Post by tigerlily on May 1, 2009 21:02:23 GMT
I've been digging out the rest of the flower bed at the back of the house today, uprooting ivy runners and pulling out bits of old root all over the place. I found rather a large one, and it was then I realised that the containers out there are in fact bottomless...my apologies to the ornamental cherry, hope it doesn't die and fall onto the house now!
I have some very sunny and cheery flowers out there now - pictures to follow tomorrow, it took me about five hours with breaks here and there, and the light was just about gone when I finished. It's been a very hot and sunny day, so I am pretty tired now.
I also dug out the container the rhodendron that died was in, fished out the tap root and cleared out the old soil as it was very alkaline. I've replaced it with two small trailing fuchsias and a multicoloured flowering plant, the twin of which is tucked under a box in the opposite planter on the other side of the path.
Still some geraniums left to put out in the tubs at the front tomorrow, and we are going to go and get some more plants for out there, too. The windowboxes aren't ready for planting yet as the pansies are still going great guns, I may tidy them up and root out the primroses that have died off and replace them with other things.
The front garden is looking okay on the right of the front door. Need to reseed patches of the lawn where it is pretty much bare now the moss is mostly gone, though. The left hand side is a nightmare, but I've found a hosta that we didn't know we had, and there are several rose bushes in amongst the weeds and shrubs.
We lost a couple of very tall conifers the winter before last, and the stumps are still in the ground. One of the trees semi-uprooted so the ground is raised up around the stump and can't be shifted back, so I may decide to build a rockery or something around it - I think that would hide it quite well and as it is very shady on that side of the yard it may work out very nicely.
The onions are growing very well indeed, the nasturtiums are growing well, and three of my gladioli have sprouted. There's a peony out the back, as well as the two out the front that had been hidden under ivy and weeds (the back) and an overgrown heather (the front), and they're in bud, so very pleased about that.
I lopped off a fair few of the lower branches on that ornamental cherry; I appreciate it is probably the wrong time of year to be doing that, but there was so much shade over the flower bed that nothing would have grown. It is a fair bit brighter now, although still not for the most part in direct sun. I dug in a 70 litre bag of compost to enrich the soil, having taken off a couple of inches of top soil along with endless pine needles and cones, buried and forgotten walnuts left by the squirrels and strange things like the occasional marble that appeared!
At one point I thought I was being divebombed by a large bee, but it turned out to be a very iridescent beetle that settled in to watch me as I forked the new compost in.
With any luck, the Hippy will have a chance to get the irrigation system set up this weekend; unfortunately he has to fly out to Florida on Tuesday as his father is dying and has a few days left at most. He can't go before as he has some paperwork to sort out that can't be left till he gets back, if he wants to get back into Germany!
It is very therapeutic, digging away and planting new things to grow, and watching the development of the seeds and bulbs already planted. The tomato and pepper plants are about to flower - one of the peppers has a bloom on it already, I am very excited about that! I planted some beans and peas last week or the week before, and they are popping up here and there, too.
Still no sign of the dahlias, and some of the other bulbs I planted don't seem to be doing much of anything yet, but they may surprise me yet.
I have some very sunny and cheery flowers out there now - pictures to follow tomorrow, it took me about five hours with breaks here and there, and the light was just about gone when I finished. It's been a very hot and sunny day, so I am pretty tired now.
I also dug out the container the rhodendron that died was in, fished out the tap root and cleared out the old soil as it was very alkaline. I've replaced it with two small trailing fuchsias and a multicoloured flowering plant, the twin of which is tucked under a box in the opposite planter on the other side of the path.
Still some geraniums left to put out in the tubs at the front tomorrow, and we are going to go and get some more plants for out there, too. The windowboxes aren't ready for planting yet as the pansies are still going great guns, I may tidy them up and root out the primroses that have died off and replace them with other things.
The front garden is looking okay on the right of the front door. Need to reseed patches of the lawn where it is pretty much bare now the moss is mostly gone, though. The left hand side is a nightmare, but I've found a hosta that we didn't know we had, and there are several rose bushes in amongst the weeds and shrubs.
We lost a couple of very tall conifers the winter before last, and the stumps are still in the ground. One of the trees semi-uprooted so the ground is raised up around the stump and can't be shifted back, so I may decide to build a rockery or something around it - I think that would hide it quite well and as it is very shady on that side of the yard it may work out very nicely.
The onions are growing very well indeed, the nasturtiums are growing well, and three of my gladioli have sprouted. There's a peony out the back, as well as the two out the front that had been hidden under ivy and weeds (the back) and an overgrown heather (the front), and they're in bud, so very pleased about that.
I lopped off a fair few of the lower branches on that ornamental cherry; I appreciate it is probably the wrong time of year to be doing that, but there was so much shade over the flower bed that nothing would have grown. It is a fair bit brighter now, although still not for the most part in direct sun. I dug in a 70 litre bag of compost to enrich the soil, having taken off a couple of inches of top soil along with endless pine needles and cones, buried and forgotten walnuts left by the squirrels and strange things like the occasional marble that appeared!
At one point I thought I was being divebombed by a large bee, but it turned out to be a very iridescent beetle that settled in to watch me as I forked the new compost in.
With any luck, the Hippy will have a chance to get the irrigation system set up this weekend; unfortunately he has to fly out to Florida on Tuesday as his father is dying and has a few days left at most. He can't go before as he has some paperwork to sort out that can't be left till he gets back, if he wants to get back into Germany!
It is very therapeutic, digging away and planting new things to grow, and watching the development of the seeds and bulbs already planted. The tomato and pepper plants are about to flower - one of the peppers has a bloom on it already, I am very excited about that! I planted some beans and peas last week or the week before, and they are popping up here and there, too.
Still no sign of the dahlias, and some of the other bulbs I planted don't seem to be doing much of anything yet, but they may surprise me yet.