WHAT JOBS ARE WE DOING IN THE GARDEN TODAY - 2017

I've been away and haven't had much of a chance to catch up on this thread - or do anything in the garden. So I've had a quick scan through the last few pages.

Everyone to their own taste but we like them as they flower for at least four months each year and bring colour in the winter. Their leaves last a lot longer and give a low level mat for other plants to grow through - and keep the weeds down.

I've just grabbed a few photos taken in February















This is not a good photo of corsicus but it has a totally different leaf formation and tends to grow in a bushy style.


We also have some lovely double green ones but couldn't see a photo quickly - found one

 

We cleared three tonne bags of leaves yesterday. Compost heaps are full and we stuffed two wheelie bins full of leaves (loads more to go ).

Our council take our green bins (garden and kitchen waste) every week - free of charge. At one stage they started charging for it but quickly had to change their minds as they were inundated with objections and the roads were covered in garden waste . It was silly of them to try and charge as there are a lot of big gardens and the recycling of the garden waste helps them hit their recycling targets. It only took them two weeks to change their minds. Someone had started a social media campaign about dumping green waste to make the council change their mind.

An irresponsible but effective campaign. We didn't dump ours.

 

@Irmemac thanks

Hellebores bring colour to the garden in the winter and we never have to do much for them. The singles, below, spread easily but the doubles not quite so much. We've had them in the garden for many years, no bugs, no diseases.

The above pictures were taken in February but this was taken in April. The leaves should be cut down now, to prevent disease and the harbouring or snails/slugs.

 

All those that I've shown you live in heavy shade but the soil is quite good. Although surrounded by trees and lots of laurel we put home made compost on there each year. Soil depleted by conifers is not too good but can be improved with plenty of compost.

The area that they're in starts from in front of the tree on the right of the picture (those are the leaves from that drift of Hellebores) and are all through the shady area behind the tree and down to the end of the shade. The white doubles are towards the end but were finished by the time I took that photo on the 31st May.