What have you done today in the Garden?

It was a golf day but I still got a bit done in the afternoon. Bought the hedgehog's plastic box on the way home, together with new heads for my sweeping brush and deck scrubber. Then mowed both lawns and scarified them. I tied up more clematis, it's becoming a regular job.

I've been wearing an old pair of "ecco" shoes in the garden for a few years. They've just about had it. So I ordered these Neoprene shoes yesterday.

 

Riley I really like the look of that shed of yours. Very handy.

 

Finished getting my hardware fence dug in around the plot that will house my strawberry plants, then planted the strawbs.

Also got my clematis planted at the foot of my new arch, next to the climbing rose.

 

Well done Cayu. It sounds a job well done.
Congrats on getting that Clematis in the ground. What kind is it, BTW?

 

Did some weeding in the back bed, and planted a new shrub, Weigela 'Minor Black'. Supposed to rain tomorrow, but if theres enough of a lull, I might try to weed some in the front and side beds

 

The main job tody was re-locating this small birds' feeder. It was originally on the pergola post, but the birds and particularly the many starlings were making a lot of mess on the patio. Now it'll all fall on the garden. It was a bit of a pain to do as the access was poor, I was trying to drill into the concrete post at arms' length.




The birds were impatiently waiting for the job to be completed. (I must clip off that surplus garden wire).





A much quicker job was installing this additional socket in the garage.
There's a bank of sockets above my workbench a couple of yards to the left.

The sockets below the consumer unit are for all the different mains and low voltage lights, fairy lights and fountain in the garden.
But they are controlled by switches behind the lounge curtains. So now if I want to test out any of the three supplies, or change a lamp, I can just unplug them and plug them into the new socket to check that they are working OK without having to go indoors and turn them on from there.




Niot a lot else to do, everything seems to be looking after itself.

The acer palmatums are nearly fully in leaf. They'll get a trim of wayward branches once they've settled down.








The phlox on the rockery is strarting to come out.




The bluebells below this wisteria are out.




That it turn will be out by the end of next week.




This little maple is undergoing its several changes of colour. Lots of buds on our two tree azleas in pots.

 

been almost a week had rain and near freezing temp this week. So it was a week of inside and covering what needed to be covered at night.

 

Only watering today.

 

I supervised a teen, a senior at our high school yesterday& today. She had volunteer hours to fulfill as part of her graduation requirement.

Her mother has a huge garden, the family are serious composters, so she knew her way around gardening chores. Yesterday she did 2 hours straight ( no breaks) flipping the compost in our 4 bay compost bin system. All four bays were full. It was a huge job. I couldn't have done it. I might have been able to do one bin.

Today she filled in the multiple ruts in our parking area and helped an elderly gardener weed.

Next weekend she'll be back and will stain our jazzy new wood gates for us.

She helped us out a lot and she was thoroughly delightful to boot.

While she was working, I got carrots planted, oxalis bulbs planted and lettuce transplants in. And weeded my plot. Not much to show for 2 hours of work compared to this teen!

 

@Sjoerd , the climbing rose is a William Baffin and the clematis is a Zara Boulevard. I purchased them from the White Flower Farm & they are supposed to bloom together. The rose will be a medium pink, the clem a blue/ lavender. Fingers crossed.

 

Thanks Cayu. Well, I have not heard of either one of those (not that I know them all anyway), but I do like roses ant clems and I thought that if they were types that I knew, I could picture them before they bloomed.
No matter, I am sure we all will be eagerly awaiting to see the first flowers of these two specimens.
Good luck with them, mate.
BTW—is the William Baffin a fragrant one?

Oh, and that teener—I think that we could use one of those.

 

The re-sited birdfeeder wasn't working out for the smaller birds as the starlings were monopolising it. The flock could expand to a dozen sometimes. So I put it back on the pergola post, but made the peanut butter feeder too high for them to reach from the roof of the house. They now have to perch on the tiny bar in front of the peanut jar, they have to constantly flap their wings to be able to feed. So the visits have reduced.
We noticed, that the smaller birds, blue tits, sparrows, "Rocky" the robin and the dunnocks are often in and out of the azaleas.
So I bought this on eBay for eight quid (free postage).







I've put it on a stake in the middle of the azaleas, there's quite a bit of room in there under the canopy so the small birds will be able to access it, while the starlings won't.





The top slides round to reveal an aperture for filling. It was a quick job to bang a stake into the ground and the feeder slid securely over it as the central spine is open at the bottom. Then close up the canopy of the azaleas.

 

Not much just watered some plants, just waiting for some warm weather.

 

Just pulled 6lb of rhubarb from the garden.

 

What will you do with all that Logan?