GreenFly - A 'flylady style' gardening thread with weekly tasks to tame your garden

EssexHebridean

Not spotted snowdrops yet, but we have a lot of bulbs pushing their heads above the surface now which is encouraging.

We were hoping to get some more shed/office painting done yesterday but rapidly realised that although the temperatures were warm enough to apply the paint, everything was simply way too damp to make it worthwhile. we have ordered an enormous pack of sander discs though so we are at least ready to go once everything dries out a bit! 

EssexHebridean

Well I don't know about everyone else, but our garden is cheerfully waking itself up! The rhubarb which was just a couple of little pink hints in the soil just a week ago is now showing definitely signs of leaf, the fruit bushes are now all breaking bud, the clematis and honeysuckle are trying to outdo each other in terms of new growth appearing! Hurrah!

redofromstart

Lots of growth here and quite a few things in flower. I forgot to check the rhubarb, must do that tomorrow.

I have moved a few pots of bulbs so that I can see the flowers.

If the weather stays nice then it is a good chance to chop back any perennials that need clearing to make way for the new growth. I want to split out some more snowdrops and mark the hellebores that I want to take with me.

EssexHebridean

I intend to reinstate my usual spring/summer/autumn plan of heading straight to the garden for a wander on any evening it's light enough when I get home. Even 5 minutes is worth it, if nothing else I can eyeball odd jobs then do them when I have more time.

I pottered a bit at the weekend - repotted the pretty little yellow rose I bought from Lil's the other week into a bigger pot which will then go inside the little coal scuttle we rescued from a ditch. I might get a small pot of black metal paint to spruce it up a bit. Cleared the dead leaves from the strawberries. We pruned the gooseberries and another rose, and did a bit of weeding front and back.

I reckon it's getting well and truly on for being time to start planning some seed sowing as well!

Cheery_Daff

Waking up here too- both me and the garden 😂

i did 5 mins a day in the garden where possible in January, and was aiming for 10 in Feb but it didn't work so well - with 5 minutes I'd been getting my secateurs out for a bit of lopping while waiting for Mr C to get his coat on, but 10 felt like more of a commitment.

I have been making good progress though - I'm clearing the stones from round thebeds in the veg plot to make it more allotment-style long thin beds - there's too much grass path in there at the minute. Two down, two to go.

Stones are going round the outside to make flower beds instead. We've got a lot of mole hills, so I'm scooping the soil off and using it to create the flower beds as I go.

I mixed all my expired flower seeds together and am planning on just sowing in the beds when it warms up for a riot of chaotic colour 😂 But as I've been shifting stones, I'm also digging up any flowers I find - mostly sweet Williams and some tall purple things I don't know the name of - and transplanting those to the flower beds too. Free plants! 😃

Cherryfudge

My garden had its first harvest of the year - a bird feeder turned up while we were on holiday! I reckoned there had been high winds and it had blown in from the neighbour so I put it on his water barrel and emailed to explain. A few hours later he emailed back to say he'd found it in his and thought it came from mine so he'd left it where I could find it.

The garden have hedges and fences and that boundary isn't exactly accessible from outside so I really don't know where it's from!

Other than that, the rhubarb is small but healthy and the ground elder has emerged again…

Cheery_Daff

Did you find the owner of the bird feeder @Cherryfudge? What an excellent harvest if not! 😃

I'm back out in the garden this afternoon in the sunshine (still quite nippy though). Finally finished clearing the edging stones out of the veg patch 😊 Now for some mulch - not entirely sure whether to cart some ancient rotted down hay from the other side of the field (probably best) or get the scythe out and cut some new from the garden (probably less effort...) Need to get my garlic in though, should have gone in weeks ago but better late than never, and it's been so wet it would probably have rotted anyway!

Current veg patch view. Will update when I've mulched it!

Cherryfudge

@Cheery_Daff , no we never did! It's still sitting on a water barrel. Odd. 😊

The grass is still too wet to mow, but it needs it. I spent an hour and a half the other day tidying up some pots. How lovely to be out in the sun and discovering things again. Today I made use of a spare five minutes to fill a large pot with compost and plunge in some wallflowers I bought last year and which have been getting by in their original tiny pots. I love the scent of wallflowers so they are close to the door.

Other than that, it's been about pouring boiling water on the cracks in the block paving to clear the weeds, and an early foray into the battle of the ground elder, yet again.

debtfreewannabe321

We've no snowdrops in this house or daffs, that was always a nice sign of the end of winter in our old house. I have seen rhubarb poking through the ground though and buds on trees 😃.

I'm here for some advice...I'm planning a very MSE wedding, and the party is going to be in my garden....what is cheap to fill beds but colourful and fool hardy (so I don't kill off what I buy by accidently neglecting it). Bonus for smells lovely too. G00gle is coming up with all sorts and it all costs far too much money and I'm not even sure if it will flower by May ...any ideas?

Cherryfudge

I'm not the expert, but if you want to guarantee colour, in addition to whatever plants you choose, could you tie ribbons around the place? So if there's a photo-opportunity tree, colours hanging from the branches to tone with your colour theme, or similar for any outdoor seating. Balloons might work similarly.