What are we doing in the garden 2025

I finished the border in the front garden today, adding a couple of Stipa tenuissimas and topping the border with bark. My order of two roses arrived from David Austin, Roald Dahl and Gabriel Oak, both good plants, one flowering and one with plenty of buds. A decision needs to be made on location over the weekend. I have a feeling that some of the lawn’s going to disappear .

 

Grass is like an Easy Access savings account, IMV, there to be dipped into as needed, @Plantminded.

 

Both really good choices @Plantminded ! I was tempted by Gabriel Oak in the past, even though the colour of the blooms is not normally my cup of tea (I favour softer pink or orange/yellow) but it's such a good shrub. Roald Dahl is very well behaved and can even take some shade

 

Thank you @CostasK, that's helpful to know. I'm not keen on soft pinks or other pastel colours and am hoping that Gabriel Oak will be the deep magenta that I like .

 

Lots of weeding and slug removal today. Would like to cut the grass but it's been far too wet

 

I've got lots of weeding to do while the sun shines.

I need to do some brainstorming for my fall re-do of one side of my garden.

I'm going to add a wee bit more flower bed on the left side of my yard and then reduce the vegetable area to only the corner and a "wing" .

The green is the current veggie area, the orange will be the smaller new veggie area and the violet will be switched to flower beds plus and additional bit of length. In the fall I'll have to take apart the animal barrier at that end to reduce it's circumference. I can' do it now because my tomato plants would get eaten by our voracious rabbit population. Figuring out how to change over where the hinged gates at the end will be anchored into a new position with only using the hardware I have on hand will be a teaser. I've currently got far too many tomato plants so reducing my veggie footprint makes sense.

And in the fall, I've got to have figured out which divisions to put in there.

 

As thunder storms forecast worked in the polytunnel. Harvested some pak choi and then sowed some more seeds. Weeded throughout and removed the old radish woody plants and sowed some more. Sowed some kohl rabi. Gave all the sown areas a good water.

 

Nothing today it's been raining most of the day, so had a bit of a lazy day today.

 

Started dead heading the Roses heavy rain soon had me retreating to the greenhouse. There I re-potted a couple of things, pricked out some lettuce and kale seedlings. The rain seems set for the rest of the day now.

 

After all that rain, the clay will be workable for two or three days. Everything else will have to wait

 

Started pruning the Acers, giving them their summer "haircut" , just a light trim, still takes a lot of time though.
One down bottom pic is next on the list.

 

Started off selecting plants from my "nursery" to go in the new bed but OH was still forking over to remove clumps of dead grass roots and stones so I tottered off to the polytunnel and watered all my treasures and pricked out a couple of lemon drop chillies. Checked over the new pots on the table in the veg plot and was about to abandon the 4 fartichokes but discovered they have fat new shoots forming as well as the roots now so I planted them out.

Opened and spread my first bag of manure on the new bed and then found I no longer have the leg strength to dig holes, that or my spade needs sharpening! OH to the rescue but the soil is very firm, despite being loamy, and is full of stones which make digging hard work and at about a spade's depth there's a layer of volcanic stuff to get thru. That meant it took about 2 hours to get just 3 planting holes dug, prepped, planted and watered - hydrangea paniculata, cotinus Godlen Lady and rosa lark Ascending which I grew from a cutting.

Oh yes, and before all that I cleaned 4 patio chairs and ptted on a lemon balm that was feeling cramped.

Very mucky day so a long shower has been had and dinner is almost ready.

Bon appétit to all gardeners who've earned a good dinner.

 

After lunch it started to rain so we abandoned all hope of the excavation drying enough to dig a drain area.

In we went sploshing ankle deep in the mud, but got out enough of the hard subsoil to have a good drain of rubble and gravel to direct any water away from below the liner.

Four hours later... Ta-dah!




View from my kitchen chair (the white tent is raised veg bed and the pile in front are radishes )




This is how it began....






Next week we'll trim and tuck in the liner edges and plant the ferns, Bergenias, Dierama and Festuca around it and harvest some more big rocks from the nearby field.

I have ordered some pond plants too, Equisetum which is my long time favourite, Persicaria and smaller bits and bobs.

Poor Child was wearing her waterproofs but prolonged kneeling in driving rain sorting out the liner folds took its toll Our wellies are in an unspeakable state, inside and out.

At least the neighbours must have had great fun watching us playing in the mud, giggling and swearing in equal proportions

 

Got a bit done today in the GH while it rained outside , potted on a few plants that should of been done weeks ago . Made up 3 hanging baskets, tidied up the tomatoes . The lawn is nearly ready for reseeding again its been a disaster from the wet winter washing the seeds away last year to the dry spring .

I am very worried about my aralia elata V its lost all its leaves I assumed the wind / rain had took most of them until the rest fell off days later , looks like the soil I mixed up earlier this year when potting on wasn't free draining enough , its in ICU ( greenhouse ) at the moment

 

Cleared away all the forget me nots and the gone over daffodil leaves the other day and used the space to plant out all the cosmos/poppies/dwarf sunflowers etc that were grown from seed. This leaves a big pile of pots/trays that need cleaning before being put away for next year, so that’s what I did today. It’s probably my least favourite job!