Today I did something in my Garden

SouthWesterly

Ordered 12 tonnes of enrich, a broadfork from amazon and picked up 250kg of fertiliser and lime for the garden.

looksee

Finally got out into the garden, absolutely gorgeous, beautiful day. Planted a couple of trees, did a bit of weeding, sat outside and drank tea!

Igotadose

SouthWesterly wrote: »

Ordered 12 tonnes of enrich, a broadfork from amazon and picked up 250kg of fertiliser and lime for the garden.

Sounds like a really big garden!

SouthWesterly

Igotadose wrote: »

Sounds like a really big garden!

I've a half acre between and orchard and veg. About half and half.

I've a total of 4.5 acres

paddylonglegs

A question on growing trees in pots. If buying as small tress do I need to slowly increase the pot size as they get bigger, or can I go straight to the large pot and leave it to grow into it?

Skipduke

Goldfinch8 wrote: »

I would certainly second the advice given by ShiverinEskimo above with regards to perhaps considering heathers for such an area.
I did the same with a fairly inhospitable slope of compacted subsoil that was left behind my house after its
construction. I decided to terrace back the slope somewhat to break it up and I planted winter/early spring flowering heathers on both sides of the terrace. I dug in a mixture of compost, and ericacious soil mixed with some topsoil under each new plant. They provide a real shot of colour at a time of the year when there is little else going on in the garden.
I also designed and planted my garden with pollinators in mind and in the next few weeks these heathers will begin to hum and buzz again with bees as they get one of their first big shots of nectar and pollen after the winter slumber.
These heathers below get plenty of wind also as my home is on an exposed site in the West of Ireland. These plants are as tough as old boots and they are growing in an environment where even weeds struggle to get a foothold.

Wow this is great thank you ! Might I ask what the heather looks like in the summer months ?

magicbastarder

unfortunately the escallonia we have in the garden which has been great for pollinators late in the year seems to be entering terminal decline; more of it is dying back and it seems a fungus is to blame. a pity; it'll leave a sizable enough hole too, it's probably the guts of 15 foot tall and the same wide, or possibly wider.

Goldfinch8

Skipduke wrote: »

Wow this is great thank you ! Might I ask what the heather looks like in the summer months ?

You are welcome Skipduke. To answer your question about what the heathers look like in the summer, I certainly don't mind them at all and I feel that they still add more subtle blocks of colour to those barren enough slopes in my garden. Even though they are winter/spring flowering plants, I have been pleasantly surprised by how long they actually flower for. I usually spot the first flowers around Halloween and they certainly still carry colour right into May even though the flowers begin to turn on them.
I have managed to dig out a few photos to show you.
The one below is from the first week in May last year during that lovely spell of weather and the heathers are still holding their colour at that stage but are definitely on the turn.



The next picture shows the plants during mid June a few years ago and despite being out of flower they are still offering more toned down colours. By that stage I am usually depending on other parts of the garden to start coming into their own.



In the last picture, the heather in the lower foreground is Erica x darleyensis 'Eva Gold'. Though not as eye catching as the more colourful 'Kramer's Red' and 'White Perfection' in the background, it is actually quite beautiful in the summer as it takes on a coppery hue that eventually becomes a more golden bronze as summer leads into Autumn and then winter. I prefer it's foliage to its flower to be honest.



Remember also that these are only winter/spring varieties and as ShiverinEskimo mentioned, you could mix up the planting and try a mixture of both summer and winter varieties. There are some beautiful summer varieties also. Whatever time of year that the heathers may flower in, the one great thing is that the bees are really drawn to them.
Hope this helped somewhat.

Managed to escape the kids for a few hours and got fine weather so I cleaned out and weeded front garden bed, laid cardboard and mulched to keep down the weeds. Think all the spring bulbs survived and hopefully will bloom soon.

Can't seem to embed images.

Graces7

A very pleasant couple of hours working in my front " garden". A mini patch but very precious to me.

Over the years I gathered white and pale stones and pebbles to edge it; today I soaked them all in warm water then scrubbed them. "dug" the bed ie with a hand fork ( we have very little soil depth . Hence no rabbits as they cannot burrow.. we have hares... and containers are great) , replaced the edging and the various pieces of bog oak.

It looks very good.

The lavender has not survived, but the small rosemary is well established, and various other "friends" are showing life. Small is very lovely.

SouthWesterly

C
Finished off a greenhouse today. All it cost me was the wood.

looksee

Beautiful day out today, spent the afternoon shredding overgrown and hacked out hedgerow, two of us got a massive amount sorted. Very satisfying!

macraignil

I noticed purple sprouting broccoli was being pecked by something when I was harvesting yesterday and found the culprit today. Scarred a really fat pigeon away twice but decided to put up some netting just now so hopefully it will deter the pigeon from coming back.

