What have you done today in the Garden?

Cheers Daniel.
I especially like reading about your grafting exploits. I quite find those posts interesting.

 

More seeds arrived! That little paw is Minney, she has decided that since they make noise, they must be a new toy for her. The one with just drawing on it is the free packet of salad blend. Migardener had a show about heirloom seeds that don't get the attention they deserve. Several of these are what he highlighted. The Gill's Golden pippin squash is one of his, of which he spoke very highly.

 

Thanks for the video, Logan.

I don't know why all of this fake stuff is out there. I understand why someone might want to grow a flower from a cut flower gift - I did that with a yellow hybrid tea rose, a long time ago. It needed more TLC than hardwood cuttings, but didn't need exotic ingredients. I might have used rooting hormone. I don't usually do that for hardwood cuttings. I think that can also be done with carnations from a bouquet.

I remember my grandfather's sister started roses by inserting stems into the soil and covering with a glass jar to keep them moist, That was 60 years ago.

I think a lot of garden skills have nearly been lost. 100 years ago, ordinary gardeners saved seeds, grafted, grew new plants from cuttings and offsets. So many plants can be started do-it-yourself. Of course, a source is needed for new ones. Sometimes, neighbors, friends, family can be that source, and also receive starts as gifts.

Possibly no outside garden work today. I wore out yesterday.

 

Got a bit done today.

The "fence man" came and replaced two posts and some base panels. When I could see the job was done, I guessed they'd be clearing away the rubble, so I walked around the crescent and rang my neighbour's doorbell and said that it looked OK, my side, but asked if he was happy with it. He was, (well he would be wouldn't he? I was paying for it!). But I checked anyway.
I noticed they'd only used three concrete base panels. "Fence man," noticed I was noticing it, so he told me they'd only used three so he'd knock £20 off the bill. Whether he'd have said that if I hadn't bothered to go round and look, is anyone's guess. The bamboo was completely undamaged.

I then had the nightmare of threading new cables between the bamboo and the fence panels for one spotlight and two Japanese lanterns and fitting it in the trunking.








There's two wires attached to posts at each end of the bamboo, it keeps it upright, it's always been a bit floppy.




The trunking will protect the cables from the attention of hedgehogs, squirrels and foxes. Something has had a go at the old ones in the past. It's only 12volt so they never killed anything.

Got into the second of the acer palmatums.

I removed this much dead wood.



This was about the usual amount.

Removing it and some were quite long old branches, will allow me to balance out the branches, wire them up so they'll "set" in the required position when the plant wakes up in the spring.
It always looks a bit sorry for itself at this time of the year.

 

Your welcome Daniel, there's a follow up video as well.

 

I just took the seeds from a lemon, last summer, put it in dirt and it grew! I let them be in the garden until it started getting cold. Now they're in the basement.

 

Well done, you Willow !

Riley, you have some unusual challenges there.

 

I have started citrus seeds in just soil. Most citrus fruits here no longer have seeds, or they are so tiny as to be useless. A friend in CA is sending some lemon seeds from her fruit. She sent the tip about putting them in a banana, so thought i would try it out.

I have rooted a few rose cuttings, but only one really made it more than one season. That would be from my first burgundy tea rose which was up by the house. I still have that one. I no longer have the parent due to a tornado taking it out.

My fairy rose has made a lot of offspring, and most have lived. I have cuttings from it trying to root, and a few cuttings from the burgundy tea rose that I started some years ago.

I have some starts from the fairy rose in the holes of an old brick. I am hoping to remove them from the brick safely. They are soaking in a pan of water for now. I hope that will make it easier to remove them from the brick.

 

I have so many cuttings, it would not hurt to try sticking one in a raw potato. I lost count of how many cuttings. Maybe I will count them tomorrow? I stuck some in various flower pots, and others here and there to see if they grow or not. One is a tub of blackberries. One is in the tub with the parent bush. The others are in multiple flower pots by my well house.

I have tried other tips from various nurseries. One says under a clear soda bottle in a spot with no direct sun. I don't know where that would be in my yard, because I would totally forget about it and it would likely die. I have tried in vases of water with rooting hormone. Those were 99% failures.

I have heard that our 'grandmothers' used to stick the starts in the garden and put a mason jar over them? I have not tried that, probably thinking that deer might break the jars and get injured? Maybe a milk jug or soda bottle would be safer?

