Trowel and Error

[Disco]

That is very satisfying, Baa.

All of those colours are so beautiful. I love your garden Abs.It looks gorgeous.

[baargain]

God, well done! None of those are easy to get out. Are you scratched and stung to kingdom come?

No! I managed to cut back the tops in some miracle way that didn't result in any injury! And then just dug the bottom out. I'm amazed. And satisfied, yes :))

[Derek Nimmo]

Is your Virginia creeper in full swing now, Del?

It's been and gone! It only lasts two minutes, but it's a very lovely two minutes.

I still have madly flowering fuscias and roses though, and the odd passionflower despite the appalling weather this week. And butterflies all over the place when there's a break in the endless rain. It's all very odd.

[Margo]

I have very odd but beautiful flowers on my fatsia japonica, I might try and harvest the seed and give them a go.

Meanwhile… hydroponics, anyone? I’ve got a few things in the go and am scouring the www for more ideas… it’s really interesting how you can grow stuff just in water! Is anyone else doing it?

[Mountain Goat]

God really Del?? I keep forgetting how late in the year it is, as you say summer flowers are still ploughing on so it feels wrong for autumn colour to have been and gone. Same, my dahlias are still covered in flowers/buds, the rudbeckia and salvia are slowing down but still very much in flower, and I still have bees. It's November! I'm wondering if I should cut the dahlias down and mulch them (or dig up the tubers, I've not fully decided which way to go) now rather than waiting for them to finish?

Has it never flowered before Margo? Is this another product of the climate, I wonder. What are you growing hydroponically? I know nothing about it, there was a shop near my previous house specialising in it but I think it was basically for growing weed. :))

I've cleared up loads today but now the brown bin is full again and I still have loads more to do. I'm knackered! I have sorted a section - I've taken out a lot of the cat nip (there were over 30 plants, I gave up counting) and left about 6-8 of them, and planted alliums around and inbetween them (other things also to follow, I have a couple of grasses in that patch too). And weeded, dug the soil over a bit, added manure/mulch. And identified a spot where I can squeeze in a dwarf acer, because I am that suggestible. :)) Oh and I took a shrub out of the garden proper, and planted a clematis and a dogwood.

[baargain]

I'm leaving my dahlias until they properly die, and then I'll mulch them. I cba to dig them up, I left some in the allotment last year and only had one handful of compost spare for mulching and they all survived the - 12c! I was amazed! My mate also left all of hers in and the majority came back.

[Mountain Goat]

Thank you, that's good to know. There's one I might dig up because I want it in a different place next year I think, but will leave the rest and just mulch them when they die back.

Forgot to say what a bloody joy it was to weed with my hori hori, easily got the full root out for almost everything. And plant bulbs. Everyone gets one, they're definitely worth the cost.

[Mountain Goat]

I just caught up on GW and am so happy to see they got Patti out for the last bit. I know she's entirely the wrong species but she somehow reminds me of Joy.

[Margo]

Has it never flowered before Margo? Is this another product of the climate, I wonder. What are you growing hydroponically? I know nothing about it, there was a shop near my previous house specialising in it but I think it was basically for growing weed. :))

Hi… no, this is the first flowering.

I’m only doing houseplants so far - I have a huge money plant so took some of the leaves off, they’re now all sprouting, and a few spider plants and random plant leaves.

I’ve been looking at it as a way of maximising space so will get some hydroponic towers going next spring for lettuce, tomatoes and peppers.

[Mountain Goat]

I've rooted cuttings in water before but for some reason hadn't thought of that as hydroponics. It sounds a really interesting way to do veg.

Speaking of which, my salvia cuttings appear to have taken (they have tiny new leaves) but the cosmos hasn't - two of the three have just flopped. The third is bigger so will probably just take a bit longer to flop.

I ordered my tree and my acer and then this morning my hairdresser told me she had bought two acers for a fiver each at B&M this weekend so now I feel robbed. :lol:

[Mountain Goat]

Tree!!! It helpfully arrived at 9.30pm on Sat, when I was going to be in London on the Sunday, and very busy all week, so I had to get up at the crack of dawn on Sunday am to get it planted and staked before my train. It is currently doing very well despite the wind knocking the wheelie bin clean over.

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[Disco]

It's all looking lovely Goat.

[Mountain Goat]

Thank you. Nearly there (for the winter, I mean, obviously many years of back breaking digging lie beyond that :lol: ). I'm planning on a climbing hydrangea (evergreen) for the corner fence panel and I have a winter flowering (evergreen) clematis that should grow to cover the next one along (trellis is in the post...). There's a newly planted mahonia by the wall at the back which should get big and is evergreen and winter flowering. So in a few years that should all soften the backdrop/be a nice green foil for the orange/red leaves.

