clean garden

i have spent hours in my garden today, clearing all the leaves digging over ,weeding, iam shattered, my back is kiling me, and i have scratches all over my arms from the rose bushes, but it feels great looking over my lovely tidy garden  

ha ha, thats lovely sotongeoff, thanks, its been a lovely sunny day here in liverpool, good day for gardening.

Wish I could say the same about the weather here in Bournemouth, dull dull dull and dull. 

apart from today its been dull here all week, if we could have cold sunny days all winter, we wouldnt mind the winter

Left grey overcast Devon behind and in sunny West Sussex. Horsham was lovely today, but it got very cold in the evening. Always degrees warmer and more sunnier here!

Lucky person. I have cut down the plants on one island bed, no weeding, just removed all the dead top growth. 10 wheelbarrow loads of it.

I only tidy what is absolutely necessary. At the end of my 100' garden I leave the lavender hedge, meadowsweet, fennel & aster seeds for the birds to enjoy. I have been rewarded watching the Blue Tits & sparrows looking for insects and bugs.  Leaving plants to show winter structure it protects a lot of the perennials and grasses, that are only now in full growth.

clearing up tons of leaves and bagging them up for compost no sooner do i do it a load more come down but does anyone know why blue tits are going in my nest box this time of year?

I think they all huddle together for warmth in winter. Everyone needs a warm bed when it's cold 

Can you come and do mine?

I watched one morning as over a dozen blue tits emerged from one of our nest boxes. They also go looking for spiders etc. in them.

In an ideal world I would leave the tops on perennials over Winter, but as it takes from now until Spring to clear them all off that is not a choice.

By the way what do you folks do with the removed top growth? A lot of the stuff we have will not rot and believe me I have tried. It is very difficult to shred, except when very dry and ditto for burning. Be nice to be able to put it in the Council compost bin, but I filled both of ours witrh the Clematis I cut down. Only another 60 or so of those to do too.

Hi, Lynne,

It can be hard work, but it's nice after the works done, to look over a tidy garden. I always clear my paths when the snow comes, must be the only person along the terrace who does that though, but then I can walk up the garden path without fear of slipping when the grounds frozen.   

Berghill wrote (see)

I watched one morning as over a dozen blue tits emerged from one of our nest boxes. They also go looking for spiders etc. in them.

In an ideal world I would leave the tops on perennials over Winter, but as it takes from now until Spring to clear them all off that is not a choice.

By the way what do you folks do with the removed top growth? A lot of the stuff we have will not rot and believe me I have tried. It is very difficult to shred, except when very dry and ditto for burning. Be nice to be able to put it in the Council compost bin, but I filled both of ours witrh the Clematis I cut down. Only another 60 or so of those to do too.

wow that must be a nice large garden with over sixty clematis, I bet it looks stunning when in bloom,  I planted my first three this year and really enjoyed them, hoping to plant some more next year. I started to tidy up last weekend, The garden looks a little bare now but much tidier, I am just waiting for the last of the tree leaves to drop now  so I can complete the task, I noticed a big change in their rate of fall this week with a lot of them almost bare now, some beautiful autumn colours this year.

I have been out too in the garden today and yes my back is truly broken after planting around 200 bulbs. It will be worth it in the spring! My worm compost bin has done really well spent ages trying to fish them back out of the compost to put them back in the bin before covering the border with the lovely fresh compost. there were plenty that got away but they breed like crazy so i dont mind setting some free and they carry on doing a great job in the garden.

Hope your bulbs are still there. I planted 300 crocus last week, the following morning every one had been dug up and eaten. Mice or possibly pheasants.

Hi Which clematis do you cut down. I have 2-3 that flower in both spring and late summer, a viticella which is still green and a large flowered summer flowering that is struggling a bit,

The Cleamtis was C. fargesii Summer Snow. It covered a trellis 24 feet long. This is a Viticella type so normally it would be cut to the ground in February, but I needed to mend the trellis.

Did some  more cutting down today ably assisted by our neighbours cat. My two were fast asleep in the house of course.