SouthWesterly

looksee wrote: »

Beautiful day out today, spent the afternoon shredding overgrown and hacked out hedgerow, two of us got a massive amount sorted. Very satisfying!

Had that feeling today as well.
Might not have it tomorrow after I plant 100 trees in the hedgerow

SouthWesterly

Was out in the gsrden today. Planted 100 trees in the hedgerow. Hawthorn, hazelnuts, birch and Oak.
Also put 50 kg of fertiliser and 50 kg of granular lime.

Have 10 tonnes of compost arriving in the morning.

looksee

Wow that's some going! I was quite pleased with myself having planted five shrubs and a couple of ferns! I did do a lot of ground prep first though. It was lovely to be out.

magicbastarder

managed to assemble some new raised beds, got some old scaffolding planks delivered yesterday. just playing around with positioning now.

CelticRambler

After "a series of unfortunate events" on Saturday, that messed up my "by the end of February" targets, things are back on track today, and an enforced pause in the hard-labour part of my re-landscaping project gave me a chance to figure out how to deal with a couple of unresolved design challenges. The main one was where to put my new asparagus bed; as of today it's all done ... and not a million miles from where the old one was. In fact, only 1m away. :pac:

This year will be a "see what happens" year. Having asked the question and got good advice, I ignored everything thatt I was told, went at the old bed with a rake-attachment on the digger, discovered the aspargus crowns were way closer to the surface than I thought, ended up ripping the whole lot out (about three times as many as I originally planted :eek: ) and wrote them off as a lost cause. Then, a few weeks ago, when I went to move the pile of discarded crowns ... I saw fresh green and red shoots!

Well, I did some proper research this time about the how and where to plant them, dug a trench in the new location this afternoon, and re-planted the old crowns. If they grow this year, grand - that'll be a satisfying result, and I'll leave them in peace until next year; and if they don't grow, it's not the end of the world - I'll get new crowns next year, knowing that I have a nicely prepared bed for them to go into.

Think I'll plant it up with various annual bedding plants this year to encourage me to keep it weed free. This bed will mark the back end of the lawn(-ish), the idea being to use the summer-autumn asparagus as a kind of feathery semi-see-through hedge, allowing a glimpse of the herb-garden behind.

SouthWesterly

Got 10 tonnes of enrich compost delivered this morning. Half of it is on the beds. Back to it tomorrow.

looksee

Lovely day, a bit misty but nice, though I could have managed without the delicate (not) aroma resulting from a neighbouring field being sprayed with slurry. It was a good slurry spreading day though.

I planted about 50 green snowdrops that I was kindly gifted, three patches of them, hoping for a great show next spring. A tree, Corylus Colurna, Turkish Hazel, one of the last of my Future Forests trees, though a few smaller bits and pieces to put in. And sorted the ring of willows that are supposed to be growing into a willow gazebo, wove them with more willow to get them to stand up and be walls . They have a lot of growing to do to look anything like a structure, hoping they get on with it this year! Also potted up some rooted cuttings of various bits that are occupying the raised bed at the moment.

SouthWesterly

Been a busy week.
Monday finished off a DIY greenhouse. It's about 2 to 3 times warmer than outside.
Planted 100 trees in the hedgerow.

Tuesday Spread 50kg of beet fertiliser and 60kg of lime on the garden

Wednesday /Thursday spread 10 tonnes of enrich on the veg beds and picked up 20 pallets.
Tomorrow need to put plastic sheeting on the beds to stop weed seeds getting into them and start building compost bins from pallets.

FlipperThePriest

Dug a wildlife pond today.. 3.5 x 2.5 metres. I've since dug under the shovel in the pic down to 2 ft, there is a 30cm and 15cm shelf.

Underlay / overlay arrived today, just waiting on the pvc liner. The plan is to backfill with some subsoil for planting, there is a good youtube tutorial from the Butterfly Bros, they seem to know what they're doing, so following their plan.

I'm toying with the idea of letting it fill naturally, as in the rainwater is suppose to be much better, containing more beneficial bacteria, and no chemicals.

I have a 220 ltr rain water butt that fills in no time. Would it take long to fill this pond naturally supplementing with the rain water butt. I'm guessing the pond will need about 3500-4k litres of water? Could be wrong with that. Or are the benefits of rain water worth it?

CelticRambler

zippy84 wrote: »

Dug a wildlife pond today.. 3.5 x 2.5 metres. I've since dug under the shovel in the pic down to 2 ft, there is a 30cm and 15cm shelf.

<snip>

I'm guessing the pond will need about 3500-4k litres of water? Could be wrong with that. Or are the benefits of rain water worth it?

