April in Your Garden - Page 12

 Excellent!  I would like to have heard & seen that Geoff .  Seeing all those stuffed shirts and the presenter acting as if they've never heard swear words before, and that the general public are so ttteeerrrriiibbblllyyy shocked by such things these days. Ridiculous.

Yvie

ChocolateCream teas

I managed to walk around the garden for 10 minutes today. I have an echinacea in the wrong place, just wondering if I could move it now, should be wet enough.

Sure. I remember you have light sandy soil such as mine is. I find this allows for easier digging and good drainage afterwards, so I tend to move herbaceous material quite late. I've also seen them moving herbaceous plants in mid summer at Great Dixter! Ooh err. Just try to be as nurturing as possible of course

Oh, just seen Jo's news on the other board.  Poor love.  What a time She's having. So sad.

Yvie

Which other board--I find it's all a bit confusing.

Kind of grey here again, but the days have started off this way, then brightened up later. Good planting weather.

My neighbour is coming today to pick up my extra plants--I have two types of heritage tomatoes from seeds I saved from a red and yellow large type last fall-they were delicious and the plants are very vigorous.I also have some called Chocolate Cherry just cuz I liked the name. Greenhouse now being set up to grow on tomatoes, etc.

Inkadog-bbc board.

Thanks wintersong, I am not enjoying the echinacea so I may as well move it. By the way heavy clay, but I quite like it now.

Thanks, Geoff,

Oops sorry Kate1123, I thought you were sandy and dry like me.

me too figrat! I am a dire fan of mulching!

Got out into my garden after dinner this evening as blue skies abound. First time this year that I've managed an evening's gardening with some good and bad news.

Finished off my second compost bin as mulch for the Fatsia and discovered some incredibly nice dry material to begin layering anew. It came out of one and a half compost bags left over from last years prunings. I have an enormous Pampas grass in the middle garden that got left to grow for 15yrs in my ignorance of how to stop it growing story of my garden really...anyhow, last year yielded so much material once I was brave enough that I stored it in bags randomly dumped in a corner and are now very tender and ripe for compost.

On the bad news side, I did some research on Raspberries and how to control them, reading many very scary forum stories about their invasive nature. I'm too control freak to let them be, one stray runner is already popping up in the lawn and after suffering a mountain of next door brambles and bindweed before they moved, I'm in the process of ripping them out I love Raspberries and have baked muffins every summer, but I'd rather buy them than pollute my beautiful flower beds with raspberry shoots.

Luckily the soil is very easy to dig but now I have a design headache of what to do with my south facing fence and a little area beside the arch. I'm a bit sad tonight.

Don't be sad Winter!  Just as well you found out about the raspberries before you became infested.  I'm the one with sandy soil.  Somebody down the road is always planting things in their front garden without adding any compost and they end up looking half dead (the plants not the people).  Water disappears instantly unless I keep piling on the compost.  My lawn dries up the moment it stops raining - the water disappears into the centre of the earth.

My soil is very light too[when there is any-it's mostly gravel!] It also tends to be acidic, so I add lime yearly, usually in January so it gets rained in. I add lots of manure and homemade compost, as well as seaweed, as I am close to the ocean.The roads people clear the ditches and shred the results, and will dump a load on your property if you catch them at it. I mulch with this, and use it on my paths. It rots down quite quickly, and as there is manure underneath doesn't tie up the nitrogen. I also use comfrey and nettle tea.

Koala's right Winter, no need to be sad.  See it as a new planting opportunity.  You can grow all sorts on a south facing fence, and new space in a bed.

All sound very organic with you Inka, and you're putting lots of goodness into the ground conditions you have to cope with. I'm with Koala, and love your garden, postion and outlook. Luckily, the people before us, landscaped the garden and must have put tons and tons of compost and top soil into the beds, as the area beyond the gates, and in the ditches is pure clay.  You can dig it up and fashion pots there and then!

Yvie

I now believe that we are going to have a weeks rain in one day

It's complete pants isn't it!  I know it's good for the garden, filling waterbutts etc, but, boring and disruptive.It's been pouring and blowing a gale here in the Smoke, this morning.

Yvie

The seedlings in my house are starting to struggle, they need to go out very soon. If it rains like this all day I will not be able to walk on my garden tomorrow.

Thanks for the support guys  

I will think about redesigning that area this summer (or between rain)