I bought two big teracotta pots from Ikea for either side of the front door, and Joe put some trellis up for the clematis montana to grow up. I put a kale plant in each side, and planted red spring onion seeds in one pot and purple spring onions in the other. There's a nasturtium in there too. I'm quite pleased with my edible and decorative front door planters! Even though I have to go out and flick caterpillar eggs off the kale every day!
This little robin is so cute and such a good little companion in the garden. His baby robin has been hopping around too, but is too shy for photos!
I've been emptying some pots of used soil left by the previous owners of the house. I've been putting the soil into my compost bin, so any insects or microbes in the soil can give my compost a head start. I found this ENORMOUS worm! I don't think the photo shows his true size, he was at least a foot long!
I made some weed tea to fertilise my garden, as it was looking sad and things were growing sooo slowly. Pick some weeds and put them in a bucket with some water and leave to infuse for a few days. It stinks, like manure! But I think it actually worked!
My sunflower flowered!
Everything seems to be growing a lot better this month!
We decided to cut down the big old lilac tree at the end of the garden, as several big branches were rubbing on the roof of next doors garage and looked likely to cause damage.
You can see it in this before photo, at the very back of the garden, next to the shed.
In progress! Joe did sawing and I did telling him what to do!
After! It looks so sad at the moment, but there are new shoots coming round the base. We're hoping it survives it's extreme haircut and we'll keep it under control as a bush from now on!
We're working on the front garden too. This is a before photo for posterity. I'm focusing on pulling all the weeds up from the gravel this year. I may be some time! Because the drive is so big, our long term plan is to make the beds bigger and plant a cherry tree in the front garden.
How do you gardens grow this month?
I really enjoy reading your gardening posts! Sunflower bloomed also in our urban garden. It's really raining today after a long dry period, so we are looking forward to see how the plants will do now.
ReplyDeleteWe've had a lot of rain here this month, and some very hot days too, it doesn't seem to be bothering the garden though! Hope your plants grow well! :)
DeleteShame about the lilac tree - especially for how much butterflies love them, you'll have to replace it! We've been cutting down some trees but we're hoping to get either some apple or cherry trees next year to replace them.
ReplyDeleteWe're hoping the lilac tree will grow back, there are new shoots at the bottom, so we'll still have it but keep it more under control this time! We're going to get apple and cherry trees in our garden eventually too!! :)
DeleteGreat progress! Driveways are hard work. We have a gravel one but the weeds come up all the time, and the gravel sinks into the ground each winter so it looks like there's not many stones left! Its on my long to do list.
ReplyDeleteI've just started reading a book about using your driveway to grow food, so I think I'm actually going to cover most of the drive with raised beds and grow veg in it! I hope that'll be slightly less work than trying to keep the weeds out of the gravel! :)
DeleteYes! I was thinking the same thing, to grow food there. The lilac tree should be fine hopefully, I pollard our buddliea in the front yard every spring to keep it in check (as it would otherwise grow over and block the pavement) and it produces loads of flowers. The pollarded branches are then handy to use as canes in the back garden.
DeleteThe raised beds arrived today (I had some birthday money to spend!) So I can get started with my driveway garden soon :D
DeleteAnd the lilac tree has sent out some little green shoots, so I'm sure it'll be fine for next year! I kept some of the twigs to use as canes (which really confused my boyfriend, he can't work out why I want a stash of twigs!!) and I used some of the bigger branches to make a log pile for wildlife :D
Your veg bed looks good! I HATE slugs and snails- they have chomped ALL my embryo courgettes!!! I pulled a snail out of my radishes the other day and it was GROSS as it was in the process of laying eggs and had about 10 eggs attached to its bum! The only good thing is I've had 71 runner beans so far!x
ReplyDeleteI've had the same thing happen today with my courgettes, there were 3 small ones growing last night, this morning there were 3 half courgettes on the plant. Rude words were said!
DeleteWhat a fantastic looking garden! So full of possibilities :) I can't wait to see what happens to it,have just discovered your blog and am loving it already :)
ReplyDeleteUndomesticDiva x
Thank you so much for visiting :D
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