[baargain]

Oh that does look lovely! We had a frost, so I've cut back and mulched the dahlias. I think I put too much on and now it looks like two graves in the garden :lol:

I've continued tackling the corner of doom at the allotment, and pulled up a large amount of Bramble, which was very satisfying.

I've also started pulling parsnips and oh holy mother of root veg

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[Mountain Goat]

Oh my. What will you make with those beauties? A cosh?

Dahlia graves too. :lol: My dahlias are still marching cheerfully onwards, as is the salvia, both covered in new buds. The rudbeckia, zinnia and cosmos is all on the way out, but slowly. Oh, my lovely salvia cuttings that were doing so well all died (except one) when I transplanted them. I should have given them another couple of weeks in the original pot, but they all had quite a lot of new growth and it had been about 3 weeks so I thought it was time. That'll learn me.

It was brown bin day today, so I am now free to fill it up again, which is genuinely a highlight of my week. :))

[Disco]

I now realise why my dahlias have never survived. I didn't know I should mulch.

I need to mulch my artichoke this - first - year.

[Mountain Goat]

This weekend I:

Lifted my one dahlia that was potted, washed and dried it and then had to run outside at 2 am when I realised I had left it outside drying in the sun. Imagine all that and then just raw exposing it to frost. :lol:
Planted 30 tulips and one more hydrangea (whatever I plant by the front door gets bloody trodden on, so I got a more mature plant that the postman won't be able to clodhopper on top of)
Oh and also planted my acer and mulched it.
Put up a trellis for my winter flowering clematis
Pulled up two more bloody oleaster and one more pyracanthus that was too close to the pavement and in danger of putting toddler eyes out - that's the bin almost full again Explained my plans to three passing neighbours. This is why this ends up taking so long. :))
Went to tidy dead stems on my heuchera, and found the plants (some of them) were detached from their roots and had larvae inside them. :cry: Assumed vine weevils. Went back with tweezers, realised it was not vine weevils but that the plants had rotted from poor drainage in that spot and some other small thing, possibly woodlice, had made a home in their rotting roots. So not as bad as vine weevils but I still lost four or five plants. And need to add some grit there.

Surely it's nearly time for gardening to be over for the year. :)) I want to switch my head to paint schemes.

[absley]

Lifted my one dahlia that was potted, washed and dried it and then had to run outside at 2 am when I realised I had left it outside drying in the sun. Imagine all that and then just raw exposing it to frost. :lol:

Love it!

I'm being constrained by my bin but it is emptied tomorrow and then I'll get back onto tidying things up. I need to move my rhubarb - the final leaves seem to be dying back, which I think is what is needed before I do anything - and trim/stake my raspberries which the rhubarb is currently intertwined with.

I also have a few plants that need planting out, including donated asters from my neighbour and tall fluttery somethings that I can't remember the name of :)) I also bought some poppies for D in the sale, so they need to go out. Have mostly been clearing leaves though, which will continue, (endlessly, I expect).

My most recent excitement is that my Daphne has babies - we tried digging one up at the start of the year and it died but this time we think they are shoots from a root (can't remember the technical term...), and the gardener managed to dig them out with root intact so I'm hoping they might survive/ settle in a new spot by the front door. They are winter flowering so it would be a lovely thing to walk past if it does establish. There are c6 babies sprouting off two roots, so :fc:

We also found a bubblegum philadelphus in a far corner, so that has also been moved to somewhere we'll have a chance of seeing and smelling it.

I want to plan my vegetables for next year.

[Mountain Goat]

Ooh, that sounds great with your fertile daphne! How lovely. I got a vibernum bodnantense (? something like that) recently that behaves and looks much like a daphne (winter flowering, similar flowers, perfumed) but cleverly put it somewhere I won't smell it, because I needed a back of the border winter colour thing. I may rethink this next year.

What veg are you thinking of? I currently have cavolo nero and rainbow chard, and some surviving plants of the cauliflower and purple sprouting brocolli I planted, most of which were nobbled by caterpillars, and now I don't know what the survivors actually are. :)) I've got some more containers ready to be planted next year too, but don't know what will go in them yet.

My vibernum tinus out the front is looking a bit floppy. It might just be soft new growth, but it's very near where the heuchera rotted, so I have concerns.

[absley]

Oh, fingers crossed for your viburnums - they're very wonderful. My neighbour has a huge one on our shared border which kept me in scented flowers for the house for several months last winter.

I haven't thought about veg properly but... pink fir apples again as my spud of choice, ditto borlottis (I need to look if there other beans that can be grown and dried like this); I saw mention of black futsu squash which I want to look up - I don't think my crown prince matured properly due to the poor summer, so thought a smaller squash/ pumpkin might be good to try. I am also going to buy nets and revisit brassicas! :))