A little here, a little there

As well as spreading out tons of stone chippings and building flat-packed wardrobes, we have also been doing bits and pieces in various parts of the garden ~ little bites of that elephant 😉

I took a little time out, though, to take a couple of photos of the beautiful hips on two shrubs in this more shady border in the kitchen garden.  The photo above is a hypericum...

...and this is, obviously, a rose.  I'm pretty sure that it's Rosa Rugosa Alba but I really didn't fancy getting in amongst all those thorny stems to double-check 😯 

Our latest garden endeavours have mostly revolved around sorting out the old fruit cage area, as we've decided it needs to be totally overhauled.  The plan is to take out the central bed entirely, just leaving the two on either side.  We're going to set out a little seating area here in due course.  

Along with the weeds (!) in this bed there are a couple of holly shrubs, a couple of ferns, and three (I think) alchemilla mollis.  The alchemilla obviously like it here, judging by the growth they have put on!  I am going to relocate them to the back garden, so let's hope they will like their new homes as much.

Once the centre bed has been cleared out and dismantled, we are going to use the pieces of wood to make an extra layer on this right-hand bed ~ it will give us somewhere to put at least some of the soil so we don't end up having to make another soil mountain out the back 😄  I shall have to temporarily dig out and pot up the hollies and ferns in this bed whilst we do this so that it's easier to build up the new additional layer and, of course, put in the extra soil to fill it up.

I drastically cut back the blackcurrant bushes in this bed to make it easier to move them.  Just look at those weeds!

They've now gone in the back garden to make a short row of blackcurrant "hedge", in the bed with the bay tree.  The straggly-looking plant on the right is a piece of escallonia that I decided to leave where it was when I tidied this bed a couple of weeks back.  It doesn't look like much even now, I know, but is looking way better than it was before LOL

Only one of the redcurrants have produced much fruit...

...and we got almost two pounds from it!

The two redcurrants which were at the front are now in the bed with the fruit trees.

At the back of the old bed was one redcurrant which I bought as a standard, and a tiny piece that had broken off from one of the other bushes.  I've now put the standard redcurrant (which rather surprisingly didn't have as much root as I was expecting to be honest) in a large tub, which I've positioned in the kitchen courtyard between the bay tree and rosemary.

The tiny "bonus" piece was really too small to just plonk down in the garden, I felt, so I've potted it up to let it grow on.  Hopefully it'll be large enough to plant somewhere in the garden next year.    

Moving into the greenhouse just for a quick look, I'm pleased to report that the tomatoes are now fruiting rather nicely.  I noticed earlier in the week that one or two are also ripening up, so fingers crossed that we'll get a decent crop 🤞

And to round off this post, I thought I'd show you the photo of a red admiral butterfly I took last Friday.  There wasn't any sunshine so I think it must just have been having a little rest rather than soaking up the rays 😊

Eating an elephant.....

image from Clipart Library

.....one bite at a time, as the saying goes.

I've been alluding to what a terrible state the ornamental borders are in but up to now, my lovelies, I have avoided both showing you the evidence and actually doing anything about them 😳

To be perfectly honest, it all just feels so terribly overwhelming at the moment and I've found it very difficult to make a decision about just where to make a start.

Believe it or not, there is actually a little nature pool beneath all the overgrown weeds and plants here.  The fuchsia was originally a small piece that reappeared in the front wall border after all the old hedging had been removed.  It needs to be cut back regularly really but it's got somewhat out of hand this last year or so!  Beverly and Lyndi are going to give me a helping hand with this area at some point, and I've decided that the fuchsia will have to have a drastic pruning so it can be dug out more easily.  I have a place where it could be moved to, over on the other side of the garden where we have some issues with our neighbour's shrubs and brambles encroaching on our garden.  I will leave the fuchsia pretty much to its own devices and let all the shrubs fight it out amongst themselves 😉

Once this area has been cleared, I'm considering making the pool a little larger.  I may also replace the fuchsia with a small tree, perhaps a rowan.

Something strange seems to have happened to this mahonia!  It's throwing out new growth top and bottom but there is a weird section of bare trunk that looks as if something has made a meal of the leaves.  I going to leave it be and see if it continues to grow okay.

