Our Gardens

Well it’s another year and spring is here so I thought it might be a good time for all us “green fingered” to post photos of the garden.

Photo 1 - Bill and Ted’s “pots” are looking lovely 😌 the summerhouse is getting a make over at the moment I’m painting it a new colour “charcoal” wanted to do it for years and finally bit the bullet. We inherited the summerhouse when we moved in, apparently it’s been here since the bungalow was built in 1964! It’s very well made but showing it’s age. We have been repairing some of the window frames as they have rotted over several winters.
Sorry photo is a bit blurry, I was in bare feet
photo 2 - the big Euphoria is in flower already and the pond is coming to life with a pond Lilly leaf just visible under the water. A frog was sat in the pond this afternoon too
photo 3 - Hellebores have done really well this year
Photo 4 - this azalea is under the Yucca tree which is such an unusual colour of pale yellow, I love it!

The summerhouse is going to get a makeover inside too, all the man junk and piggies stuff is moving out!

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Betsy said:
Just taken this picture of the plum tree outside my front door. Last year there was hardly any blossom on it and only 4 plums that the wasps got to before I could. Hoping for a decent crop of plums this year.

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Huh?! The plum tree in our garden hasn’t flowered yet! We had loads last year and very little the year before. I discovered plum jam so may make more. I need to buy some jars.
 
Betsy said:
Just taken this picture of the plum tree outside my front door. Last year there was hardly any blossom on it and only 4 plums that the wasps got to before I could. Hoping for a decent crop of plums this year.

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Give it a dusting of Blood, Fish and Bonemeal around the base, that should help but you might be 8n for a bumper crop by the looks of the all blossoms
 
Siikibam said:
Huh?! The plum tree in our garden hasn’t flowered yet! We had loads last year and very little the year before. I discovered plum jam so may make more. I need to buy some jars.
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They tend to have good years and bad years with fruit, it may be a lean year if you had a bumper crop last year x
 
Siikibam said:
Huh?! The plum tree in our garden hasn’t flowered yet! We had loads last year and very little the year before. I discovered plum jam so may make more. I need to buy some jars.
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Nothing to worry about I should think. My plum trees aren't really flowering yet either, just one open bud between the 3. I suspect I won't get much fruit this year, all the apple and plum trees over did it last year so they'll probably need time to recover.
 
yes we had a bumper crop of pears last year but terrible crop of apples, so it will be interesting to see what happens. An old chap at the allotment told us if theres a strong wind blowing when trees blossom then the bees and other insects don’t venture out a pollinate, so you get a poor crop too
 
Well I've had a busy couple of days pottering in the garden
Here's a few photos of the last week
My forsythia
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Magnolia
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My front path
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A lovely blue hyacinth, I don't know how it got there, it just appeared!
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A very early peacock butterfly
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A ladybird
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Some Pansies X Viola's that I planted about September time, that are still going strong :D
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Had a busy afternoon, edged and mowed the lawn, weeded the border next to the bottom fence and did a general tidy up. Just waiting for the housing association to replace the fence as the last storm blew the old one down.
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BossHogg said:
Had a busy afternoon, edged and mowed the lawn, weeded the border next to the bottom fence and did a general tidy up. Just waiting for the housing association to replace the fence as the last storm blew the old one down.
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That’s looking very tidy, come and edge mine lawn, it’s a right mess 😆
 
I bought a lawn edger, it's a circular sharp blade on a wheel at the end of a handle. You push it close to the edge of the path and run it the full length of the lawn. You then get a hoe and shove it under the overgrown lawn, it comes away like a grassy snake. 😁
 
BossHogg said:
I bought a lawn edger, it's a circular sharp blade on a wheel at the end of a handle. You push it close to the edge of the path and run it the full length of the lawn. You then get a hoe and shove it under the overgrown lawn, it comes away like a grassy snake. 😁
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Oh they sound good, I’ve just got ordinary lawn edgers 😏
 
My garden is on the surface at least rather a mess. Lots of weeds- or at least wildflowers I didn't plant - such as fox glove, poppy, forgetmenot and hedge cranesbill have seeded themselves all over the veg plot. Great for the wildlife perhaps, not so good for my veg growing. But one thing doing well is my ladybird nursery - a patch of fox gloves is covered in blackfly and the seven spot ladybirds have laid lots of eggs on them. So now I have loads of ladybird larvae 👍👍
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I also did no mow May. Possibly a bit of a mistake as >1acre of very long grass isn't easy to cut! Now I need some woolly lawnmowers to help me out - or someone with a hay making machine ...
 
My ladybird nursery is now graduating to Class 3 - Pupae.
Quite a few moved next door to my lemon balm plant, there's also some on my broad beans, and others elsewhere.
Here's one that just joined
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And here's one that joined yesterday
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There don't seem to be any on the aphid-y foxgloves , but there's also a great deal less aphids thanks to their munching. 2 weeks or so and little ladybirds should start to appear. I wish I had a time lapse camera to film them, it's just amazing to see the changes.
 
OK so not strictly speaking in my garden, more like in the Sun Lounge.

I planted some letuces (or so I thought) so why has a stinging nettle and groundsel come up?

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No it was mulitpurpose compost and these "lettuce seeds". I bought them last year but never grew this variety. The others in the Unwins multipack are all lettuce seeds. I grew a couple of the seeds out of this pack so I am pretty sure it wasn't just a rogue seed as the other is groundsel too.
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Betsy said:
No it was mulitpurpose compost and these "lettuce seeds". I bought them last year but never grew this variety. The others in the Unwins multipack are all lettuce seeds. I grew a couple of the seeds out of this pack so I am pretty sure it wasn't just a rogue seed as the other is groundsel too.
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:( maybe the seeds blew in from outside. I hate groundsel, it's everywhere in my garden too.
I guess the only way to know if it's a faulty batch of seed would be to sow all the packet and keep the seed trays covered against weed seeds.
I sowed some lettuce outdoors yesterday, I expect the weeds will be competing with them as they grow. If the pests don't get to them before I can pick them...
 
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