What have you done today in the Garden?

Did a bit this morning. Gave the roses a spray of Sulphur Rose. I must remember to do this every two weeks to prevent the recurrence of the black spot that several got last year.

This acer always pleases. Like the huge one in the front garden it starts off this pink colour, progressing through the months through pale yellow then green, I'll keep removing wayward growth to keep it this shape. It will quickly "fill out" now.





I bought this lilac in Bents Garden Centre around this time last year. It was the best they had. I had to train it by attaching strong wires in a triangle to get a better separation of the branches, as they were too close together. But I've removed them now. It disappointed last year, as although, it produced some foliage, there was no blossom. However, it is doing well this year and there's lots of flower buds on it, so it wasn't a waste of thirty-five quid.





We feed the birds and the squirrels, my wife can see them from her chair in the lounge. The bigger birds have a feeder under the azaleas. The surrounding fence keeps out anything bigger than a blackbird. We try to feed the blue tits with peanut butter but starlings kept them away and hogged the feeder. I've tried to keep them away by making a tunnel out of a part of a container, but the tits didn't like it. So I gave up. I noticed I had several jars of peanut butter in the shed so I had another go at it. I found an old hanging tubular bird feeder in the shed, with a bit of fettling I made a guard of part of it.







The starlings could still get in if I left it like that, so I added the lid of a Cadbury's hot chocolate pack, in which I cut a blue-tit size aperture. The "theory," is any bird can see the peanut butter, but only blue tits access it.

 

Fed the roses and started to put some compost on top of it.

 

Sjoerd your garden is in tip top condition. Very nice job. Planting season is coming along great for your veggie garden too. So many nice starts already. Beautiful garden.

Daniel so many seeds to start . Lots of new seedlings you are really energetic with lots of great ideas too. Will be a super harvest season to be grateful while watching your garden develop.

AAnightowl..glad you found the private message button. Every site is different.

Willow.. thanks for the reminder I have to check my tires . Isn’t it nice to drive with new tires.

Riley your beautiful garden is wakin up.. soon it will be in full bloom with the azalea’s, rodies and wisterias.
I have trouble with the starlings getting into porch / yard lites I cover with chicken wire , not nearly as clever as your idea.

 

We tried to order this bird feeder a month ago, from my wife's shopping channel. But it sold out very quickly. But I found the firm that makes it. "The Grumpy Gardener."
So I was able today to order it direct. It takes two slabs of suet cake mix.
It wasn't cheap, £27 including postage. But from the video it looks well made. I think it's the best we've seen.
I'll hang it from the pergola outside the French windows.

 

Cheers Pac. I am getting that old Spring Feeling.

 

Today we cleaned the strawb beds and gave a discreet feed.
We also cleaned around the garden house, gathered and removed the collected rubbish and off we went to the municipal depositing location.

 

I worked at my church's community center this morning, and took a short nap this afternoon and talked to my Mother on the phone, and just got here. I intend to get back at that quilt shortly.

It is cold and cloudy, so maybe tomorrow I will get into my garden. There are loads and loads of rocks to rake up from last summer's ditchwork so I can mow grass. I have started on it, but there are plenty more rocks in Missouri.

And we got over 4" of rain yesterday, so things are too wet to mow anyway.

 

Four o'clocks reseed themselves here. I never worry about planting them, but I did get some new colors (seeds) in the store that I will plant when I get to it.

 

Dollar General stores here have portulaca seeds, and they have grown well for me. Maybe you have a Dollar General in your area @Daniel W ?

Or try eBay?

 

Nightowl, they do that here too. They are such a great plant. In my climate, they are perennials with a deep root like a dandelion. Several areas of my garden got changed last year, so I'm starting with new plants. I thought the variegated flowers would be fun too.

I have some saved seeds from mine, four years old. I just soaked some to see if they will grow too.

They will be a low flowering hedge outside the garden fence.

 

I stay away from eBay ever since it turned out that the fig and grape cuttings I bought there came from Turkey. A USDA federal agent came to my house to investigate illegal "smuggling". I was pretty shaken and that was not what I had intended. I thought I was just buying through an approved source and it never occurred to me that eBay could sell illegal items. The agents said they would be watching me. I had just had surgery and not able to grow cuttings, so had disposed of them. At least back then, Ebay apparently didn't vet the sources but USDA was watching. I cancelled my eBay and have never used it again. I also don't exchange plant materials outside of my own neighborhood.

Dollar General is a long drive. If I'm in their area, I'll check them out. Thanks for the recommendation!

 

Daniel yikes that was a horrible experience just ordering cuttings . A government agent actually at your home. That would shake me to my core too.

I had a similar issue ordered amaryllis from them. It turned out the bulbs were from China. All 12 packages were empty with a note inside from the US Department of Agriculture concerning the Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) regulates the importation of plants and plant products under the authority of the Plant Protection Act. They were all confiscated. Had a stern warning not to order any more from them. Lost a few bucks on that one.

 

I think the source (in this case, EBay) should be held culpable. Not the buyer, who like you and I, can't know that the seller and middle person are not obeying the law. It was really scary for me, plus I had just had major surgery.

I quit another site after so many people there wanted fruit scion for grafting and continued bugging me - aggressively. Different states have different laws, and importing plants that have invasive insects or diseases can devastate those industries as well as hobby growers like us. I don't want to be the cause of such a bad thing.

Sorry about those Amaryllis. That was a disappointment.

Anyway, no more Ebay, ever for me. Also I've never ordered any plant anything - seeds, cuttings, plants - from Amazon. You never know where their stuff comes from.

 

Today, I planted more seeds.

The rest of the tomatoes-


And some snow-peas,


Last year, jays or voles or hungry gnomes pulled up almost all of my snowpeas and ate the tops and seeds. I had screening and fencing, but neglected to set out little steins of mead. This year, I'll keep them in containers much longer and possibly permanently. I can bring small containers in at night, which will leave the mead for me. Will that irritate the gnomes?

Also planted the home-saved 4:00 seeds from the year 2020. Will they grow?

 

Don’t ya just hate those hungry gnomes. I have the same lil buggers. I haven’t thought to set out mead for them. I’ll give it a try. If it works , I make a whole pie for the gnomes topped with whipped cream.
Looks like you have quite a good start for your garden this year. Yummmm

A way to test seeds if they float in water they are bad. Or is it the other way round.