What have you done today in the Garden?

Gave the mossy bits on the lawn a dose of iron sulphate.




Regardless of what I do, I'm finding it impossible to get grass to grow in the shade of this acer palmatum.





It wasn't a problem when it was smaller. Even though I give its "fringe" a trim each year, the cover is too great.

It's a long time since it looked like this.



So I'm considering that in the winter, I'll remove the brick circle and make a "half circle" edge, similar to the one I have around the other acer, leaving a greater area of bare earth. I might need some more paving bricks.

This sorbus is still retaining its berries.





It, as well as other plants at the bottom of the garden, will benefit from the removal of the big tree in the garden next door to the left.

Little colour now in the garden, other than the new heathers, the roses are all but finished and this is the last flowering plant on the rockery.



Leaves from the trees in the garden to the right of ours are already starting to fall.

It'll be a weekly job to clear them for a couple of months. Fortunately, my old Flymo Ultraglide, with its big fan at the back, is great at collecting them when I mow.

I'll get into those trees in the winter with my long pruner and cut off more of the branches that hang over our garden, but they're a long way up now.

 

I rearranged some plants in a border, planted some verbascum snowyspires at the back and clumps of hardy geraniums in front of them.

 

I got 4 pints of applesauce. They've all sealed already.

 

Horse chestnuts in the US are a very dark brown and larger than the regular chestnuts. All of our chestnuts have the spikey hulls. The regular chestnuts here are a stripey reddish brown. People roast them, but I have not tried that.

DS is still home, and we raked up more walnuts and cleaned out under the walnut tree. I have not gotten to it in several years, so it was a mess.

@Willowisp0801 , I believe the 4 o'clocks are reseeding annuals? I usually plant mine in spring, but they do reseed from previous years. (some other reseeding annuals are marigolds, zinnias, cosmos, morning glories).

I took out my tomatoes today, and put the plants in my compost pile. I also picked some of my scarlet runner beans that the pods have dried out. I want to be sure have some for seed, and some for eating.

I want to build a tunnel there for tomatoes next summer. I need to swap out some other T posts with a couple of 4x4s for the tunnel.

It is bone dry here, we could use some rain here.

 

I was going to take a break. Instead, I pulled out grass and thistles for the current section of border I've been revamping all summer and fall. I thought it would be incredibly difficult, but I'm most of the way there already.

Hidden in the thistles and grasses were lambs ears (Stachys byzantina) and an overgrown lavender (I had forgotten that one). There is also a huge overgrown rosemary plant. I'll keep those.

I also removed a pair of trellises, some fencing and fence posts. It will need a weed barrier and arborist chip mulch, it's almost cleaned up. I'll wait for Spring to prune back the lavender and rosemary. This area is slightly less sunny, and will be a good place for the dwarf dahlias and four o'clocks next year. I might also move an overgrown Helichrysum italicum (curry plant) there.

 

It's been a busy few days getting ready for winter. The last of the vegetable gardens were removed and the soil was prepared for spring. I still need to sprinkle some bone meal, lime and blood meal. Everything was composted. All stakes, sticks etc were collected and stored. The garden shed was tidied and readied for it's winter close up. The green house is cleaned out and ready for next year. I'm hoping for a break in the wet weather within the week to do a big leaf clean up and compost. Three large poplar are still holding onto their leaves, but I don't think for much longer. The majority of the leaves are down now. I was very pleased to see the large number of worms in the gardens.

My perennials all stay green and some in flower ( phlox, sedum and coneflowers) right up to snow. I've learned to not cut them back in the fall but let them do their thing over winter. It seems if I cut them back they do not come back as strongly as they do if I allow them to die a cool but natural death under the snow. I will dead head the large snow ball hydrangea flower heads today when the rain stops because they seem to collect the snow and break the plant. I'm hoping that helps.

 

No gardening today, too busy.

We'd been without a washing machine nine for days, when the new one was delivered late on Saturday. So there's been a mountain of the stuff to process.

Because of her disability, there's not much my wife can do, even less since she came out of hospital four weeks ago. I've always done the washing. It's just a case of separating it into the, "right loads," then chucking it in the machine, then into the tumble dryer, taking it out and folding it before putting it a way. it's never a problem, but when there's a lot to do, it takes some time.
I fitted it in between cleaning, cooking and shopping (and watching tennis, football and cricket on TV).

It looks like it will be dry tomorrow, so at least the lawns will get mowed. I'm waiting for the wisteria leaves to "turn." Each year I strip them, not waiting for them to fall. I've done it for a couple of decades. Doesn't do them any harm. Saves collecting dead leaves on a daily basis for several weeks.

I'll also give them a "part prune," the main one I do between Christmas and New Year.

