What are we doing in the garden 2025

That is a deep pot. Must have took a deal of work to empty the compost out and refill it.

 

I have it in a collection of stories called "Convergent Series".

 

It did .

 

Plants of the World have them as Berberis, however Trees and Shrubs Online have a different angle:
"Editorial Note
Mahonia is united with Berberis by many botanists, the two being consistently separable only by leaf morphology (Berberis: simple; Mahonia: pinnate). As traditionally circumscribed, Mahonia has been found to be polyphyletic. Some authorities resolve this problem by subsuming the entire genus into Berberis (see e.g. POWO 15/4/2025), but there are good horticultural, ecological and evolutionary reasons for wanting to maintain two separate genera. Recent molecular research indicates that a monophyletic classification can be achieved differently – without sinking Mahonia into Berberis – if Mahonia sect. Horridae (consisting of xeric species from the western USA) is referred to the new genus Alloberberis C.C.Yu & F.K.Chung (Yu & Chung 2017). (The transferral of Berberis claireae to another new genus, Moranothamnus, achieves the same monophyletic result for Berberis.) See also the entry for Alloberberis.

A genus of evergreen shrubs very closely related to Berberis and often united with it. They are very distinct in their invariably evergreen character, in their simply pinnate foliage and in the absence of spines from their branches. In his monograph on Berberis and Mahonia Dr Ahrendt pointed out a further distinction: ‘that three-quarters of the species of Mahonia possess a form of inflorescence never found in the simple-leaved Berberis, a fascicle of several dense spike-like racemes. Only a minority share a Berberis-like form of inflorescence’. (The exceptions are all American species, in which the inflorescence is a panicle, a simple raceme or a few-flowered umbellate cluster.)"
So it's still debatable.
The taxonomists have recently lumped a number of my plants into the Hydrangeas trebling the number of hydrangeas I have.

 

@NigelJ Sometimes I think the taxonomonists, just like doing this to keep themselves in work.

I can't remember all the detail now but you are right some bulbs have special contracting roots and pull themselves down to the correct depth.

 

Yesterday I planted crocus bulbs into pots. Just got to keep the ruddy squirrels off them now. Last year I removed the chicken wire mesh as the flowered, but the little s**s still bug them up and eat the bulbs.
A quick trip to the plots today, just to harvest. I'm going to give in with the outdoor toms the blight has finally got hold. Greenhouse ones still cropping.

 

I put crocus bulbs in my lawn last year @Allotment Boy, like you the squirrel dug them all up and ate them. This year he took the gigantic head off my sunflower just before it opened .

Here he yesterday, my nemesis! he brings friends and family round too ...

 

I have been out cutting back all the the thornless blackberry and another very prickly one. The thornless one fruited for the first time this year and it wasn't worth waiting for. The fruits taste weird and are impossible to pick without squashing them even when fully ripe. But the thing is ridiculously vigorous and had shot off all over the garden and up into the neighbour's magnolia. I plan to dig it out over the winter and find something that gives me more joy!

The very prickly one I think is just a wild blackberry - the biggest stem was too big for secateurs and I had to get the loppers out. I was leaving it for a while hoping it was the tayberry I planted.

Whilst doing all this I accidentally cut through one of the supporting wires on the fence. And I accidentally cut a raspberry cane that still had ripening fruits on it. Still, I've managed to fill up the green bin for this week's collection.

 

It finally warmed up a little when the sun appeared about 3pm so we hastily donned gardening gear and got to work. First, I upended a ceramic pot with an old clematis montana in it, poor thing. Decided I didn't want it and of course it wasn't thriving. In my defence, I was given it and we didn't know what kind of clematis it was. I've just shoved it in a plastic bag and put it outside with a 'Free' notice on it. Hope somebody takes it away quick.

Then I finished sweeping the remainder of the paving, and then helped OH unearth a sack of our own compost we hadn't used up this year which he wanted to use as a lawn dressing over grass seeds.
I also found 3 more bags of bought compost, manure and J.I 3 hidden under the plastic coverings by my potting table - all good stuff which will come in handy in the next few weeks.

As luck would have it, no sooner had I taken all the hanging chair cushions and put the winter cover on, it got warm enough to sit outside, just to taunt me.

 

It is a glorious afternoon! So I moved some cyclamen hederifolium from pots into my rock garden area. I would have done more planting, but I was having trouble trying to find places to squeeze things in.

 

A mixed feelings trip to the garden centre- about 75% of the indoors space was all blingy and twinky Christmas stuff

Past the shoe department, bed linen department and overpriced clothing department we identified one rack of seeds and two shelves of fertilizers and other stuff that is best kept indoors.

The aquarium and pond sections thankfully didn't make their fish wear elf hats or anything like that, and they had Axolotls which are charming so our mood improved.

Fortunately the outdoors section was good, with great selection of my favourite plants, "sp.reduced to clear"

I bought one of those rather awful upright light green Cypressus sold for winter containers that I wanted for, well, winter container. I think it will contrast nicely with the large seed grown Festuca glauca and the pansies. Anyways, it looked sort of sunny.

Arriving home I realised I had forgotten about the neighbour's conifers which are exactly the same shade. Goodbye arty contrast plans, I'll have to put a large sign on it or I'll never find it again against the background

Potted up the Gaultheria The Child insisted on, Sage for kitchen as our purple one outdoors is dying back and will take it's winter holiday in the GH (Sage is awfully nice fried in butter and tossed in pasta or chicken), the impulse Peperomia and planned the places for the £1 Armerias and the some-other-£1-rockery plants. It's getting dark so they'll have to wait in their pots for now.

 

I finished preparing greenhouse for the next season. Added fertilizers and other goodies, topped up the soil with a fresh compost. Watered properly.
Then planted Shakespeare onions and sowed phacelia.

 

The squirrels that visit me leave the bulbs in the ground alone, fruit is not safe from them or the badgers. They do sometimes raid the small pots of bulbs on the bench on the decking. Generally they just knock these over leaving me to sort out which bulb is which, this why when I often have pots labelled unknown crocus or unknown bulb.

 

no gardening for us this wkend, but checked greenhouse for any germination of the old seeds sown last wk or so. Happy some pots are showing germination ( not checked labels yet to what they are ) but shows not to throw out old seeds as some of my pks very very out of date. l used the seeds l had that are for later winter salads/veg for my greenhouse growing experiment.