What have you done today in the Garden?

Love the lights! Phhhhhhhhht to the grumpy neighbour. I guess one must keep the peace, but those lights on at night would be worth a little grump now and then. The juke box playing with the night lights would definitely be worth a grumble...and you wouldn't hear it over the music.

 

Yes a early,mid and late ones called Aurora, Bluecrop and Draper in 2ltr pots.

 

Do you have acid soil Logan, or will you grow your blueberries in pots?

 

Big jobs today, were reorganising and tidying the garage and shed. I only got the garage done. The shed will have to wait until tomorrow. I do need to get rid of some stuff I'll never use.

I'm pretty much up to date, apart from weeding the rockery which I might do tomorrow after the shed.

I did make a quick trip to the local garden centre for some compost and another clematis to replace one which has failed to appear this year.
It was for the back corner of this small bed. It has a wisteria, part of which climbs over the fence and along the side of the house and another branch grows under the kitchen window and up past the trellis to join the other wisterias on the pergola.

The bed is full of cyclamen, some bluebells and there's an Amber clematis on the fence. There's also a jasmine that I cut right back near the door, but it will grow rapidly over the next few months.





The new clematis is called Bernadine




Hopefully it will grow and fill the gap under the kitchen window. There's wires for it to climb along.
This area only gets the sun in the late afternoon.






Our cascading wisterias on this pergola are doing well, I was doubtful about a few branches, as a few weeks ago they showed no sign of growth, but they all have buds on now. So we'll have some blooms for longer than usual.

 

Hi Tetters
I have to grow them in pots and use rain water from the water butts, but one year I ran out of the rain water then had to use tap but they were ok.

 

I burned twigs and made char so I would have room to dry the hard pruning debri of a loropetalum that kept attacking cars as they used the driveway, as well as the trimmings from 24 boxwoods that needed better growth at the bottom. I weed whacked everything so I will mow tomorrow. DW selected 4 packages of cucumber seeds so I will surprise her by planting every seed and telling her later. This is a pickle move on my part and a very deft (or daft?) one in my own humble opinion. I could not prune the other loropetalum because I discovered too late a cardinal on her nest so that prune is officially delayed.

 

Spent some time in the Community Garden today trying to spruce up my plot. The soil is still too wet to cultivate much, but I did get in the berry bushes that I had ordered: blueberries, raspberries, black raspberries & black berries.

 

@Melody Mc. I've had shingles three times. I feel more reassured now that I had the shot. I'm pretty much over the post-shot icks now.

It's kind of reassuring that I'm not the only one to had had a bad batch of potting soil. It killed a lot of my starts. I have plenty that are doing well but it is disheartening.

Instead of garden, we made a trip to the Tulip festival south of Oregon City.



Rufus was a bit stressed about all of the people there. Me too. It was very pretty.



We have a few tulips in areas that deer don't frequent. Their time is brief, but their color is so cheerful.

The ducklings had their first outing. They seemed to like it.



Ducks are a pretty good pest management system. They eat bugs, slugs, caterpillars, and worms and they are productive egg layers. Not everyone likes duck eggs but we have people who do, and they reimburse us for some of the expenses. They do need protection - hens roost out of reach for most varmints but ducks are sitting ducks. We lost several to predators - I'm not sure what. Maybe raccoons, rats, or possums?

All of the seedlings are outside for the day. Soil temp is 50F. Tomorrow I might plant some in the garden and borders.

 

Not much has been done the last two days, still waiting for the gas line to be marked so I can dig a nice big home for my weeping cherry and christmas tree.

I watered my plants and that's about it. LET IT GROW

 

More weeding at the community garden. Still too early to turn over the soil.

 

Tidied and cleaned the shed I built in 1976, from reclaimed materials including two wooden windows, orginally to house our eight year-old daughter's increasing purchases of rabbits and guineapigs, they were in two banks of hutches. Although it's been used for gardening equipment for over 35 years, we still call it "The Rabbit Shed."






There's no spare space in here.







The box on the right contains two full bags of compost, but it's on a dolly I made with big castors, so easy to drag out.



I keep the bird food in here as the shed is "mouse proof."





No spare space anywhere,.

 

Today was very nice.

I planted six milkweed plants (for bees and butterflies), six blood flower plants (ditto), six four o'clock plants. Those fill out one end of the meditation garden. It's always multiples of six because I start them in six-packs. Tomorrow, if it's nice, I'd like to plant out two six-packs of carnations, one of statice, one of oregano, and one of thyme. Some rudbeckias need to be moved to their place as well.

There will be a long row of four o'clocks by the fence, about 24 plants (three six packs). ai'm waiting a little longer to see how the first ones respond to being planted in the ground.

I wanted this year to be a nice flower year for me and bees and butterflies and hummingbirds. So far it feels like I'm headed the right direction. In mid may, I'll start planting annual flower seeds directly.

 

I am betting that in bloom your meditation garden is a sight to see! Hint-Hint!

 

Ditto Dirtmechanic's hint!
Today we just watched the gardens drink in the much needed rain. Such a blessing, after having 1/2" of rain in April, we have 3/4" today, with more expected. I hear the tomatoes giggling!

 

Gave the patio in front of the French windows a hose down and scrub with my deck scrubber, to remove the pigeon poo.
More tying up of clematis.
Checked on our "lollypop" acer in the front garden, the foliage is beginning to appear, it starts off pink and very pale green..





As is the blossom, hard to see as it's also pale green.





This was the camelia we kept of three which were originally in the centre bed. It's hiding behind a rhodo. There's never many blooms as I prune it to stop it growing any taller.




There's "a choice of blooms" white, pale pink, or red, all from the same plant.








The cascading blue wisterias are nearly all out. The white in the middle is still to come.

You can see here that I've taken the castors off the pot movers to make them more stable in the wind.

A tall rose actually got blown over on Saturday, but fortunately the pot didn't break. It was on the right hand side of the patio, but I've moved it to be next to the left pergola post.




You know you've got the pruning right, when there's no foliage as yet. But once the blooms have gone it will form a thick canopy above the French windows.






I'm pleased how rapidly the lawn is recovering, I'll give it a cut tomorrow. The several azaleas around this tub form a nice contrast, unfortunately, they don't all flower at the same time.





The first of the rhodos is out, it's always this one.











This azalea that is starting to come out must be eight feet tall now.










Th phlox on the rockery is starting to come out (so's the grass in it) hope to get into it tomorrow to remove the grass and expose the rocks more, there's some big ones in there.