What have you done today in the Garden?

Sowing the wallflower seeds. Done 250 so far into these.
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Weeded my perennial garden on the upper terrace , emptied one of my compost bins, & then spread the compost over the bed. I'll sleep well tonight.

 

Way to go, Cayu. That was a good days’ work.
I like doing that sort of work in the garden.

 

Not a day to be giving the garden more than "a coat of looking at" from the French windows. as it's raining. The fountain and bird bath are full to overflowing.




"Cyril the Squirrel," was probably here at half-five as usual, as his kibbled nut food tray in the rose pot I filled last night, is empty. The blue "umbrella" in a stick I made from the bottom of a plastic waste paper bin keeps it dry. Likewise, the ground feeder I made from stuff I found in the garage that only small birds can access, is half empty.


'arry has done his bit, by piling up his empty cat food and hedgehog pellet dishes again, but left his water bowl in its usual corner.





I may have a wander down to the tea-house this afternoon and take the records out of my jukeboxes and give them a clean as I intended. It's a boring job, but there will be rugby on the TV in there. My camera makes the screen look very "blue," but in reality it's not. It's a 32" Panasonic Viera HD TV, (it got "relegated" when I bought a bigger Sony android for the front room).








The picture is perfect, thanks to this aerial in the void in the roof space which I've used for different TVs in there over the years, as they got replaced in the house.

At one time this was a skylight, but it made it hotter in there in the summer, so I felted it over. It all looks a bit "tired," up there, but it's just a glorified shed that's now 34 years old. It has always stayed perfectly dry inside.





The bit of triangular shaped wood is one of a pair attached to the skylight, so that when I raise the front and put in this "ventilator" made from a bit of 3" X 2" and the cut down two halves of an old dishwasher cutlery tray, are there to stop any bird or whatever, getting in when it's up during the warmer months. I usually also open one door during the daytime if i's hot.

I put in the fan when we had fox cubs under the floor, as I didn't want them getting inside if I left the door open which they would. I've not used it since they left.






The ventilator looks better from the outside.

 

It's raining today so nothing in the garden at all.

 

Beautiful shed Riley. Very nice & nicely engineered. I think we all could use clones of you padding about our properties, keeping things ship shape. That is, maybe all but Sjoerd! He & Bride do pretty well!

 

Heh, heh...cheers Cayu. We manage but Riley always has his place really ship-shape and Bristol fashion. An example for everyone to strive towards.

 

What a day...warm now as well..took just a few photos nothing mind blowing...but had a really good time outside and that is all I require right now,plus a large glass of water.
Weeds glorious weeds....nope...big nope..
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This old rose bush has been our faithful one, we get so many roses off it, it is a real
joy to have. We have purchased several since moving here and they have started off fine but many have developed yellow leaves and then they drop off. We then cut back hard and they start off looking healthy again and so the cycle goes on..

This will now start to loose its blossoms as it has peaked
very short flowering time for this snowball type variety of
Viburnum.

I have had so much success with the Ajuga plant and managed to keep taking
more and more cuttings which are really starting to spread and help keep
back some of the weeds ....

I was hoping this would flower and put me out of the misery of not knowing what it is
exactly...grown from a long pod..so going to be a wisteria or similar....hopefully..

.Just add that I have spent most of the day either digging out the driveway of grass that is like a mad lawn..watering my seeds as they keep drying out and some are very sad looking, really all to do with the changeable climate of late.I would think...planting up cuttings that are now established for the beds. Buddleja, and two others with names that have escaped me this minute...
taken breaks several times as got too hot as well..not complaining at the sun though....

