Sweet Pea Update.

 As promised here is an update on the progress of this years Sweet Peas. I'm going to have to get some dead heading done soon so as to keep them flowering.

A Cherry Blossom Time Of Year.

Hello everyone, 

This week I have been spending a lot of my time cutting grass, in particular the lawns. I have been over them a couple of times this year already with the tractor and whilst it does an okay job, especially at knocking off all the winter rough so making it a more manageable job for the Allett mower which does a much better cut. Because it's the first cut with the Allett mower I also need to mark out the lawns so as to get the stripes right, this takes up quite a bit of time which is why it's taken me twice as long as it would to normally cut the grass. If we don't have rain soon I won't have to be bothering myself about cutting grass though as everywhere is getting to be very dry.

One of the main features of the garden at this time of the year apart from the Daffodils are the Cherry trees which are all full of blossom. Below are a few pictures for you to take a look at.

 

Sweet Peas

Hello Everyone,

On Friday afternoon I planted the Sweet Peas but didn't have time to net them so I've just done that this morning.

This year I have put them in a new place as I think they will have a better impact here rather than the veg garden/Orchard area. For the last few years I've been planting them against the north facing wall of the walled garden and they have done very well even though they never get any direct sun on them. The netting they climb up is hooked on top of the wall and the plants eventually reach the top.

Dahlia Planting

Since returning to work after my extended Easter holiday I have been planting up Dahlia beds. The weather has turned quite cold here so as it's a job that involves some digging it's proving to be quite beneficial, especially as the soil is also dry and working well.

Below is a picture of one of the Memorial Garden beds with the tubers set out ready for planting. If you are planting a whole bed with a limited number of plants it's best to set them out first so as to get an even spacing They are planted in staggered rows but once they get going they soon become a single mass and even when planted that far from the edge of the lawn they will eventually grow up to the edge. So as you can see from that it's good to give them plenty of room, especially if you are planting large tubers. If you click on the (Memorial Gardens) label you will see what I mean.

Before placing the tubers I also give the ground a dressing of general purpose fertiliser which then gets worked in to the soil as you do the planting work. To finish off the job I went round the borders with the edging shears which I always think is a worthwhile thing to do if you like it nice and tidy looking.

Pruning Afternoon

This afternoon we had a bit of a pruning session in one of the shrub borders. I say pruning but it was a bit of a mixture of proper pruning with some clipping. I prefer to prune for a more natural look but some of the shrubs such as the Berbris lend them selves to clipping where as the buddleia's get a proper pruning. We finished off by putting everything through the shredder and returned it back to the border It was a nice day for it, dry and quite warm in the sunshine.

Below are a couple of before and after pictures.

Bird Box Terrace

Yesterday we moved some of the Dahlia tubers from being stored in the potting shed to the conservatory in the hope that if I keep dampening them with water on warmer days they will start to put out shoots so they get a head start once planted in the garden. A bit like spritting seed Potatoes I suppose.

The ones below are called Border Princess and will be going back into the Memorial Gardens borders.

Also yesterday, as I was supposed to be taking it easy I put up a bird box. It's been waiting around in the potting shed for a couple of years so I thought it was time it did a bit of good somewhere. I don't really know much about birds so not sure if it's in a good place or not. I read that some birds like to fly straight into the box whereas others prefer to perch and look around first  so I've tried to accommodate both here because apart from the hole that you can see in the middle there is also one at either end which in my book makes it a terraced bird box. Anyway I will keep an eye on it and see how it goes. I think there are probably a lot of better places to nest around here to be honest.

A Bit More Ivy Trimming

There hasn't been a lot to report this past few days as I must confess to having been taking it easy due to feeling a bit under the weather. I'm not a doctor or anything so I'm not going to blame the covid jab that I had but the day after having it I've been having this underlying tiredness about me plus aching and shivers. It almost feels like I'm coming down with a bad case of the flu but it never develops into anything further. I rested up for a while and it went away and then last weekend it came back again. I feel like I am much recovered again this morning so I will try not to take on to much for the rest of the week and hopefully see the back of it as I need to get things done.

Anyway here is one of the jobs we managed to get done. Another Ivy trimming job. I cut this all back last year so it was just a maintenance trim just to bring it back to the desired level. 

In the picture below you can see that in just one year the growth has covered the gap to the top of the wall and is also growing over the top.

These are the tools that I find useful for Ivy trimming plus the hedge cutter or a pair of garden shears to clip the face of it if need be. In this instance there were only a few long ends that I nipped off with the pruners which is why there is no hedge cutter in the picture. The pruners are an old pair as they can get abused a bit scraping away and the stone work and what have you.

This is the finished article. We also pruned the roses in the border once the Ivy was cleared and then we weeded and forked the soil 

Forking And Mowing.

 Yesterday, as it has dried up nicely we decided to do a bit of forking in the rose garden. It helps to tidy things up plus its another job done that will help us come the Spring as it will make the soil easy to work when we have to do top dressing and weeding.

Below is a picture of a partly forked rose bed.

Another job we were able to get done because of the dry spell that we've been enjoying was to cut the lawns in the walled garden. I only went over them with the tractor as I didn't want to cut them short. It was simply a matter of cutting off any long patches and tidying up the appearance. I'm wanting to remove the cutting deck from the tractor and give it a clean up etc. but the grass is still growing so I will have to leave it attached for a while longer as I don't want to store it away for the winter only to need it again in a few weeks time.

The main lawn in the walled garden

Rose Pruning In The Rose Garden.

 Thursday and Friday last week I managed to get the roses pruned in the rose garden. It's something I like to try and do at this time of year mainly because it reduces them in size therefore I don't have to worry about the wind bashing them around all winter. I could sort of give them a half prune and then give them a proper pruning in the new year but I don't fancy going over them twice and I have to say that I've never had any trouble caused by pruning them now and in actual fact I find that they will get going earlier by pruning now. I would like to get the beds forked over as well if I can but we will have to see about that as I have lots of other work waiting to be done at the moment.

I've heard reports that they are going to be starting work on converting the old stable block into accommodation for the bed and breakfast soon, probably in the new year now so that should be something to keep an eye on.