What did you do in your garden today?

[posiepurrs]

Nothing yet today. Yesterday I worked on removing that juniper hedge I posted about sometime ago. I am afraid that will be an all year project. Right now I am cutting back to the main stumps, The stumps will have to wait until I can sweet talk my son into cutting them with the chainsaw or a neighbor into pulling the out with his tractor (the preferred method). This next week will be spent getting the rest of the vegetable garden ready though. Our night time temperatures are supposed to be in the 50s at the end of the week so I will plant then, and start the battle with the rabbits and ground hog. Fencing isn't really an option right now.

 

[Sean Regan]

I got into the two wisterias on the pergola on the back of the house. I needed to be up the ladder waist high above the cross beams to see what I was doing. My wife always moans at me for doing it, but it's necessary

You can see they are different ones as the foliage is of a different colour.

The one on the left just need a few straggly bits removing, a lot more of it is unseen behind the other one, right up to the right-hand end.

I thined out the one on the right as it had got very bushy at the right-hand end.
I'm trying to get it to cross more with the one on the left.
It won't travel far left if it's energy is going into the bit at the top of the support post.

Now's the time to do it as it's the time when they put on a lot of growth as the energy is no longer needed for blossom

 

[DirtMechanic]

Ok Phoenix! I was impressed! Our garden has not been down long enough yet.

 

[Sean Regan]

Finally got round to replacing the door in the fence.

As you can see the tongue and groove panels are sliding down and towards the left, the hinges are no longer straight, this is because of the rot in the door.

.
Still it's sixteen years old as is the fence. I made that I bought the door. There's a moral there.

Couldn't get tanalised tongue and groove, so had to buy one ready made (again) but "sight unseen," from a local wood yard.

Ring up try to describe what you want, pay for it, go and collect it.

I knew it'd be rectangular, so I'd have to shape it, but it was much thicker than the old one.
So I hade to do a bit of "fettling" to make it fit. A bit of filler at the bottom of each end of the arch required and the screwheads filled.

I need to put in a few more, but I ran out. Saved all the furniture. I wanted to put bigger hinges on it. But Wilko's only had one so I used two of the old ones. I bought their last two jigsaw blades. They're very short of stock.
I made the pillars on either side the same thickness, so it looks OK.

Just managed to get one coat of Dulux Woodsheen on it tonight. I'll give it another coat when I come home from golf tomorrow. That'll even up the finish.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

I started this project about a year ago. This strip of land is between my driveway and my neighbor's property. It's about five feet wide and maybe 50 or 60 feet long. It had been a weedy mess for as long as I can remember. I cleared this area of tons of weeds and non-native shrubs, then planted maybe a dozen native plants. I didn't touch the area again until today. I went through and weeded. It didn't have nearly as many weeds this year as when I first cleared it out, so I feel like it will get progressively easier to manage.

I noticed this spring that some, or maybe all of the native plants I planted here last year were returning!

Wild Geranium

Eastern Red Columbine

Wood Fern

The biggest issue is that my neighbor has invasive Creeping Bellflower right along the other side of the trees and it creeps over. I pull it when I see it, but I fear it will become a bigger problem in the future. Other than that, I really see potential in this area. More than ever before. It could become 250+ sq. ft. of woodland pollinator habitat if I can keep it going and add more species. Next on my list will be Hairy Beardtongue, which I've already been growing from seed. It apparently does well in shade, so hopefully it'll work out in this area. Next year, I may look into adding more native species.

 

[JBtheExplorer]

Worked along the same section today, weeding where the dirt meets the driveway. There was a lot of grass and other weeds, which can be seen in yesterday's photo. Below, you can see the edge is clear of weeds. I also added some more seedlings to the area today. Now, all I've really got to do is wait and occasionally water to get the young plants established.

 

[jasper]

Nice Italian eggplant.

 

[Sean Regan]

Just finished off the painting


I had to make little mortar "feet" as the 4" X 1" X 6ft fillets I used to pack out the door pillars to make them flush with the much thicker door than the old one, didn't reach the ground so they looked odd.

Even painted the back.

 

[Meadowlark]

Thinned out the third planting of corn. Looks like a good stand. The first planting of corn is just now starting the tasseling and can be seen in the far part of the photo with the second planting in between.

Corn is one of the most rewarding veggies we can grow in the garden and best when fresh which is why we do three plantings.

 

[Sean Regan]

"In the never ending quest to find something to do," I sorted out our "rose patio" (former koi pool).

It has flags laid on sand on top of 20 tonnes of eco-friendly hardcore.

It drains well, but I get annoyed with the weeds that tend to grow in the sand and soil that ends up in the gap between the flags and the perimeter rocks. I have to scrape or brush them out now and again dodging round the rose pots.
So I decided I'd cement in this gap. But this would mean in a heavy downpour, there might be some standing water as although at the moment the water drains between the flags, over time soil will end up with this sand and thus it might become less porous.
So I cemented around the perimeter but put in about a dozen drain tubes made from short bits of alkathene pipe. Didn't take more than a couple of hours. Just needs a bit of a brush over tomorrow when the cement has gone off.

 

[Meadowlark]

...
(former koi pool).

I also have a koi pond and am looking to turn it into something with less maintenance and more green....make it also a former koi pond. You have done an excellent job.

 

[karstopography]

My mom has a koi pond. Maintenance hogs, they are. The pond is constantly getting snakes that eat the fish. Near constantly battles with algae and leaves. I‘ve replaced the pump a couple of times, drained it and removed the muck that accumulates, brushed rocks. Takes a whole day of backbreaking work thoroughly clean it. I get young people to do it now and supervise, too much for my back.

I like the Rose patio idea.

 

[Sean Regan]

To be honest my pond wasn't a lot of trouble. It had a bottom drain, a sump pump, UV sterilizer, air pump, trickle change through a declorinator and a big old fashioned home-made filter.
Maintenance was pretty much just purging the bottom drain once a week and pumping it to waste.

So all the crud got flushed away and didn't get into the filter, in its dedicated room in the garage.

Never had green water.

This is the clarity of the water before it went into the filter. The water quality parameters were always so acceptable I rarely checked them.

No problems with herons as they couldn't wade in.




After 32 years the liner developed a leak and it would have been too much work to change it, all the perimeter rocks and the waterfall would have had to come off.

When I built it, I had to design it so that should I get fed up with it, (my wife says I'm a bit like that with some hobbies) it wouldn't be massive job to get rid of it and leave a big scar in the garden, so she couldn't complain.

This is how deep it was.

So when it went it was over and done with in three days.

The fish went to a good home two doors away, to a friend. They were my biggest concern. We took them round three at a time in a "pram."

 

[Meadowlark]

Hurricane Ike created my "koi pond hole" by blowing an ancient, beautiful crape myrtle tree right out of the ground circa 2008. Left with a big hole in the ground, we decided to line it, add some native rocks, and throw in a few fish and call it a mini-pond. I keep a few Tilapia in there to help keep it clean for the Koi and others...but it is still too much maintenance for my druthers. Any suggestions on filling it in?

 

[Sean Regan]

Hurricane Ike created my "koi pond hole" by blowing an ancient, beautiful crape myrtle tree right out of the ground circa 2008. Left with a big hole in the ground, we decided to line it, add some native rocks, and throw in a few fish and call it a mini-pond. I keep a few Tilapia in there to help keep it clean for the Koi and others...but it is still too much maintenance for my druthers. Any suggestions on filling it in?

View attachment 65493

No easy way.

Two men took two days to barrow round twenty one tonne bags of eco-friendly hardcore from the front of our house to fill our pool.