If you thought the kitchen garden borders were in a sorry state, well, just look at the ornamental garden borders ~ I have days where I look at them and just want to weep as we worked so hard getting them all set out😞

Adrian got the border on the kitchen garden side cleared out a couple of weeks back, and you can see the marked contrast with the border on the other side of the path.

The weeds, of course, are bad enough in this border but the worst thing of all is the dwarf elder that I planted.  I certainly made a rod for our backs and I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever get the bloody stuff cleared out permanently😩

It's a shame, really, as it does have attractive leaves and pretty white flowers but it's just so incredibly rampant!

I don't know what the tall, rust-coloured, weeds are called but we get lots of them growing in the garden.  And as for the buttercups, well they also grow like they are trying to take over the bloody world 😒

The hedge border isn't really as bad as it might first appear.  Much of the growth in the various sections are in fact ground-covering plants that I put in, and they are doing a fairly good job as smothering and keeping the weeds at bay.  Just some general tidying-up required here I think, along with some trimming of the shrubs perhaps.

Again, this border isn't quite as bad as it looks, although the dwarf elder has made its way across and will have to be dealt with severely 😠

 Finally we have the soft fruit area, which we have decided needs a major overhaul.  I mentioned previously that the blackcurrants, whilst they have grown very well and are producing lots of fruit, said fruit is extremely sour.  It seems a shame to just dig them up and get rid of them, so they will be going into the little border near the bay tree in the back garden.  We don't put out bird feeders because we don't want to encourage rats and mice, but the birds are welcome to feast on the blackcurrants should they fancy a little fruity snack!

I may move the redcurrants to live with the three little cordon fruit trees in the back garden but I haven't decided yet.

We are aiming to rearrange these beds somewhat, with the whole area then being given over to ornamental plants.  This might be the first section that we tackle (not including the fuchsia/nature pool area, which is dependant on when the girls can come over), then as we work our way around the other ornamental borders we have somewhere to move plants to should any thinning-out be necessary.

I guess all I can do is keep telling myself "one bite at a time, Sharon, one bite at a time" 😳

Who stole the soil mountain 😲

Well, no one has actually stolen it to be fair but we have whittled it down considerably!  Look, up there under the blue tarp ~ that's all there is left 😮  And since I took these photos, even that pile has decreased by nearly two-thirds!  Adrian has worked so hard sieving all that bloody soil and finally he got to the stage where he was determined that it would just all be over and done with 😄  Now, of course, we've got gazillions of bags of rubble to get rid of but that's another story 😉

It's taking a bit of getting used to not having that weed-ridden mound of soil staring at us every time we walked by but it's so lovely to finally have the area cleared.  Adrian used up the remaining leftover sleepers to build the last couple of raised beds that will be going in the garden, front or back.  And, of course, filled them up with some of the mountain.  Over in the left-hand corner is the other container that had been out the front with the black stained ones.  I haven't yet decided what to plant in any of the containers.  

Adrian also flexed his muscles and wheel-barrowed a whole one ton bag of stone chippings that we'd had delivered onto the shared driveway.  We had two more lifted over our garden wall into the kitchen garden area to be used in due course topping up various parts of the garden, both front and back ~ he had to use another half dozen or so barrow-loads from one of them to finish the job.  I raked it all out as he dumped it and amazingly we finished the job in one day!

Next year we will look for some nice all-weather furniture to put out there to make a cosy seating area.  We are also going to put some large tubs, or perhaps barrels like we've put in the front, along the wall and will move the raspberries into them.  

And talking of raspberries here is a little bowl of some of what we've harvested this year, along with one of the mini cucumbers from the greenhouse.  We've had lots of strawberries too, as well as the cut-and-come-again lettuce, and the tomatoes are finally starting to ripen up 😊

A new(ish) project

Back in 2020 we got these three beds built for fruit, planting redcurrants in the middle bed and blackcurrants in the one to the left.

 For the bed beside the wall, I ordered three vertical cordon fruit trees from Pomona Fruits: Scrumptious (a dessert apple), Victoria (plum), and Summer Sun (a dessert cherry).  

