raining – Gardening within LiMitS

Changing the front garden!

I started off digging a trench for tulips in the front garden and I dug a ten centimetre trench. It defines the area to the left which must remain garden and we had intended to make into driveway if we had the funds… (I need a job!)

The grass was largely moss and plants I don’t want. Not grass at all. So I covered an area with weed barrier and used the bags of peagravel we got from my friend. It had a lot of compost mixed in so I’ve used that on the area of weed barrier and I planted some of my festuca glauca plants down the edge.

I’ve used four concrete slabs for walking, laid over some sharp sand and I will bring round some compost to fill some of the areas. But there’s lots of blooming golden rod and valerian which needs digging up. Those are my weeds if I’m honest, as well as the spiky bush at the gate which keeps regrowing. I’ve chopped it three or four times this year and I have to try and eradicate it before it gets too big again.

Still ducking in and out between rain showers, the front garden is a work in progress but I think it will look good after we’ve had a couple of rains. I will try and find some other plants that will look good between the festuca. I saw some amazing heucheras yesterday. I sense a purchase…

Not finished but the garden is always in progress I’m learning!

Ouch!

Making an outdoor space

Smallest is home after throwing up and she had her earphones on. Husband is in the shed, and ditto, so no one heard me… I had decided to clamber over the piles of logs (was it wise?) and investigate the space behind the shed.

Which was weedy and filled with firewood in waiting. I pulled out a few weeds and was trying to clamber back. It would have been fine if I had not stepped down too hard on a pile of very soft sawdust. My foot went down and down and was close to my ankle snapping (I think) and me being stuck behind the shed for quite a long time.

Some bindweed coming over from next door.

As you can guess I did manage to put some weight back on it and fumble my way out of the space I no longer want to explore. I think I may be stuck to the house for a bit. Again not helping the grand scheme of things. I feel I may grapple with leg pain for the next few days. I said I’d work tomorrow as well. I don’t need to be hobbling round exam rooms. Ouch!

Needs cutting back but I didn’t take my snips on my clamber!

Firewood n Halloween?

Making an outdoor space

Think we will have a few roaring fires between now and Halloween as a lot of seasoned logs were split today. Not taking the credit as I was still eradicating spiky things – brambles and a neglected rose/crab apple? It was covered in brambles so that it was almost hidden. I’m not sure whether it has ever been pruned in our five years here. But the brambles were coming through the fence so originate next door.

But I have had a sickness bug so even if it had been dry for five minutes I didn’t feel like being outside. My stomach still feels a bit dodgy. I only went to work for 3 hours on Friday but was it enough to pick up a bug from the college? Social distances were observed so I should have been far enough away not to get the germs… No one in the house has this? It’s not the symptoms of Covid and I don’t like being sick! How mysterious!

I think our gardening adventures are going to be curtailed of October continues to be wet. It would be nice if the rain would do one…

Trying out those gloves!

Making an outdoor space

I did mostly spiky stuff to try them out but it’s damp out. Someone said it’s going to be wet all week? No! That’s not good. The gloves aren’t waterproof. And I exterminates several chunky brambles!

It’s been a stop/start kind of day. But at the end of it I have cleared a lot of things I don’t want. The bush I tackled looks like a boring old privet so it will be pruned back hard. Like the bush with orange berries, that’s going too! But I planted a red cordeline next to the transplanted heuchera and that area just needed a fake stone robin as a finishing touch. In the world of an MSer days can get hard unless you can stagger them so doing something different in the garden in short bursts helps me to feel like I am achieving things.

I love the burgundy colours against the green.

Another post? For another day?

Making an outdoor space

As it is spitting (Scottish term for light rain, in fact it could be called drizzling) intermittently, and I don’t like getting wet, I have time to write but actually I want to be planting! I purchased a couple of cheap plants in my favourite Woolworths replacement store. I have to plant the grasses too and bulbs. Next spring needs to have an explosion of colour! So there are more bulbs to plant too.

