WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

Yes if you enrich the soil to increase water holding capacity lucius

 

hopefully more pruning, and raking leaves and burning. both days seems like it will stay dry.

 

@luciusmaximus Thats sounds lovely idea Lucius and soooo many lovely Ferns to choose from I have a little beauty called "Lady in Red" as the name suggests Red features but it's the stems- i just love her
now all you need to do is decide which varieties ....decisions, decisions

 

Recent pics. Debating whether to plant a few more Hellebores or just wait and see how these turn out. Thought a larger group might look nice with some rocks and logs. Also debating whether to cut down the orange ball Buddleja. It's not my favourite of Buddleja's admittedly but it is a source of food for wildlife. I would replant with another Buddleja that I do like. On the other hand, can I really be bothered .


On an unrelated note, I'm thinking I'm supposed to add soil to my sink pond. It was mentioned by ARMANDII recently and I read it too. Should I remove the water first or just add handfuls at a time? How long will it take for it to settle and the water too clear? Should I leave the gravel in situ or remove it and place it on top of the soil or discard it altogether?

 

Hi luciusmaximus
Re the hellebores, I would wait and see how yours turn out...... for a number of reasons. They make large plants when grown well and like reasonable space? If, for some reason, they do not like it there, they are an expensive mistake. Hopefully and likely, they will flower well and you may like to choose the colours at a later date to compliment your planting. Not just flower colour but some hellebores have purplish foliage and there are superb double flowered forms too. Come next growing season you may have a better idea what you want to grow there. They seed prolifically; you will eventually have lots of self sown seedlings to produce plants for free. You may well want other plants to complement the hellebores.....too many could look very "samey". (This from someone who loves his hellebores and grows more than 30 of them but I had to remove some.....move elsewhere....for this very reason)
Re buddleia....if you dont like what you have then replace it for one you do. Life is too short lucius; spoil yourself and "be bothered". You will not regret it next summer when you have something that gives you pleasure in your garden

 

so I cannot or

 

@Verdun I've not given much thought to Hellebores but recently they've caught my attention .

The three that I bought have white flowers with purple veining and purple stems ( have to look at tags to confirm ). I thought they looked very pretty . The larger, lighter green Hellebore in my pic was inherited with the garden. It has plain purple flowers and has never done well, possibly due to the Hydrangea making it too shady and maybe too dry. Now it's gone that space should be much better. It's never self seeded, but I guess all its energies have been going into keeping itself alive. I was thinking about complementary plants for the Hellebores of a woodland nature.

 

The sun is out. I have just been for a walk with Woo to Chalk church on the above You Tube link, and now it`s time to put me coat and hikers on! The garden will have to wait......loverly - and for the inspiration Woo.

 

Morning folks

Not such a bright sunny morning so far! Had some rain last night too but I guess it will help settle recent plantings. Mild though.

Lucius, hellebores are absolutely winter and spring must haves. Nothing quite like them. To get an idea of how beautiful they are check out the Ashwoods website. Beware! You will be hooked
Here big fat flower buds are just emerging on some of my hellebores and will elongate to produce beautiful flowers in colours from white to purple. I have whites, singles and doubles, pale yellows, pinks, purples and even a double black. There are some fascinating flower colour combinations too in many of them. With complimentary bulb planting, the odd corydalis flexuosa (glorious carpeting blue flowers) etc you can have a fantastic colourful winter/ spring garden. All permanent and easy too! Wot more can you ask for?

 

Do you remember the name of the programme, or know its available online? Sounds really interesting

 

It a lovely sunny day but hard frost last night and its bloody freezing. I wanted to plants the rest of the bulbs today, doesn't look good half the garden still frozen.

 

Weeding, rounding up stray garlic, making pots out of yoghurt pots and taking cactus cuttings

 

British Garden Revival, BBC2 6 or 7am this morning I think? I have them on series record, well worth a watch. Last week was bog garden, this week wildlife & peonies

 

Preparing to take several Stihl blowers in for repair as I can’t fix them. Starting to get fed up with the constant problems I’m having with them and I’m guessing it’s carb replacements. One has a petrol leak from the carb which was fun so that’s a major failure and the other Ive replaced parts and it refuses to start so it’s the carb as well.