What have you done today in the Garden?

It started off a bit frosty first thing, but it soon warmed up, so this afternoon I tackled the lawn brick edging, with my jet-wash.

It was very mossy in places.









It didn't take long.









It's still in pretty good condition considering I laid the bricks over fifteen years ago.

The lawn will tale a few weeks to recover from its recent scarifying.

I also jet-washed the small patio and path. This will need some re-pointing "on a dry warmer day."




I've not yet given up with the missing grass under this acer. A bit later, I'll invest in a couple of rolls of turf. It will have a couple of things going for it this year. I'm going to "shorten the hem" of the acer and the huge tree in the garden to the left which kept this area in constant shade, has had all its branches cut off and there's just the trunk remaining, which I anticipate will be removed soon.

 

Today I planted the rest of the onion sets. If they almost all grow, that would be about 100 of a vegetable that we use every day. I also pruned this and that. I stomped metal fencing flat and loaded the pickup truck. The battery is on the charger. Will it run???

No chance to plant vegetable seeds. Too worn out. "Tomorrow, tomorrow... it's only a day away".

 

Dug up another 2 currant bushes, not sure about the last one, it's very big and hard to get at the roots to cut them.

Just received the new ones so I'll have to heal them in or put in a big container.

 

Cut back some unruly sections of one of the Lavateras this morning that tends to block a pathway when in full bloom. Cutting back 2 of the hardy Fuchsias this afternoon .

 

Busy afternoon.
My neighbour and I got into the silver birch trees in the garden between ours, (that neighbour is a long term, hospital patient). After tackling the one that overhangs his garden, we then pollarded the three next to mine. We needed a scaffold, a chainsaw and my extending pruner
A drastic reduction in the height









They look "dog rough" at the moment and there's still some "wispy bits," my side, that I can remove with my telescopic pruner. But once the leaves appear, they will look acceptable.

There's still a lot of cut down branches to clear, (there's more behind the camera) and we've already filled two green bins. But mine's still empty.
There were quite a few very large dead shrubs that needed the chainsaw to cut down.

It'll probably take another two bin collections, at least, before we can get the garden clear. But we're going to leave the garden tidy.
On the right is a garage, with a pergola on the side, which has been completely overgrown, (we aren't going to attempt to tackle that!). I have to occasionally trim off what tries to get onto my garage roof!
As I don't have to work for a living, I'll spend some time tomorrow with my secateurs, reducing the smaller branches so they'll fit in a green bin. l can get a lot more in that way. The thicker branches will need my friend's chainsaw, (and that needs a new blade!) So that will have to wait until later in the week.
But by Thursday we'll have three empty bins again. So a lot more can be done.

 

@Doghouse Riley , that is a LOT of pruning. If I cannot reach it from the ground it won't get done here. I don't do heights (black outs for one reason). Your brickwork and rockworks look great.

The ditch machine is out of budget for now. DS has had a lot of extra expenses for now, so I won't pester him about it. We have it nearly half way done as of today, and I will do whatever I can get done while he is away. We will have to cut down some trees too near the line, and there are a bunch of rose of sharon bushes in with a few of them. Rose of Sharon bushes are lovely (and edible), but they make tons of babies. I pull all I can get at, but some of have gotten out of hand. We got just past where his water line goes into his new house. I wanted to be SURE I did not damage his water lines in my digging. Our old drain line is plastic pipes. At least it is not iron or clay. I putzed on some of my other things around the yard after that, and even hauled 1 load of ashes to the nearby woods. I gave up on that, and went to less strenuous stuff.

I got another raspberry bush for my garden, now I need to decide where to put it. I would have gotten another blueberry bush, but they did not look very good.

Hey, the HONEYBEES are out already, but I only have a few daffodils blooming this early. I did find where they are drinking the sap from one of my silver maples. There are woodpecker holes in the bark. It is just the trunk of one of my maples, but


but there are at least 3 honey bees in the photo. There were more, but I might have scared them away? Usually the honeybees here (wild ones I think) do not come out until the red flowering quince are in bloom, and the forsythias bloom a few days later. They really love those flowers. I don't know why they are out so early. Last week we had temps about -12F several nights, and single digits and snow and it was very cold. Since then it has been in the 50s/60s/70s and quite nice. Spring is not here yet, it is just teasing us. We have storms moving in this week, and earlier they were calling for snow about Wednesday. The temperature range was over 80 degrees difference.

I did make the cold frame with the clear tub.

 

I WAY - overdid it Saturday. Could barely move today! Sometimes I get carried away do foolish things.

So mostly I sat around reading today. No gardening at all.

That'll teach me!

 

Take care @Daniel W .....it's so easily done.....but the warning alerts in our brain are equally easily to ignore too. Rest up.

 

Honeybees?


Cue for a song!

I have this in a vinyl jukebox.

 

Nothing today, a friend is picking me up and we're going out for a coffee and cake session.

 

Hubby helped me dig up the last currant bush i couldn't have done it by myself. He's got to put all of the roots in bags to take to the recycling centre tomorrow.

 

The good news!
I did a bit more work clearing the cut down branches in next door's garden.





The bad news!


I've moved them all up to the top of the garden.




There won't be any green bin space until Thursday.