What have you done today in the Garden?

Too wet for golf, course closed.
Too wet for gardening.

Looking for something to do, so did a totally unnecessary job in the room at the back of the garage, which used to be the koi pool filter room.

"I spent hours getting rid of some wires."





I reduced the number of sockets above the washbasin to two doubles. The others used to power a lot of koi pool equipment.
The yellow plug was for the fluorescent over the quarantine tank, (where our garden chairs are stored now, we keep an old fitted sheet over them), so I connected the supply to that of the inset 60 watt lamp in the middle of the ceiling of this room, so it comes on now with the light switch. So the yellow plug and its wire have gone.

The wire above the tiles to the right of the basin comes down from the void above the ceiling and is the low voltage supply to the fountain, it is connected to the consumer unit in the garage.
Plug number 1 in this photo, its transformer is above it.The switches for all three sockets are in the lounge.




it disappears under the decking and out through some alkathene pipe to the former koi pool sump and then up to the fountain.
I decided to hide it by running the wire through some trunking down the wall in the corner of the room, behind the little fridge, ceiling to floor.
This meant the cupboard had to temporarily come off the wall and part of the floor decking come up whilst I did it.

The fridge is now connected to the sockets on the other side of the room and the wire is hidden in white trunking along the bottom of the windows.

So now the only socket in permanent use over the basin is the one for the kettle.

Three of the sockets on this other wall are now in use for the fridge and the two freezers.





A fourth one is for one of these, a radio cassette player. It sits on a tray on top of the freezers. It's been in the garage since 1986 and still works.




This leaves me a double socket on each side of the room, the one over the sink I can use to connect "stuff" I'm using in the garden as the side door is next to the sink, the spare on the other side is handy for the vacuum cleaner.


So a very productive day..."doing naff-all."

 

Rain early on but it's stopped now.
Can't do anything other than a walk round.
Our mimosa in the big tub on the patio is in flower. We lost a few blooms with the winds.





The first of our three quinces on the side fence has blossom, it's always the first, the orange and red follow.








Some "mini daffodils"(and some moss).




The roses are doing well in their pots on the new patio. This patio drains quickly never any puddles despite being below the original pool collar. It's sitting on 20 tonnes of eco-friendly fine hardcore so the rainwater passes quickly through it and then through holes I drilled in the concrete base five feet below.





The phlox on the rockery is "rampant" I'll drag some of it away from the rocks later, as they are completely obscured by it.





The evidence of a few hours of work in this room, wouldn't look any different to anyone else.

That sad looking Santon water heater must be fifty years old. I acquired it from my company's works department for a couple of quid in 1986. It had come from a shop they were refitting. It's on its own mini-breaker on the new consumer unit, so if it ever shorts out, it won't affect the other supplies.






This is a bit tidier. The cassette radio was a "freebee" from one of my suppliers when I was working, it's not something I would have bought myself, but maybe it was the inspiration for me getting my "real" jukeboxes 20 years later.

 

We went to the lottie and saw that most things were in order except for a couple of arches---they were leaning. The ground was to soppy to do anything.
We have gotten in some of our ordered seeds and planted the broadbeans right away.

 

I have been singing my gardens.

 

Singing?

Too early in the season to do much here. I shovelled up the sunflower seed hulls under the bird feeders. I have read if you leave half rotting seed out for the birds, they will eat it and can make them sick. I don't know if this is true. Frankly I suspect our fine feathered friends are smarter than that! But shoveling up the fallen hulls makes the area look a lot neater.

 

Nothing yet but getting ready to start. Saw flats of Romaine lettuce in yesterday and a rack of herbs but imo it is still a bit early to get anything planted outside.

 

Six and a half hours chainsawing chestnut logs lengthways.

 

went and got my hanging basket material yesterday. started seeds for herbs, took cuttings on geraniums and scented geraniums, rosemary a few fillers that I wintered over... ... and finally ordered most of my seeds for the season. then tonight had a farmers market meeting.

 

@Odif what are your plans for those logs?

 

I found homes for three of the four clematis we bought from Taylor's. Struggling at the moment to find a home for the last.
Tidied up this Mayleen that trails over the front door, ready for when it leafs out. Difficult in that it doesn't want to trail, so a bit of pruning. (Taken last May).





If it stays dry I'll cut the lawn tomorrow. I'll also give the roses a spray. There's fifteen in ceramic pots on the two patios and three in the borders. Plus another six in pots in "the avenue of shame." (I call it that as they are ones my wife doesn't like, but it would be a shame to dump them). They are in plastic pots along the side fence of the drive.

 

Trimmed and cleaned up dead leaves from this past winter.

 

A bright morning , full sun, not a cloud in the sky. So spent two hours out there, not too cold. Mowed both lawns and did a lot of clearing up. A lot of loose moss, leaves, twigs off next door's trees, etc., on the paths and patios, Cleaned out the bird bath.

The moss on the lawn is the worst I've seen, not surprising given the amount of rain we've had. Gave it a dose of iron sulphate. I'll order some more on eBay.

The garden doesn't look too bad if you don't look too closely.



















Even "the avenue of shame" is coming along.







I found a home for the last clematis, in the corner of this bed under the back kitchen window. It'll get enough sun her and I'll train it up wires against this wall.

 

I've just ordered this. 2kg. £6.69, post free.

 

I did some weeding then pruned off the last of the dead wood on our two acer palmatums. I take some off in December each year, but leave bits that I'm not sure are dead. But by now there's small buds on all the live wood, the bits I was unsure about have gone white so could come off.
I gave everything a feed including the lawn. All this recent rain will have washed a lot of nutrients through the patio pots and the borders.

I'm completely up to date with everything. Although I need to replace a couple of hebes. One looks dead, the other half dead.

It's the two inside ones in the two wooden troughs. The troughs I bought years ago to go either side of the teahouse steps, but when these hebes are in bloom my wife can't see them from the house.


I might have a trip out to Dobies tomorrow and buy a couiple of replacements.
.





The half-dead one I'll find a place for down at the bottom of the garden to give it a chance.