What have you done today in the Garden?

Put the rose food on all of the roses, had to water it in so later I got the hose out and watered the polyanthus as well.

 

@Daniel W your garden will be a magnet for all of nature's little garden helpers. Hat off to you !!

 

Stupid stupid stupid...never re-use seeding soil without sterilizing. But I have some success on these fatsia japonica seeds. But I may name this one Lazarus.



Sorry you needed to see a pretty clematis first...

 

I don't think I could ever get tired of looking at your wisterias. They really are breathtaking....for me they seem of another world. How long do they stay in bloom?

 

Oh oh Dirtmechanic, so sorry about this. Were these the cukes you were goingt to grow for your DW? I've made the same mistake....twice. Two years in a row actually.We probably all have. Soil starting mix can be so expensive. Hopefully you have seeds to replant.

 

No, they are some fatsia japonica seeds I took off a plant by my garage. More are up, and a thousand are still on the plant so at some point I will grow a bunch of them.

 

It's been a busy few garden days, up and outside with the early sun.

I scrubbed and then painted the inside of my pots that house tomatoes inside the greenhouse. They had contaminated soil in the last year, and with tomatoes being sensistive to 2 parts per billion, I did not want to take chances. I used up old paint and now they look like "John Deer" pots. hahaha. My Dad would be proud. Thank goodness the dirt will hide the yellow.



While chosing a spot for the new Haskap Berry and Smoky Saskatoon Berry patches, we took a hard look at the strawberry garden. It struggles with weeds, being located next to a field. It struggles with part shade, even though we took a lot of trees out around it last year. And it struggles with Lygus Beetles, being next to the hay field. I have new starts coming, so hubby suggested a new start. We expanded a wee flower bed that I had built last year next to the green house. He had some some cedar planks that were not even cuts from the sawmill a few years ago. They had a wee bit of ant damage but not too bad.

Sod came out, cedar planks went in, and dirt went into half of it. Part way through we realized we would not have enough clean soil ( no chance of contamination from rancher's herbicided residue in any way), so the bed is half full. I moved some June Berries that I planted as starts last year, and four every bearing Fort Laramie. The rest should arrive in the mail once the weather warms. We left the posts high so I can cover with remay if necessary.



Today was supposed to be a trip to town for the remaining dirt....but it snowed, and is still snowing. So today is a welcome inside day, and this afternoon or tomorrow will be a quick town trip.

I'm very excited to have the berries in a raised bed, weed free, full sun, easy access to water, and close to keep an eye on. I keep seeing Sjoerd's strawberry bed, mine was a tangled mess.

The old strawberry bed will house the Haskap Berry bushes, and the two Smoky Saskatoons will join the apple trees.

The spinach is doing fine in the greenhouse, and herbs are happy. Pots with California Poppies, Sunflowers and Dwarf Jewel Gernaniums are hanging out in there. Tenative tomato transplant date is May 1.

 

Thanks for that.

Not very long, just a couple of weeks or so. Those on the back of the house get a lot of sun so they are the first to flower.

Although you can't see any foliage at the moment, within a couple of months or so, they'll look like this.
They give our lounge a bit of protection from the sun.

 

@Doghouse Riley - the foliage is lovely also. I can see how it's shade would be welcome.

 

Did a lot of weeding in the back garden, trying to catch up with it.

 

Not exactly today, but during the last two weeks I've spring mulched most borders, divided Hostas, Iris sibiricas, some Erythronium and some Anemone nemorosa varieties, dug up half a border, replanted that half, started on the next half, put bark chips down, weeded, fertilized, weeded more, made a fence, moved Clematis to the new fence, and tried to empty some big planters that still hold some plants from my mother's garden, but I failed. The rest will have to wait until next spell of dry weather. I've sold and traded a few pieces of the divided Hostas and Anemone too. I was thinking about murdering the nosy neighbour and put her in that dug-up border but thought better of it. Her husband would probably miss her.

 

Yesterday I dug all the grass out of the rockery, it was either that or convert it to another lawn.
Exposed some of the rocks by removing the moss with a wire brush then vaccing it up.



Gave everything a feed and water today.

Then tidied up this Mayleen in a big tub, that grows over our front door. Tied a few branches down. As usual I'll encourage it to "trail" down to the front door over the next few months.




I then tackled the Vax vacuum cleaner that I use in the garage. It has a retractable power cord, but it wasn't fully retracting so I took it to pieces and gave it the mechanism a squirt of WD40, which cured the problem.

Tomorrow I'm going to the garden centre to get another Apta green pot, like these.




The plan is to put it on the plinth in front of our front door on the right hand side under the porch light. It's for either a rose or an azalea, we've two or three spare in plastic pots. A case of putting the plastic pot in the glazed one, so we can ring the changes.


I'm also going to give this acer a "haircut."It's fully out now and I want to make it more uniform. It's a bit lopsided. There's a few branches that are growing the wrong way and the "hem" needs a trim. Too long and the grass next to the bricks goes mossy.




It needs to be more like this. I have to be careful as it's possible to leave "holes" in the canopy, as there's no depth in the foliage.

 

Gosh, @Doghouse Riley, I cant' look at those Wisteria. I turn green with envy. Your little Acer is lovely. My mother had one that looked like an amoeba trying to crawl away. It wasn't tidy but had a lot of charm.

 

Btw Droopy, what are some of the plants you kept from your mum?

 

Thanks for that but my "little acer" must be eight feet across,.