What have you done today in the Garden?

Bwahahahha! I saw the yellow rings on the tomato leaf, I sprayed, and today they are dead, though they took the leaves. Its like a hunting safari at home. I hunt fungus. Should I have my kills preserved and hung on the wall?

 

thank you tetters. and welcome to the stew. I just haven't been arounf much this year. too many irons in the fire for me. I do believe I had it also in Dec 2019 but I kept my sinus infection into runny nose that wouldn't turn off ever, cough, chirps, whistles, lungs that sounded like deflating bellows even when I wasn't exhaling, burst ear drums, pink eye, inhaler for 6 stinking long months. and the lungs on fire for another year. I just noticed that was gone earlier this Summer... and I got it again only this time it hasn't been so bad. I just feel terrible my inlaws probably got it form me as I am their 24/7 care giver right now. they are in their 90's. eeek! this time I added a betadine nosewash immediately so I didn't get the sinus infection. that helped a lot.

 

Did quite a bit today.
I pruned the three quinces along the side fence to stop them growing too tall and too close to the azaleas and rhodos, because in a "straight fight" against them, the quinces would always win.

Then it was some mowing and lawn patching, still treating a few places where neighbours' cats have peed on the lawn.
The "hardware" is to stop Cyril the squirrel from digging holes in the bits I've patched.



It's the worst the lawn has looked in years.

I can't blame the cats for this area below a rhodo, as it's constantly in shade it suffers from moss. It's had the treatment a few weeks ago plus today a bit of topsoil and more seed. I'll try to tie back that rhodo a bit tomorrow to allow in more light.



I did I what I hope the last of the wisteria pruning, just the unwanted long strands.
If anyone has any doubts about the hard pruning of wisterias in January, like this.



You'll still end up like this after the second bloom has gone.






Then a "hoover up" with my new Grizzly garden vac.

I also mowed the front lawn and cleared up the fallen leaves from the "lollypop tree."
There's a lot more to fall yet before I can get into its annual prune, where I take up to a foot off it all the way round. Easy enough with a couple of long and telescopic pruners, no ladders required.



So I came in feeling I'd completed a good day's work, when in fact it had only been a couple of hours

 

Planted a few more wallflowers, some watering and deadheading.

 

Crikey, it sounds as if you had it much worse than we did, and with luck and a fair wind you should now have SO many antibodies you will be ready for anything as you recover. This pandemic has changed the world in so many ways, and I for one am very grateful that we are ABLE to write about what we managed to do in our gardens.
We have all lost friends and loved ones, or know those who have - sadly.
Aren't we blessed if we have a garden -large or small to recover in.

 

Planted some more wallflowers.

 

Dianne Woollie, Your birthday may be past now, so Happy belated Birthday.

 

Just watered the wallflowers and hanging baskets.

 

Finally finished planting the wallflowers around the path in the front garden and helped hubby finish cutting the pyracantha hedge.

 

Planted up a border with, you can probably guess, with wallflowers and some tulip bulbs.

 

Just a bit of mowing, weeding and vaccing.
Though I did swop over the central feature of the garden.

The sambucus has been "relegated" to the small patio and been given a haircut now it's lost its leaves.



It's place has been taken by the mimosa. It just takes seconds to swop them over. It's taken years for the azaleas in the same bed to reach this height. Didn't help that one died on me earlier in the year and had to be replaced. The idea is that they are supposed to hide the tub without being too much in your face.





The damaged areas in the lawn are recovering after a fashion, from the attention of neighbours' naffin' cats. The seed I laid in the bit under some rhodos just beyond the lantern is growing well. I pruned off quite a few yellowing leaves on several rhodos.




Still have a few roses coming out.




Even these in "the alley of shame" are doing their best.





'arry triggered the trail camera last night around 9.30pm. He must have made his way up to the rockery, as he disappeared out of the frame.

 

Here's some of the wallflowers along the path that I've planted but not a very good pic.

 

It should have been a golf day today, the forecast said the rain would clear up late morning.
But as it was chucking it down at 7.15am. I didn't bother. At 9.00am when other members with whom I usually play would have arrived, I got an e-mail saying the course was closed as the greens were flooding. "Inspection first thing tomorrow." So people would have gone home. At 11.00 am I got another e-mail saying the weather had improved enough to open the course!
I wouldn't have been best pleased had I gone and come home again.

Anyway.. I decided to attend to a garden project, as there's nothing urgently required in the garden.

The pergola rail that was one side of the koi pool had these ornamental panels in it, I made out of plywood with a jigsaw.

The problem with plywood is that as you cut them with the saw it disturbs the laminations and no matter what you do these days to protect it, water eventually gets inbetween them and they rot. I think I've replaced them three times in thirty years.



The matching ones in the tea-house I made from the same roofing ply I used to build it and are still perfect after 34 years. You can't get the same quality wood these days.






So early this year I removed the panels as three of them were beginning to disintegrate and I tidied up what was left and made new frames.




I can't get solid wood wide enough to fill the spaces (the height is about a foot) and I wasn't going to use plywood again.

So I've decided as a "project" to make some ornamentation similar to the hardwood rondels I made to cover the coachbolts on the two pergola posts of the one on the back of the house. I've just got to think it through as to how I'll connect it to the top and bottom of the frames.





I've bought some soft wood window sill. It's about 9" wide. It's not cheap, a couple of quid a foot. So I can fettle something to go in the middle of the five spaces.

'arry made an appearance on the camera around half eight last night and went into his feeding station and ate some of the cat food I'd put out for him. So we're pleased about that, as it's the first time he's ate something in there, for nearly two weeks as he's been staying in his house, apart from a couple of times now in the last three days.

 

This afternoon planted up 3 large containers with hyacinths, tulips wallflowers, and polyanthus.

 

Too wet to do any gardening, so I thought I'd make a start on the rondels I want to go in the pergola balustrade. Which will be similar to the ones I made for the pergola on the back of the house.

There's probably a computer programme that would make a template for me, bu I made do with a pencil, a ruler, some graph paper and a soup bowl.



Fortunately, you only have to do "half a job" as by folding it over you can achieve near symetry by cutting out both halves together.



Just a case of transfering it onto the wood.

I can tidy it up when I'm cutting out the "petals" with my jigsaw.

Ideally you really need a bench mounted jigsaw, so you can move the wood around the blade.
I have to make do with my twenty year-old hand held jigsaw.
But as it's just for the garden, I can get it, "near enough."

Once I've done one I can use that for a template for the other four. "But none today."