 

I was always a tidy person, even at work. Unless I was presently working on something, I had nothing on my desk other than a blotter and phones. Much like you see many offices in "busy" working environments in films and TV dramas. I did have those two sets of drawers I now have in my shed for a lot of "paperwork" and my desk had plenty of drawers.
I had a stand on which a small refrigerator sat for whatever I was going to have for my lunch and cold drinks... and on top, a filter coffee machine and nice cups and saucers on a tray.
Often when I had visitors from other parts of the organisation, they'd smell the coffee and ask if they could have a cup.
I'd always say "Yes, help yourself, but there's no milk or sugar." It was how I took it at work. They rarely bothered.
Sometimes if the store were busy, If they were from head office and were being particularly annoying and suggested I get someone to get some milk and sugar, I'd say something like "Pick a number between one and fifteen, 'cos that's the number of the checkout that I'd have to close to get the girl to go and get it."
That was enough to finish that conversation, I took no prisoners.
When I retired, I cleared out all my "stuff" and took it home with me, to the dismay of the incoming manager. But it was stuff I'd "acquired" over a couple of decades and I wasn't going to leave it for anyone else.

 

Today it has been steadily raining since the a.m. right then, no gardening today but we thought that we’d head out into the countryside in the region of Andijk. There is a chap there that sells all kinds of fun plants extremely inexpensively.

Here you can see an arial foto of the place. The rows of plants can be seen there on the property — two areas divided by an asphalt path.


When we rolled in, there was only one couple there. We began enthusiastically by checking out the annuals and veg, then moving on to the perennials (the larger of the two areas). It was a wet and miserable experience. The little plants had not developed much, some had serious freezing damage and many labels were missing. No matter, I. Ould usually recognise what type of plant they were, but of course not the species...and thus not the colour.

Well, I could find enough to buy, and although the Bride had had enough of the cold and rain about 2/3rds of the way through and sought shelter in the auto, I pressed on.

I wanted to pick up a couple of extra Thalictrum’s, but the had only one. That plant, I have seen for sale there for the last two years. It was in a gigantic pot...almost not liftable. We began talking about it and some sly bargaining began. He wanted to move that thing and while I acted indifferent, he began dropping the price and I finally got the monster for 2.50 eurries. It was a bargain. I doubt that is a yellow one as I wanted but they all have their charm. I suspect that it may be a bluish one. We shall see.

We filled the back of the auto with plants and headed home...where heat and cocoa awaited us.

Great to see all that sun, DW.

That is a good characteristic to have, Riley.
We say, “opgeruimd staat netjes”. —Cleaned up looks tidy. (proper).

 

It's still raining.

 

Chilly here. My husband& I tackled our basement, de-cluttering. It is ridiculous how much stuff one collects. Now our garage is full of stuff to take to Goodwill!

Finished raking off the pool tarp in preparation for opening the pool. Still way too chilling for swimming.

Flipped another bay of the three bay compost bin.

Glad you got a good haul of plants Sjoerd! You are a wise negotiator!

 

I decided to attempt to repair the bowl of our original birdbath. I replaced it a few months ago as the frost had caused it to "blow out," a bit of the underside of the bowl and it developed some hairline cracks.









I needed to mask off the decoration on the rim with masking tape. Why can't they make this stuff so it doesn't tear as you try to pull it off the roll? Everything seems to made down to a price.








I needed a flat base on which to set the bowl, I used a surplus wardrobe shelf, with a bin bag to protect it, on the bench in the shed.




I used a strip of cardboard taped around the rim to act as shuttering.

I've just used a sand and cement mortar mix with added latex plasticiser and yellow dye.

I made the mix the consistency slightly damper than "sandcastle mix."






I'll leave it a couple of days, then smooth it all off with some coarse sandpaper or a file.
Much like my Japanese lanterns I made over thirty years ago, this birdbath will have the same construction, a centre core of fine concrete mix and an outer skin of mortar.
If it holds water, I'll site it on the corner of the small patio. Hopefully the woodpigeons which visit the main patio, at which my wife throws magazines at the French windows to scare them off, will use this in its new position.

 

Hmmm. Makes me wonder if I could repair the fine crack on our bird bath. Thanks for the description Riley

 

Well I planted the rest of my potatoes and some carrots. Weeding until the rain started.