If those are the overall dimensions, given the shape and the shelves, I'd say you'd be looking at less than 2000l. Is it your own design, or dug to fit a pre-formed liner? If the latter, the liner package should give an indication of the volume.

scarepanda

zippy84 wrote: »

Dug a wildlife pond today.. 3.5 x 2.5 metres. I've since dug under the shovel in the pic down to 2 ft, there is a 30cm and 15cm shelf.

Underlay / overlay arrived today, just waiting on the pvc liner. The plan is to backfill with some subsoil for planting, there is a good youtube tutorial from the Butterfly Bros, they seem to know what they're doing, so following their plan.

I'm toying with the idea of letting it fill naturally, as in the rainwater is suppose to be much better, containing more beneficial bacteria, and no chemicals.

I have a 220 ltr rain water butt that fills in no time. Would it take long to fill this pond naturally supplementing with the rain water butt. I'm guessing the pond will need about 3500-4k litres of water? Could be wrong with that. Or are the benefits of rain water worth it?

Nice job!

We have a pond already that I want to redesign when I get around to it and I'm planning on using the videos on one of the butterfly brothers new channel. Can I ask, where did you get the liners? Rain water is better but I think if you leave it settle for 24hrs a lot of the chemicals like chlorine will have evaporated. And also If you can get a bottle of water from a local water source it gives your new pond a massive boost.

FlipperThePriest

CelticRambler wrote: »

If those are the overall dimensions, given the shape and the shelves, I'd say you'd be looking at less than 2000l. Is it your own design, or dug to fit a pre-formed liner? If the latter, the liner package should give an indication of the volume.

Cheers, ok, 2k ltrs sounds a lot more doable in terms of rain water. It's not a preformed pond, it's a sheet of pvc that will be underlayed and overlayed with a fleece sheet to protect from stones, uv rays and animals etc. I just guessed that I'd need a 4 x 5 metre sheet to cover the depth of a 2.5 x 3.5 mtr pond, I'm guessing I'll have excess though.

scarepanda wrote: »

Nice job!

We have a pond already that I want to redesign when I get around to it and I'm planning on using the videos on one of the butterfly brothers new channel. Can I ask, where did you get the liners? Rain water is better but I think if you leave it settle for 24hrs a lot of the chemicals like chlorine will have evaporated. And also If you can get a bottle of water from a local water source it gives your new pond a massive boost.

Thank you. I think the video I saw was from his channel actually. It was a 3 part series, and there was also a timelapse video showing the whole job.

Yes I have read that chlorine isn't an issue as it will dissipate out. But other elements do not so easily... tap water is high in nitrates, which apparently can cause over production of things like algae and pond weed, which is horrible messy stuff. I'm not sure though, which is why I asked here.

I bought the liner from the Johnstown garden center, and the underlay from Rockworld, also online.

Lashes28

Wow your gardens are unbelievable.
I thought I was doing great. Moved into a rented house. Found a stone border in my front garden so spent the day pulling out all of the overgrown grass and planted little shrubs. Novice but proud lol

SnowyMuckish

zippy84 wrote: »

I have a 220 ltr rain water butt that fills in no time. Would it take long to fill this pond naturally supplementing with the rain water butt. I'm guessing the pond will need about 3500-4k litres of water? Could be wrong with that. Or are the benefits of rain water worth it?

I’m using rain water in mine, I just think there are so many chemicals in tap water and apparently tap water promotes algae growth, I’m no expert but that’s just my own Google research.

Usually it buckets down here in the NW, I’ve never been cursing dry weather in my life but the impatience is getting the better of me at the moment!

I’m so tempted to cave and turn on the hose!

scarepanda

Thanks zippy! I haven't really looked into it yet as it's probably a project for 2022 in reality, but who knows what notion I may take in the meantime!

Ya, that's probably the video/channel. Wild your garden is the channel name for anyone that may be interested.

CelticRambler

zippy84 wrote: »

tap water is high in nitrates, which apparently can cause over production of things like algae and pond weed, which is horrible messy stuff. I'm not sure though, which is why I asked here.

Nitrates stimulate just about all kinds of plant growth, so it's not necessarily a bad thing, if you want to have irises, reeds, waterlilies, etc. It just so happens that algae are the simplest forms of plant life, so they tend to get into poorly managed systems first and then go mad while there's no competition. "Poorly managed" is a term that can apply as easily to full-size lakes and tidal waters as to a garden pond, and they're not getting filled from a tap!

CelticRambler

Today in the garden ... I enjoyed the first "fruits" of last autumn's labour.

Will look better when the grass has re-grown, and the marker-stakes have been removed, these are the crocuses I planted in November (somewhat less multicoloured than the photos on the website implied ... )



And these guys (or girls?) look happy ... which is a bad sign, I think? :pac:



The leaves in the foreground are tulips, so it'll be interesting to see which set of plants finds the conditions most to their liking over the course of the year (although I plan to lift the tulips in the summer for re-planting in the autumn).