What have you done today in the Garden?

You'll rue the day it feels like South Georgia in summer, in the USA !! .

 

The usual…mow mow mow…. The pastures and the front and back lawn, as well as took a bunch of stuff to the barn.

 

Gravenstein apple tree beginning to bloom. It's the earliest of my varieties. I grafted this tree on a super-dwarfing rootstock, Budagovsky-9, about nine years ago. bIt's about 5 feet tall.



It needs a pollinator variety that's also early. This columnar tree, "Tasty Red", is almost blooming and will overlap the Gravenstein.



I'm excited the garlic looks so good already.



Alpine strawberries blooming. I only recently separated the plants and repotted them.



The alpines are ahead of the Ozark Bearty everbearings.

I planted lettuce plants.



Also snow peas. I became discouraged over thenyears about how, wheneverI plant them, jays get through whatever protection I give and steal every plant. So I bought some larger ones to see what happens. I'll cover them with plastic cloches at night .



The Chinese chives are ready for harvest. There are jioazi dumplings in my future, soon.



The onions look really nice now.



Mini-dahlia seedlings.



Some of the tomato seedlings, under LEDs.



An Erythronium.



I also planted a row of broccoli, some turnip seedlings, and some daikon seedlings (no photo).

 

Apart from patio and path re-pointing, I'm pretty much up to date. I need to get another bag of cement and some sharp sand, before I can do any more.
I jet-washed the main patio a couple of months back but some of the pointing has gone green again, so I'll give it another go of "Wet n' Forget."

We're finally getting a bit of colour. This "Amber" clematis I bought from Taylors a few years ago. It was relatively expensive, but never disappoints. It fills the whole of this part of the fence next to the kitchen window.




It has these bell-like yellow flowers.





The ever faithful Mayleen is the first to flower of many.





The wisterias are nearly in bloom. We've seven, but they don't all come out at the same time. This part catches the early sun. The wires you can see are to prevent the huge wood pigeons sitting on the fence.
That huge branch travels from the corner of the little bed at the side of the garage, right round and over the pergola on the back of the house.





These are the first of the many azaleas.





I'm quite pleased with the way the lawn has recovered, except for the bit in constant shadow which is always a problem. It'll need some more moss treatment and during the next spell of some consecutive dry days, I'll scarify it again. But it won't fully recover until mid-summer.






My new turf is holding up well, despite the attention of a couple of squirrels who try to dig little holes in it. A couple of joins are visible, but any little clumps of grass I find growing in the borders I transplant into them, as they'll grow anywhere.










Whatever it is, in this border, is doing exceptionally well along the full length.

 

I took the "training wires" off this acer palmatum this morning.
The leaves aren't fully out, when they are, the top branches will dip a bit.
But there's now a more even distribution of the branches around the trunk.

I mowed the lawn, including the new turf under it. I was very careful, as it's possible to disturb it if you aren't.

 

I widened the ring under my nectarine tree. It had only an 18" wide diameter to the ring and now, since the trunk is 3" wide at a foot up from the ground, and I need to fertilize it, and it's no good fertilizing the grass, I took off all the grass out to the full spread of the canopy, watered it deeply and fertilized it. .

Then, the grass that I removed, got transplanted to fill in the spot where one of my raised beds had been. I moved that bed last winter due to tree roots growing up into it. So, two birds with one stone. Then I watered all my veg in the raised beds. Done for the day. Tomorrow I'll put a new black plastic ring around the nectarine tree's new bed and fill in with mulch.

If I had more plants I'd stick some in there too.

 

Anniekay good job.

 

Thank you Pac !! Now I'm pretty much pooped !!

 

Anniekay I get it. My energy drink for garden tasks consists of 2 chocolate boost drinks with double shots of espresso. Yogurt. All chased down with 12oz. of water with citric acid, potassium sorbate, (vitamin C), sodium citrate, potassium citrate, acesulfame potassium, (vitamin B3), Calcium disodium EDTA, vitamin E acetate, vitamin B5 & B6 .. I think that does it, don’t want to get dehydrated…

 

No wonder I'm tired !! All I had was a protein shake and a bowl of cereal with blueberries !!

 

It'll certainly upset the penguins

Difference of 11 degrees between the North windy side and the South sheltered side today





I was suprised at the lower humidity

These 2 thermometers were about a foot apart, only separated by the ground cover

 

I'm not certain, but those look like the Chinese Forget-Me-Not that grow wild here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynoglossum_amabile

 

You work hard! And it looks very nice.

 

Today I planted most of the rest of the vegetable seedlings that I started recently. Except tomatoes, of course. Too early for those.

I thought last night's prediction was 34F. it's usually a couple of degrees colder here, so I brought in the pelargoniums. Took them out this am. But, I read it wrong. The cold snap is predicted for tonight, not last night. So I'll do it again tonight. I hope the roses will be OK. It's an awkward time of year.

I watered a lot of things today. Hard to believe - it's only mid April! Every year, there's "someone" (helper or visiter or repair guy or gremlins) who damages the irrigation controller, clumsiness I guess (plus shoddy manufacturing), so I ordered new one today. And the filter. My well water is loaded with sediments and without a filter the timer and emitters clog up quickly. It takes about a day of this-and-that to get the system working, and I procrastinate. But it's time to do it now, before hot season comes. I could not have such a productive garden any more, without drip irrigation.

 

Just a bit of "garden housekeeping."

Our neighbour (who's in hospital), their garage, is parallel to ours and only 18" away. They have a load of stuff that grows over the top of their garage roof and down the other side and tries to get under the eaves of ours. So I cut it back so it's a couple of feet away from the edge of their roof.
It required a ladder at both ends and my Barnel telescopic pruner.
I filled half a green bin with the stuff I took off.

Just did a bit of watering. Particularly the wisterias.

This one on the side of the house is doing really well this year, no sign of any blooms dying off as was the case last year.








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These two (they cross in the middle) are nearly out.



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These are supposed to be white in the middle and blue either side.
But it looks like the white has crept into the blue at this end. But I'm not that bothered. The white is always the last to come out.