Fast forward a year and we built yet another bed, this time out the back ~ after all, we've got to find homes for that soil mountain somewhere 😉  The intention had been to move the raspberries here from the front but I changed my mind once I saw how prolifically the little buggers spread themselves around 😲  As usual, I went through all kinds of ideas in my head as to what to plant here but in the end decided to.....

 

take the bull by the horns and move the three fruit trees ~ perhaps  I should add content warnings to some of my blog posts, as "proper" gardeners may find it too traumatic to read about what I do to my poor plants 😄

Anyhoo, regardless of whether or not it was the right time (or even the right thing to do), we dug them out of their bed in the front garden and relocated them into this new one.  I did cut them back a fair bit once they were in place in hopes that it would lessen the trauma of the move a little, and so far they haven't curled up their toes and died on me 👍 I also moved the blackberries from the front to join them.  It's a variety called Tiny Black which, as its name suggests, is a small plant suitable for growing in containers so I'm hoping it will stay small in this bed!

Not much to show...

My enthusiasm for the garden has waned a tad whilst I've been feeling under par and I just couldn't drum up the energy to be bothered with taking photos.  I'm feeling more "engaged" with the garden again now, though, and I found these that I took a few weeks back and hadn't yet shared. 

The osteospermums have been lovely.  I shall definitely try overwintering them and will make a note on the pots of what colour each plant is.  They are all pretty but I particularly like the darker pink ones.

 

I can't even begin to explain how thrilled I've been with the dahlias!

Each plant has been produced (and indeed still are producing) so many beautiful flowers.

They have done well in these pots but I think next year I will finish potting them on into the next size up. 

I've had these massed together in the back garden but if I manage to overwinter them successfully, my plan is to pop them (still in their pots) in the borders in the front garden next year. 

I thought I'd see how I get on with growing potatoes in tubs with these autumn-harvest tubers.  These are Nicola and Charlotte...

  and these are Maris Peer.  I planted them on 26th July...

and a couple of weeks later the shoots were coming through!

I completely covered them with a layer of compost but it didn't take long for the shoots to come through again.  I have now filled the tubs with compost and hopefully we will start to harvest potatoes at the end of October 😊 

The onions have all now been pulled.

We've started harvesting tomatoes ~ this is Paruche.  I've had mixed results with them as some of the fruits have split which I think is due to me not getting the watering right.  Still, the ones that we've been able to pick have been very tasty and hopefully next year I will do better.

The blackcurrants have lots of fruit despite not being netted!  I shall be relocating these in the autumn as the bed they are currently in is not so easily accessible.  I will most likely replace them here with rhubarb, which has been very disappointing out in the back garden.

And here's the little minx from a few doors down, in what now seems to be one of her favourite spots to hang out in the garden!

Settling in

The transplanted plants in the new borders are really settling in now, and some are starting to put on new growth already.  The birds are loving the little pool of water and queue up on the stones waiting for their turn ~ not always very patiently, I must say!

Do you like my lovely ceramic toadstools?  I saw them on Justpotteringabout, on Etsy, and couldn't resist!  I ordered another set from a different seller at the same time but unfortunately they seem to have gone astray en route, so she is making me a replacement set and hopes to send them out this week.  Over time, I'm planning on adding little groups to all my borders ~ I shall have to remember to take them in for the winter, though, as I don't want them to get broken in the high winds.

All the new borders are now planted up, although I hadn't finished the last section on the left when I took these photos.  More pictures to come, then 😄

Likewise with this border.  I wonder if the starlings will notice the changes if they choose to nest in the stone wall again next year.

The osteospermums have lots of buds coming through, so I'm hoping for a good display in due course.

Do you remember me showing you how full of weeds the blackberry bed was?  Well, Adrian set-to and cleared it all out for me.  It's not easy to see in the photo but all four of the bushes have some flowers so I'm hoping we may get a handful of berries this year.

And look at that: the redcurrant that I cut right back is sending up new shoots!  The original plant was trained as a standard when I bought it but if it continues to grow and survive, I shall leave it as a bush.  The bed the redcurrants are growing in has a stone wall behind it and to one side there is a narrow bed against another stone wall, so it has some shelter on two sides.  I think that bushes will be better protected than standards!