A week in my garden - 17.08.2015 - 23.08.2015

Unfortunately, I haven’t managed to spend as much time in the garden this week. The weather hasn’t been great, and I’ve spent more time at work that is really ideal. We also spent the weekend visiting my brother in law, so aside from a little time after we got home this afternoon, the garden has been neglected this weekend. Not that we haven’t had a great weekend, we had a really good time visiting Luke and Andie - plenty of good food, wine and cocktails, board games and minigolf!

Front garden

I did manage to tidy one of the sides of the front garden. I pulled out all of the long grass and the weeds, cut back a few of the euphobia that were growing over the driveway, and cleared as much of the moss from the driveway as possible with a spade. I also finished trimming the hedge on that side, and put some Roundup Gel on the dandelions growing through the drive. It already looks quite a lot better. I also pulled out some brambles as far as I could, but the roots seem pretty impossible to get out. Any advice would be appreciated! I also trimmed one of the bushes on the other side of the garden as far as I could. However, it was pretty windy and without the ladders (which I didn’t want to use in the wind) I couldn’t reach the top, so that still needs to be finished. There’s still quite a bit to do, hopefully over the next couple of weeks, we’ll manage to edge the front lawn, finish trimming the hedges, and get some more Roundup Gel on the dandelions and weeds that don’t come out easily. We have more plans long-term, but they will have to wait a while.

Sweet peas

The sweet peas have continued to bloom. I keep cutting the flowers back, and they just keep coming. 

Beautiful flowers!

I took some to Luke and Andie, and still had even more when we got back today. I have had sweet peas in jugs inside for over a month (not the same ones, obviously), and they just keep on coming. They looks so pretty, and I love their smell (though I don’t think my husband appreciates it as much!). For the cost of the seeds, especially considering I have loads left for the next couple of years, they’ve been more than worth it. They’re so pretty, and they really provide some colour. I love having flowers in the house!

They brighten up the kitchen!

Weeding

As usual, a fair amount of weeding has been done. There is always weeding to do! I am happy enough that I am on top of the weeding in general in the areas that have been worked on (the ‘middle back’ is another story - maybe next year…), so I now don’t really focus on weeding a particular area so much. I mostly just try to weed all areas regularly to keep on top of them. I have tried to do a little more on the steps to the right-hand side of the garden, including bruising then putting Roundup Gel on some mare’s tail (as advised here). Fingers crossed it does the job.

I also managed a trip to the tip this evening after hedge trimming. Our garden bin was stuffed full (luckily, it’s being emptied tomorrow) so I had the hedge cuttings, plus the branches from the tree-behind-the-compost-bin to take. I got there and got them into the garden waste section just in time, as it started pouring down whilst I was still there (but in the car). I managed to avoid getting soaked thankfully.

The weather doesn’t look so good this week, so I’m not sure how much I’ll get out. Hopefully there will be at least some dry weather - I really need to at least scarify the lawns and deadhead the buddleia. That said, I have a lot to do indoors too - I have all of the August bank holiday week off work, and as well as gardening, intend to decorate the living room. That means, stripping wallpaper and sanding woodwork and paint beforehand, so regardless of the weather, it’s going to be a busy week this week. Hopefully not too much additional time will be spent in work, but even if it is, I will just be bearing in mind that I soon have a week off.-

I also treated myself today; I was given a John Lewis voucher for my birthday last November and had only spent a little, so on our way back home we stopped off to have a mooch around the John Lewis at the Trafford Centre. I bought a beautiful propagator set. I will probably still need to plant seeds in little plant pots, as the ones included have no drainage holes, but this is going to keep the side in my kitchen tidier next time I sow some seeds! I can’t wait to use it!

Happy gardening,

Jenny

The week in my garden - 10.08.15-16.08.15

How on earth is it the middle of August already? Where has the time gone? 

I've been away this weekend visiting friends, which was wonderful, but I still managed to get a reasonable amount of garden time in during the week, both before and after work.

Sitting in the garden is incredibly enjoyable at the moment (providing the weather is reasonable). Some parts of the garden look beautiful, and bring me lots of joy. The Crocosmia (lucifer variety) are just stunning. I can't take credit for the wooden sleepers, they were in place when we bought the house. I think they really complete the look though, allowing the lucifer to spill over the top. They bring such a fabulous burst of colour to the garden.

This picture does not do the Crocosmia justice!

