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!