What have you done today in the Garden?

Had 4 large cardboard boxes and broke them up to put around the Azaleas in the back garden.

 

As opposed to unintentionally ordered seeds? That happens to me - "Who ordered all of these?" "Oh, me?"

Thanks Melody, the back is OK. I do wear out.

Today I hauled five wheelbarrows of arborist chips to pave some of the garden pathways.



I laid out the perimeter for the proposed pepper planter. A few minor things are in that spot and will need to be moved, then the ground leveled.

The Nemagon mustard ground cover seeds are germinating. I was wondering if they would do that. I think they'll be as resilient as any weeds, and grow through the winter. Maybe.

 

Started to empty one of the compost bins, got half way my lower back started to ach too much. The compost i put on the cardboard that i put around the azaleas yesterday.

 

I hauled

five wheelbarrows of arborist tree chips,
four two by fours for the pepper planter project,
three more baskets of leaves to mulch around apple trees, moved
two bearded iris clumps, and
did nothing to the pear tree(s).

I also put down black plastic over a vegetable garden bed to prevent weed growth. Next year I "should" plant a winter cover crop instead. If I am up to it... cross that bridge next year,

I pounded in posts to support apple minitrees and tied them up. Boy, they were leaning more than I realized! That's the miniaturizing rootstock, which doesn't support the tree very well.

There is a big clump of garlic and a clump of Egyptian Walking onions, and one more clump of bearded iris to move, then I can finish cleaning up the remaining areas of the mini-orchard, put down weed barrier and tree chips.

 

I haven't done anything in the garden today, i caught hubby's cold. I started having a few symptoms yesterday but carried on emptying the compost bin but now can't finish it. Hopefully before the weekend, I've got other things to do next week.

 

Cleared a lot more leaves today, but still plenty more wisteria leaves to come down.


When they go a bit more yellow, as usual, I'll give them, "a bit of a hand."

I've pruned off the dead wood from the smallest acer palmatum, I do this every year, usually a bit later, but already as it's been so warm, there's lots of tiny leaf buds already showing.



This is what I pruned off today, there's likely be a few more later. These branches would have been under the canopy and died off during the year.



The sight of all these might give rise to some concern for anyone unfamiliar with these plants. But this was from last time.



And here it is in all its glory in June.

 

Hope you are better soon @Logan. Colds are no fun at all.

@Doghouse Riley that's a very handsome Acer indeed. As much care and tending as a bonsai tree.

Not going to do garden labor today. I might look into the shed for some big leaf bags, to make leaf mould. And inspect. Unusually for December, the garlic isn't up yet. Maybe I planted too deep? The cloves were huge, and I planted about three times their height, underground.

The big garden project now is to find a better garden calendar, appropriate for my region. I think I start some things earlier than necessary, but this year I started tomatoes and some others too late. Possible seeds to start in Jan - peppers, onions, shallots, Rudbeckia, Echinacea. Winter Sow sweetpeas and snowpeas? I already sowed the first of the snowpeas, which if they are growing when it snows will be snowy snowpeas.

I may plant another area with Nemagon mustard as a green manure, where I grew potatoes this year. Last year I sowed in Mid December and it grew just fine.

 

As every year, it was the big acer's turn to have the dead wood removed. It tends to strangle the new wood a bit. Once removed, it's possible to spread some of the branches. The "red" stuff in the bucket is dead leaves, not new growth.




I'll have to wire some to balance them out and then I'll put the net over it and tie it down until the branches have "set" around April.

The object of this exercise is to encourage it to look like this.




And not this.




The warm weather has lasted longer than usual.

Christmas clematis?

 

What variety of clematis is that DR?

 

I had winter beauty here, but it seems to be lost. I shall wait and hope. Evidently these plants can seemingly die for up to 20 years and then miraculously reappear. If this one doesn't hurry up, I shall no doubt miss it anyway.

 

Not sure,
I'll check tomorrow if the tag is still on the wire.
The frost will probably kill it off before Christmas.

 

Not a lot today. Far too cold.
The six hebes we have in plastic pots in two troughs I mentioned, I've re-potted with some fresh compost. I had a hell of a job getting them out of the pots, they were so root-bound. I managed to break two pots, they were so wedged in. Fortunately, I had some more.
I knew they were root-bound in the summer, so now and again, as I often do with plants in pots, I push a cane through the compost an inch or so from the rim in a few places to make sure water gets to the roots and doesn't all run down between the root-ball and the inside wall of the pot.

Sorry Logan, no tag on the clematis.

 

It was me DR. I asked about your clematis. If it does get frosted, you'll have to consider it nature's pruning

 

Bagged up wet leaves to make leaf mould. That clears out the truck.



The truckload made five big heavy bags, so will be a precious bag of leaf mould for each vegetable raised bed some time next year. No buying and bringing in steer manure then, yay! Almost done with "The Hauling of the Leaves" which is good because I'm tired of it.

I also covered two garden areas with black plastic to keep weeds down for the winter, and to extend the area of one by killing the sod. I smoothed the potato bed, which because of it's use I consider double-dug now, and sowed the magic mustard seeds. One nice thing, one author claims that growing potatoes will reduce symphylans, so that plot will have a double dose of beneficial rotation. Potatoes for symphylans and mustard for nematodes and plant diseases.

Mustard cover crop is underway now in the vegetable raised beds.

 

It is good to see how things are going there.
I had to chuckle when I read that you were getting tired of hauling leaves. Mate, I hear that. I am still not done with my leaf hauling however. The leaves seem reluctant to change colour and let go. Er took a stroll in the park this afternoon, and noticed that there are still bags of leaves still to colour yellow and fall.

it was interesting reading about your mustard planting. I am keeping a close eye on that.