 

Nightowl, I've had very good luck rooting cuttings by putting them individually in a 4" pot filled with a mixture of perlite and vermiculite and set in a lipped tray. The first watering (just after the cuttings have been put in pots) is from overhead to remove air pockets and settle the cuttings firmly into the mixture. Watering afterwards is from below, to stimulate root growth downward. Tugging very gently on the cutting after two-three weeks will tell you if there are roots and if there are, the cutting can be moved to a slightly larger pot filled with potting soil.
I had 65 rose cuttings rooted and labeled with popsicle sticks (not a good idea). I put them on the ground in the shade house, where the cat proceeded to play with the popsicle sticks. I had to keep those roses until they bloomed and I could tell which was what!

 

Thanks Sjoerd! I just hope they make it a while.

I can see where that would be a problem. I buy all my fresh fruits and vegetables from a food co-op. It's a little bit more expensive; but it's all organic and mostly local.

One of my best friends has a mom who is a master gardener. She would do that.

 

I did a bit this morning, mowed both lawns, got half a mower bin full off them and cleared some leaves from the front garden and stripped some dead overgrown clematis from the side fence.
I'm relieved that the bamboo didn't get damaged when the new posts were fitted. It's there as I didn't want the aspect of a fence seen from the French windows. I think it would look ugly.

I think it gives the impression that the garden is bigger than it is.



The people who live in the house behind ours have painted their side of the fence grey, I noticed it when I went round to check on the fence from that side. They've made a feature of it. Maybe because they have a patio there. Their garden is in the shade of their house for most of the day.

It takes all sorts.

The lawn at this end of the garden will need some attention in the Spring

I noticed that the bottom of a couple of the Waneylap wooden panels are rotting a bit. But as my old dad used to say about some things that might need replacing, "They'll see me out."
As I paid for the new posts, I'll let my neighbour worry about the panels.
I had a bit of a tidy up of the shed and garage and chucked out some stuff I don't need. This included a dozen solar lights. Those that use an AA battery. I've not used them for a couple of years. Although I always bring them in at the end of the summer and remove the batteries, over time, the battery terminals rust and make poor contact. You can use a bit of wire to make a better connection, but I can't be bothered any more.

It should be golf tomorrow, but it's likely to be chucking it down, so I won't bother. l'll do a bit more tidying. The vinyl floor in the tea-house needs a clean. I've an old floor steam cleaner I keep down there I can use for that.

 

Today I laid more cardboard to smother weeds. There weren't a lot of weeds, but I don't want them spreading. I covered the cardboard with tree leaves. I spread some arborist chips in the footpath.





The planter with lots of green contains a yellow David Austin rose, with Muscari and a ground cover sedum. The other one isn't planted yet.

One of the miniature fruit trees was leaning. I straightened it and *POP* it broke off at ground level.





I don't know why it was so brittle. Some grafts do that, but not that common. The red color of the wood is typical for that super dwarfing rootstock, Budovski- 9. If allowed to grow without grafting, Bud-9 has red leaves too.

So now I know what I'll graft onto that rootstock I grew - a replacement Jonagold. This tree had better scion than I had already collected.



I don't need anything close to that much - really just one stick per graft - but having lots to choose from lets me match the understock size to the scion.

Then there's this gingko. It's a scion taken from a ginkgo that I grew from seeds my late dad collected 30 years ago, so there's sentimental value. But for some reason, it only grows diagonally / horizontally - never vertical! The original tree was totally vertical, like a pine tree.



It's grafted onto a seedling I grew from local trees. I always wonder, did I graft it upside down? It's possible! I think most grafts won't grow if grafted upside down, but some might. I don't know.

There are shoots growing from the rootstock. I'll try grafting it a second time. So I collected scion.



The scion gets wrapped tightly, and is kept in the fridge until sap is flowing on the trees outside. I usually graft in March or April.

 

I have not tried grafting yet. I would like to learn it sometime.

Today, I was out a lot. I worked at my church Community Center for a few hours. We are trying to catch up on a backlog of donations. A few of the ladies were out sick for two weeks, so we have a lot of catching up to do.

Then my son took me for errands in the afternoon. Walmart has various herb cuttings in the produce department. Last year I had bought some rosemary cuttings and rooted them in water. It is a bit over $1 to get them, so I bought more and will root them also. I think they repel bad insects? I have heard that someplace.

 

Nothing in the garden today. It started raining about 11.00am as was forecast. If I'd played golf, we'd be half-way round at that time so I wouldn't have been best pleased.

Did a good tidy-up of the garage, the "freezer room," the shed and the tea-house, including cleaning the vinyl floor in there.

Put a lot of large cartons in which various new appliances had arrived during the year, in the paper and cardboard bin. I needed to stand in it to compress what was already in there, so more would go in!
I've quite a bit of polystyrene packaging and boxes to take down the tip this afternoon. Then I'm done.