Lunch had been forgotten and I went for a packet to be quick. Bad move when something called Piri-something is left. Yuk! But the outside is calling. The Ivy has sprouted buds and I wasn’t going to cut it when it was sunny and covered in bees, but it’s wet now and I need to discourage bees like the monster that came inside yesterday. Seriously huge, like a bird buzzing furiously, I was scared for us all. I am not a naturephobe, more appreciate such beautiful creatures on the other side of the window.

Can I carry any of the tree chunks I need to pile up? Good question and I have new gloves so maybe I can try? These are coming recommended and I think will be good for all the prickly stuff.

I hope the striped rose survives trunks landing on it…

Transformation!?!

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It’s one of those days: neither hot or cold but a mission to clear the ground by the middle shed of gravel and herbs has given us lots of tasks.

I also have a helper who has now turned her attention to the bench I inherited from a friend when we were sharing a flat many moons ago. She found me through FB at the start of lockdown but I didn’t hear back from recent posts. It was a while (20 years?) Blimey! I feel old!

We have moved some bricks to form a path from the greenhouse and replanted a rather woody thyme. I’m smelling rather herbal and it’s not my medicinal marijuana! Which has raised my mood and possibly my energy. Life seems good in the garden!

Rain to end the hot weekend!

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We have been busy pulling up the weeds and I made the first prune of the trees next to the herb garden. Herbs are being relocated and cuttings are in water to try and grow new plants. I am excited for what is planned, which in a roundabout way was what I originally hoped we’d do.

The greenhouse has a step of grey paviours which looks very smart, thanks to hubby.

Second flush of roses after deadheading…

I have been clipping initially round the tree which has the yellow plums on. We still want to check these are edible… but there is so much potential now for that corner of the garden.

And it’s raining now so I have decamped inside.

Are these edible? From the clipped tree.

The initial clipping has uncovered a lot of contorted limbs. And brambles behind…

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gardeningwithinlimits.com/2020/07/10/feeling-invigorated/

Feeling invigorated!

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I’ve started to feel like I can foresee new avenues opening up again. Lockdown is over, for whatever that means, and I have now worked through two weeks of exams. I have work next week and I have applied for several new things to keep me feeling like a useful member of society again. I have been out in the garden and applied the trimmers to the hedge to cut away the corner of the hedge so the neighbours can see out of their drive.

If we can have some rain free days, like on Sunday, we will be doing some more garden maintenance, making some more changes. Hubby went and purchased a stand today, and before you ask, is that like fork handles, it’s a short stand to cut up logs on. We’ve had lots of logs drying out in the rear/side of some sheds to make firewood with but I knew something was holding us back; the stand will make log cutting safer. We also have lots of extra shelving from blowaway greenhouse to stack cut down logs on? Stuff comes in useful if you hoard it? I also wonder if it got stacked along the walls of a work shed it will add an insulating layer when winter hits. Because I see my husband home working for the foreseeable future, like many others, fingers crossed, if their companies make it through the pandemic unscathed.

Need to add this ivy etc to the green bin…

Life after lockdown is slowly looking like it will start returning; my youngest went to school to pick up her things from the year before homeschool and she felt better for seeing her friends again. She said they sat in hula hoops to keep 2 metres apart! So whoever is making hula hoops will be making it through the pandemic for sure…

I’m sure I planted more than one of these spherocephalum but I think I pulled some up in a vigorous weeding moment…

Clearing Ivy!

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My new slabs are being neglected for the home office plans now! A concrete base sat under the littlest shed which was decrepit and overrun by Ivy. That base will form a base for the rejigging of the middle shed to form a more practical potting shed while it will be replaced with something more practical for home working as it looks like the future may encompass more of that. And I have enough cut down to fill the garden bin on Thursday after collection…

This morning saw me doing weeding and sweeping and decapitating the laurel. It will not survive the footprint of the potting shed, which will have to be swivelled so that the window is on the opposite side of the shed and repairs will have to utilise the best panels kept from the tiny shed. I was visited by Red while pulling up strands and strands of Ivy around those concrete blocks and the apple tree. While ivy seems to grow really well around the base of the apple tree, in freeing it from the base last year we seem to have promoted better apples this year. Here’s to chutney and crumbles this year!