baby bulb, bright yellow and a bit of an odd shape, had formed. I've put it in a pot with moist soil and into the fridge. I hope I'm doing the right thing by trying to trick it into thinking it's had a winter? The original bulb was expensive and this is something I wanted badly as it is supposed to produce pretty yellow flowers a bit later than "normal" peonies.