What have you done today in the Garden?

Just had the confirmation of the pot movers, they're coming from China!
So won't be here until mid or end of December, still at the price I don't mind.
The ones I've had before seem now to be made of "unobtainium."

 

Bummer Dirt

 

I dont mind a blade by blade inspection. In fact, my push spreader has a cellphone bracket, so I took in some videos about phosphorus while I was pushing about the yard.

 

blew all the leaves off the yard with the backpack blower yesterday. doesn't look like it did it today. grouted the newly installed tile in the bathroom today. need to put in the border as soon as the grout is dry. and off to clean the house again. it seems to need attention every day. I will miss my kids when they don't live at home anymore but I won't miss the messes they make and leave.

 

Nothing today as it was a golf day. Went to M&S after lunch to buy a couple of pairs of chinos. My wife says the ones I'm wearing around the house look scruffy, I mean as if anyone is going to see them.
Tomorrow I've got to clear the leaves as rain is promised for Friday.
I'll bring the last three solar lights in, remove the batteries, spray the contacts with switch cleaner and put them away with the rest for next year.

We're not short of a few lights in the garden. There's 5 porch lights, two 30w spotlights, the two lanterns a 15w striplight behind the windows of the tea house and three sets of fairy lights, the LED light in the fountain and two PIR security lights.
Except for the PIRs, they are all controlled by four switches behind the lounge curtains.
Forty-odd years ago I laid a multi-core armoured cable from under the lounge floor through an air brick which is now behind the patio steps and under the concrete raft I had laid for the patio, to the garage. At the time I had no idea what I would do with it.
All the lights are on the garage circuit, there's transformers for the low voltage ones, two in the garage and two on the ceiling of the tea-house. The cables to the tea house run through a length of alkathene pipe buried in the narrow border between it and the garage. So no exposed mains cables.

We rarely turn them on.

Most of the lights are turned on by two of the switches, another controls the fountain and the 30w spotlight on the fence that shines on it. The fourth one is for the fairy lights on the pergola on the back of the house. These are only turned on at Christmas, as they are a bit full on.

















However I do briefly turn one set on every night before we go to bed. That's just to check they are working. If they aren't, it means that the RCB has tripped the whole of the garage circuit and the two freezers we have in the room in the garage will be off. It's only ever happened when we had the koi pool and one of the pumps had tripped out.

 

Mowed both lawns, blew a lot of leaves to the back of the borders, collected the rest. Pruned the Sambucus and some of the roses, all showing small signs of new growth. Cut back the dahlias and a peony. Rain's expected later today and for much of tomorrow. So a job worth doing.

 

Damned straight line winds this morning making me work harder. Started the day with a chainsaw so B could get out of the driveway. Lost a main stem on a Bradford Pear, A Rose of Sharon , Japanese Persimmon, the roof of my chevy.

I did not notice at the time, but a small oak went over in the pic of the bradford that has the gravel drive and fence. I went over and helped Charlie by cutting it up. He is 91 but he had his chainsaw ready to go!

 

Ouch!

I can see that's quite a dent.. That will be really hard to remove.

 

No problem for a bodyshop while I sport about in a rental!

 

well, in my humble opinion on that bradford Cal. pear... good riddance. too bad about the rest and your truck.

 

Yes I have grown to dislike Bradfords. I have one I may keep, as it is full of allthread rod to keep it together. The funny thing is that it has the largest trunk of the 7 we had originally planted 20+ years ago. Down to 3 now, and two of those will be gone soon. River birch is doing well in that area.

 

It's raining on and off today, so I didn't go to golf. I'm up to date with the garden, apart from clearing a lot of fallen bamboo leaves from the "forest" at the bottom of the garden. I just need to tidy the shed and the garage.
Had an e-mail from David Austin to say that our five bare root roses have been dispatched and should be with us by Monday or Tuesday.
There's a rose in a ceramic pot that needs to be "relegated" to a plastic one to free up a fifth ceramic pot. But I know which one as I take photographs of those that don't do well.
This will get moved to the "alleyway of shame." Those roses out of favour lined along the side fence of the drive, together with two Mayleen clematis.
It doesn't get a lot of sun on this side of the house as it's usually in shadow for much of the day.
It's only a short step to the "green bin," from here.

 

Just what exactly are these roses guilty of? They look lined up awaiting the firing squad.

 

Well, they can "see" the green bin, it lives in front of the garage door. I've a photo somewhere of two big lavenders in pots either side of it. They ended up in it after a few weeks. So the rest have to buck their ideas up or they will be gone.

If they are red roses, then they are certainly out of favour. My wife doesn't like them.

One has done a tour of the garden.

It started off in a pot on the patio. It was mis-labeled by the garden centre, it was supposed to be white.

So it got moved right down the garden to here. As it was a climber, I grew it up this redundant bird feeder.



But it grew so tall she could see it from the French windows, so I cut it back and moved it to a plastic tub in the drive it can't be seen from the side kitchen window, so it's reasonably safe. The bird feeder now supports a wisteria at the bottom of the garden, replacing a tree stump that rotted away.

Others have not performed as well as we'd hoped and have been replaced, but I'm loathe to chuck them out. So they end up on the drive. There's about half a dozen along the side of the fence.
We'll still have more than a dozen and a half on the two patios, any more and there'd be nowhere to sit.