"Hog Hall," the new large hedgehog house, is coming on Wednesday, it will probably arrive while I'm out playing golf in the morning. But I reckon I'll have it ready for occupation by the evening.

It's getting warmer, 20C is expected on Wednesday, so there's a chance of hibernation not happening yet, so hopefully, I won't be wasting my time.


I'd visions of what happened with the six fox cubs we had under the tea-house five years ago.
Before we had them, as it got so hot in there during some days in the summer, I was in the habit of leaving a door open for several hours during the day, to reduce the temperature in there. Although there's the roof vent I leave open and two vents in the bottom of the back wall, it still got very hot in there.

As the summer progressed and I hadn't opened a door in case the cubs got in there, I was concerned that the old capacitors in my jukeboxes might start melting in the heat. So I bought and installed this fan in the wall over the middle door and put it on a timer.




The fox cubs left home three days later.

 

Wow Mel— that is some good work you have done. You are ahead of me. You are a real pro, young lady.

Riley— that was an interesting posting.

 

@Doghouse Riley you are a hard worker, and a good man.

 

Today I tackled more of the border extension. It replaces the bed where I used to grow squash / sweet corn / onions in rotation, outside the professionally fenced garden. Pretty big area, about 40 feet long, 15 feet wide.

Deer were adept at jumping over whatever fencing hazards I installed, to the point where I couldn't get in to water and weed.

Over the past few days, I pulled out fencing. Today I dug out clumps of Johnson Grass and other grasses, removed blackberry brambles, Dug out thistles. Raked and leveled.

There is a huge Rosemary bush there at the edge. I cleaned it up and did minor shaping pruning.

Yet another lavender, I cleaned it up. Two sprawling branches look good for layering, maybe tomorrow. It might be too sprawly to prune back and rejuvenate, but I can try that next Spring.

A sage plant, which I left by the woods two years ago, survived despite not ever really planting it and never watering. I trimmed it up and moved it into the cleaned up area. Amazing it survived such harsh conditions.

There was also a Stachys (Lambs Ears) that was growing without watering or care. I cleaned it up, accidentally pulling off some stolons that had roots and plants, so I planted those in a different spot.

I'd like to move the Helichrysum Italicum (curry plant) there too, but it has long dry stems with growth at the tips. It's very sprawly. I might move it there and try to air layer a couple of those stems, to start it over again. That is a plant that I can smell from six feet away, interesting spicy scent.

I put down woven weed barrier until I ran out. I covered that with about ten little wagon loads of arborist tree chips. When I get more weed barrier, I'll put it there too.

Given that the lavender, rosemary, Stachys, and sage all survived and grew fine for over a year with no artificial watering, I think they have proven themselves as xeric plants. With some pruning and shaping, I think they will be even better.

 

My mushroom logs produced their first flush of delicious shiitake.


Here are some of the logs laid out in the forest.

 

Nothing today it's been drizzling all day and cold.

 

Finished up removing the debris from he roof and cleared all the scuppers & downspouts.. Removed more vines from the wisteria.






It rained last night and pic of cleared roof this am.
_

Part of driveway cleared of pine needles and fallen leaves… Phase 1. 3 more to go.




Power washed the greenhouse it’s all nice and white removed the green slime.

 

@Odif, those mushrooms look delicious!

I tried mushroom logs a few times, but they never worked for me. I'm pretty sure we have champignon mushrooms as a result of throwing the root end of the stems into our compost over the years. However, I'm reluctant to try any mushroom from the wild.

I once bought a kit to grow "Chicken of the Woods" mushrooms. They were delicious, but it was very expensive.

@Pacnorwest what a job! You are Superwoman!

As for me, I did sone more work on the border. I dug up the curry plant to move there. It split into uneven halves. I planted the smaller split. Spread some more wood chips. Did some more air layering.

I raked the first batch of maple leaves, so well-meaning neighbor wont mow over them. I'm not collecting leaves from town this year.

I removed about 3/4 of the fresh-eating tomato plants, then tired out LOL. I have to get the rest out - that's the spot for fall planted garlic.

 

Daniel you always have plans for the season, seem to be one step ahead of the weather. Trying mushroom logs haven’t worked well for me either. I have more luck using horse manure and straw formulations develops more mushrooms than other systems.
And Thanks for your superwoman vote . It’s nice that you recognize the difficulty of the entire roof/vine /clearing . I have done it over 30 years due to DH handicap.

This is a busy time of year to plant cold weather plants and prepare the garden for the deep sleep during winter. I used my blower to corral leaves around the garden. Soon the landscape will overflow with fallen leaves, as the autumn ‘Leaf Wars continue’.