Our apple tree is also still full of apples, although they do keep dropping off in the wind. I'm just hoping that a decent number stay on the tree and become ripe so that we can make lots of apple crumble!

This week my husband started digging out the foundations for our second vegetable bed. Last week, he pulled back the membrane that was in place in that area and found a load of bricks underneath, that had foundations themselves! Luckily, his parents were on hand to make a trip down to lend us a pickaxe - and thankfully they then weren't too difficult to remove. Goodness knows how many there are though, thus far we've only removed enough to dig the next lot of foundations!

I've carried on doing a lot of weeding this week, especially on the steps that lead to the back right corner of the garden. I came across quite a few bramble plants (no fruit, just prickly stems in completely the wrong places). I have cut them back but will need to try to dig them out at some point. One evening I also cut back all the euphorbia seed heads, as they had really gone past their best. 

This week I've also spent quite a bit of time cutting up the wood from the tree-behind-the-compost-bin. The thinner bits were chopped into small pieces and went into the compost bin. The wider bits, where possible, have been cut small enough to easily fit into the car. I used the loppers, and it actually felt like quite hard work! That's my exercise for the week :). The bits that are too wide for the loppers are still long, and will need sawing in half so we can get them in the car and take them to the garden waste section of our tip.

This was before it was all chopped up.

This is all that's left of the tree!

I also carried on doing a little hedge trimming, so the left-hand side hedge is pretty much done in the back garden. We have a little more to do in the front garden, and then we need to decide what to do with the leylandii (right-hand side of the back garden). We got a quote for having it cut back professionally, as it's quite tall and we're not sure we'd manage the top, however it seemed pretty expensive. We are going to maybe get some more quotes, and I will probably ask my in-laws for advice as well. I guess it might partly depend on what we do with the clematis, as it's kind of entwined in the leylandii. Maybe that's why it was so expensive.

The other garden task that we achieved this week was treating the lawn. I wrote a post about it here. I rained hard on Friday, so the feed should now be active and hopefully it's improving the lawn as we speak! The week after next I'll need to scarify it, but for now I can leave it to do its job.

We gained a few new plants last weekend when my parents visited, including a couple of begonias. It's nice to have some more pots on the patio, I really think they add something to the garden.

Begonia, in a pot that used to belong to my granny.

Other than that, we have found time to enjoy the sunshine in our garden, including drinking some delicious strawberry fizz that we were given as a wedding present back in March. It does feel like summer is slipping away a little bit already, so I'm trying to make it last as long as possible :).

Obviously the photo has had filters applied as it was instagrammed!

On that note, I'll sign off.

Happy gardening!

Jenny

Trying to improve our lawn

When we moved into our house, getting on for two years ago now, both the back and front lawns were in a horrible state. They were full of dandelions and other weeds, as well as huge amounts of moss. They’re still not great, but with some work, they are slowly improving.

Twice a year, we use feed, weed and moss on our lawn. It’s recommended to do this between April and September, so we try to do it in April (or early May), and then in late August/September. I’ve so far bought the Qualcast version, mostly because it was on offer in Homebase! I tried to find it to provide a link, but even though I bought it earlier this week, it doesn't seem to be available anymore. It's very much like this one from Homebase though (please note that I haven't been paid or compensated for mentioning these companies). Like most similar products though, it comes with an applicator spout so you can just walk back and forth over the lawn and it sprinkles the mini pellet-type-things all over. Once you’ve applied it, you need to leave it (don’t mow the lawn for at least a few days) and if it doesn’t rain within two days, you are supposed to water the lawn so that the feed is activated. Luckily for me, it has rained within two days each time I have applied it, saving me a job! It rained a lot more than I needed today. I just keep telling myself it's good for the garden.

The idea is to then leave it to work for a couple of weeks, and the weeds and moss will slowly blacken off. It’s not very pretty, but at least it means it’s doing its job.

After a couple of weeks, out comes the scarifier (or a rake, if you don’t have a scarifier - we borrowed the machine from my in-laws, who have every garden tool/machine you could ever need). Back and forth I go, taking a break what seems like every minute to empty the bucket contraption that collects the moss the scarifier pulls out. It’s very effective, and has really helped to reduce the moss in our lawns. The downside is that because it pulls out so much moss and so many weeds, our lawns end up looking a little bare for quite a while, until the feed has really worked its magic. If the lawn is also a bit damp, it ends up looking like Glastonbury festival happened on it. 

