What have you done today in the Garden?

Full sun this morning. I watered everything except the strawberries and potatoes. I weeded a strawberry patch and an onion patch. It rained this afternoon but it is sunny now so I am off to transplant some sweet potatoes.

 

Husband called out, I need your help a flower basket has fallen down...thought if a going to be something really bad the way he shouted...I was working in the wood store/cutting store at the time and went to assist in the re make..all good and changed the broken wire...re planted up the basket with only slight damaged plants....
Bought a new heavy duty brush cutter yesterday and Husband tested it on the new rough land we are buying..worked a treat please to say and another neighbour appeared at one of the borders to Chat with him, it was very entertaining listen to two people making strange noises and waving hands as neither can really communicate in the same language...I said afterwards what did he have to say! he said well you know how it is he is very friendly.....
So a busy day weeding and weeding and watering at the end of the day..25 degrees today and felt hotter.

 

I dug a bit for my maize patch and weeded an onion bed and planted lettuce and basil.

 

Yesterday planted a few more cosmos, verbena bonerenses, verbascum still got a lot of them to plant.

 

I dead-headed an early flowering rhodo. I like to do them before there's a chance of "dead-heading the new shoots." I find it easy enough to do it by hand.
It can give you back ache to dead-head over 100 blooms if you're bending over, but I've a system. I start with the ones at the bottom and work my way up. The majority of the blooms are at the top so by the time you've finished these while you are in an upright stance any discomfort you might have had will be gone.

 

Finished off the planting that i started yesterday but it got too hot for me and the plants.

 

Not a lot as it was a a golf day and then I had to go for a few "just getmes."

But I did mist spray the acers when I got in to cool them down a bit, it stops the leaves burning.
Settled down now to watch the tennis.
Serena Williams (seeded 7) will shortly be playing another supposedly "easy" opponent, Mihaela Buzarnescu (ranked 148) Who "fixes" the draw?

Edit, Serena's warming up in her Nike raincoat again, in this weather? What some will do for sponsorship money.

and one of my favourites, Ayana "Warrior Princess" Sabalenka plays Aliaksanda Sasnovich on another channel.

Venus did her usual trick, turned up and went out in the first round of a competition again. Walked away with £51,642.

 

Pulled up the wallflowers along the path then I had to cut them all up to get them in 3 compost bags then when I can I'll put it all in the compost bins but layer it with other things. Also helped hubby cut the grass by putting the grass cuttings somewhere.

 

As it was cooler this evening, dead-headed one of the rhodos in the front garden.

The one between the azaleas,

 

I got into the front garden today.

Removed all the dead and dying bluebell foliage between the plants and the side fence. A "hands and knees job."

I eerected this post and wire mesh fence over twenty years ago, the posts are still rock solid. It forms an unobtrusive divider between ours and next door's garden and I think looks better than a concrete post and panel fence than that many houses in our road have.







Then pruned the azaleas and rhodo with a pair of garden shears.





I don't like them growing over the lawn too much, it suffers where the azaleas keep it in the shade, or spreading out over the pavement so pedestrians have to walk around it.
I find doing this sort of "pruning" just as the blooms are starting to fade gives the plants time to recover ready for next year.

 

Planted out a few more cosmos, verbena bonerenses. I watered all the pots in the back garden.

 

Did a bit more this evening.
Pruned off the dying wisteria blooms on the one between the tea-house and shed.
Had a few other jobs to do, defrosted one of the back-up freezers in the garage, is it was a bit iced up. There wasn't much in it so I could get everything into the table-top freezer that sits on top of it whilst I did it.
Moved my Budweiser fridge back into the tea-house, as with all our son's spare furniture in the garage for months, it was hard top get at. I only put it in the garage when I closed down the koi filter room, as it made it less far to walk of an evening if I fancied a beer and it's raining.
Then an hour ago he phoned to say that their second house completes next week, so the furniture will be going!
Watered "everything"
I've now had a shower, three times today.

 

Just one job, as there's a lot of tennis on TV today.

Last night, after 'arry had eaten his dinner, he returned to the patio at about half past midnight and spent several minutes covering every inch of it. He walked the full length of the top step outside the French windows and peered in at us a couple of times. He then spent some time examining the underside of the door in the side fence. There's a gap underneath it, as I made it so hedgehogs could get in and out of the garden (but nothing bigger). Presently I've this bit of scrap 3" X 2" pushed against the bottom to keep him in.




But there's always a danger that I might forget to put it in place when I close the door.

I'm sure that last night if it weren't there, he'd have been under it and out.

The problem is that there's really not much in our small front garden to interest him, so he'd be likely to cross the road.
He must have come from the other side of the road when I found him collapsed on our front lawn a few weeks ago.
I think it would devestate my wife if I let him get out and he got run over.

So I've built up the area under the door with concrete to stop him getting out. Just an additional 3". I'll apply a scim of sand and cement with yellow dye to match the patio when it's gone off, which could be as early as late this afternoon. The area under the door was higher than the patio as I ran an alkathene water pipe to the garage from the supply above the drain at the corner of the house when I built the koi pool, it now supplies just the wash basin in the garage, the tap on the outside of the garage and the lawn sprinklers, there's also under there a 1.5" waste pipe from the basin to the drain. They were protected by the original covering of the concrete ramp I made so I could push my sack truck over it with anything heavy I need to get into the garden.






I will eventually stitch drill a hole in one of the side fence concrete panels at the bottom of the garden so he can roam a bit, but not for a while. But I think even then, he'll mostly stay where he knows, "his bread is buttered." It'll also allow any other hedgehogs to get in or out.

 

Today it's watering the plants that I've just planted this week, it's so dry now.

 

The jobs's done. The door is now 'arry proof, (as long as I always remember to close it!)








I'll still be able to push my sack truck over the higher threshhold. It'll dry an even colour.

It's difficult to get an even shape with an arc. I use a just damp mix, spread it on with a trowel then finish off with a dry 3" paint brush.

I also tied up a few more clematis, dead-headed these two rhodos and gave everything a good watering.