Bare lawn...but it does grow back eventually.

In between doing that, I also use Round Up Gel on the dandelions as they are a complete pain to get rid of. I inevitably end up killing off a bit of grass around the dandelions, but it’s never too bad. The Round Up Gel is very effective, so it’s worth it.

I have to stress that I don’t ever expect to have a ‘perfect’ lawn, with no blemishes, no weeds, no moss, and perfect grass - unless we buy new turf, that just isn’t going to happen. To be honest, I’m quite okay with that. Our garden isn’t intended as a perfect show garden, but to be a happy, comfortable place - whilst I will continue to work to make it look nice and to remove the bits I don’t want, I also hope that it continues to look natural and not too neat!

I just applied the lawn treatment this week, so in a couple of weeks time the scarifier will be brought out of the garage, used, and then returned to the in-laws so that they can do their lawn!

Happy gardening,

Jenny

A fortnight in my garden - 27.07.15-09.08.15

As usual, more time than intended has elapsed since I last posted. Eventually, I will get better at this (I hope). My goal is to post 'A week in my garden' each weekend, even if I don't manage to write anything else (though fingers crossed I will manage more than that). Due to me not posting last weekend, this week I'm cheating and the round-up covers a whole fortnight!

The first week I was out in the garden quite a lot; before work, after work, at the weekend.

I pruned the cordyline (almost to within an inch of its life). I finally found out where all the snails hang out: in and under the cordyline. I bet they're not going to like it quite so much now that it's lighter and airier!

Cordyline pre pruning

Cordyline post pruning

It looked a bit weird for a while as I was so used to it draping over the wall, but now I definitely think it's a bit improvement. It means it's not encroaching on the rhubarb quite so much!

We also started chopping down the tree thing behind our compost bin. You can kind of see it behind the compost bin in the photo below.

Mostly the picture is of a bare flower bed. But maybe you can see the tree a bit.

By the end of the weekend, I had this much foliage from the tree to get rid of:

Six charity bags full of tree. Very charitable to the garden waste section of the tip!

The rhododendrons were also deadheaded, so they now look nice and tidy. I also cut back the clematis where it was strangling the beautiful acer, and started pulling out some of the herb bennet lurking in various places around the garden. Unfortunately, the more I pulled out, the more I found hiding under other plants! My husband also helped with chopping down the tree-behind-the-compost-bin. Aside from that I did lots of the usual weeding, trying to keep on top of weeds in the veg bed, herb garden and (former) fir tree areas.

This week I haven't done as much gardening, in part due to me having to be at work early all week, and in part because our garden bin was full (and the garage was getting full of the charity bags!). We did manage to do more work on the tree-behind-the-compost-bin, to the extent that it's now pretty small, and you can see the pretty bush (laurel or something similar?).

The remainder of the tree-behind-the-compost-bin. Plus the pretty plant behind.

I also continued to weed out the herb bennet - I think I've got most of it, but I'm guessing there'll be plenty still going to come through. I just need to keep on top of it, which hopefully won't be too difficult now I know where it likes to be!

We also have some horsetail, which is notoriously hard to get rid of. I pulled out what I could, but really I think it was probably a mistake as the roots have broken, so it won't actually get rid of it. I should have read this first - when it starts growing again, I'll cover it in Roundup Gel. I get through a fair amount of Roundup, as I use it on dandelions and dock leaves - weeds which are quite hard to get out, as they have tough, long roots. I like it because I can kill them off without worrying about killing anything else off.  It's especially good for dandelions in lawns (although I do usually end up killing off a little grass, but not much). It takes a while to work, but it does get the weeds gone.

My parents visited this weekend, so my gardening has been limited to a small amount of weeding (plus a trip to the tip in my parents' big car to get rid of the charity bags of garden waste!). The weather has been pretty warm and sunny though, so we have at least spent quite a lot of time in the garden enjoying it. Which is good, because it's also meant I've had a much needed rest (boo early starts for work and restless nights). The parents did bring us a few plants though; a couple of begonias and a stripy tomato plant. Our tomato plants have some baby tomatoes as well - hopefully they will ripen and we will manage to eat them before the birds do!

I think the weather is turning a bit, but whilst it's still warm I'm writing this from outside. I'm hoping that it stays reasonably dry in the evenings this week, as I have a garden to-do list (as always) and a busy weekend next weekend, which won't leave much time for gardening.

Have a wonderful week!