Gardening - what's going on in your garden

frogmorton

How lovely @Lilymary I bet it's lush!

Airwave be careful you are dong an awful lot there! Glad to hear those Laylandi are lower finally. Ivy yes another bind 🙄

Mike1 1 courgette is great much much better than no courgettes and you will really be glad you planted it. BUT that was a while back maybe there are more now?

Stellabean I love the water feature! Do you get much insect/wildlife using it?/ Those wold Iris are really pretty. Isn't nature fabulous?🙂

I am a happy bunny because I have some ickle baby tomatoes on my tomato plants - bless!

stellabean

We get pond skaters and cadis flies, no frog spawn but we have the odd frog around I have one who has taken up residence in the greenhouse he must like things hot it was over 35 degrees in there the other day! The birds love to bath in it and the odd hedgehog uses to drink from.Of course my call ducks escape their own filtered pond and mess mine up if they can find any hope in the fence, they just love to dabble the more mud the better.

Talking of happy bunnies my other half has his birthday this week and our daughter has bought him 2 pet rabbits. We have always had a rabbit or 2 but lost our last old boy a couple of months ago aged over 11( not totally sure he was rescue).We already have a covered run and hut on the lawn and OH plans to make another run and join them with a tunnel.

Mike1

Frogmorton - still just the one courgette plant!! There is no way I am going to a garden centre to get any more.

Kazza52

Hi everyone,

I have been gardening for about an hour a day whilst shielding (until recently when the weather turned wet and windy) but I hope to be outside again soon.

I love this time of year as all my roses and hanging baskets are in full bloom. Also, you hear more birdsong this time of year and when I do digging in the garden a lovely little Robin always appears.

Being outside is also good for wellbeing and if I am not gardening I sit in the garden just taking in the peace and tranquillity. Sheer bliss.

Stay safe everyone.🐶

Lilymary

We had a bit of excitement yesterday, we have a hedgehog feeding station in our garden and I put a movement sensor camera in there ,onetime s to see whats’s happening, and for the first time ever we had two hedgehogs in there at once, and I think one of them has been sheltering in our Hedgehog house during the day, (keeping out of the storms). Also visited by a few Wood mice and a bluebottle so large it set the camera off!

Bit fed up with all the storms we’ve been having though, it’s ruined my much loved roses and carnations/pinks, and it ripped the trellis and wisteria off the wall. We knew the trellis needed replacing, just didn’t get round to it in spring, but it’s going to be a pig of a job fixing it back up when it’s in full leaf (and coming up for a second flush of bloom). We’ll do a temporary job for now and a proper job come autumn.

we also had our first spotted woodpecker on the bird feeder by the front door this week, we used to feed the birds in the back but we moved it to the front when we fenced the garden (think whipsnade meets Colditz) to keep the cats in, and it’s great to see so many birds flocking to it, we’ve done well for sparrows and blue tits this year, the jackdaws come down in raiding mobs, and we get long tailed tits, coal tits, dunnocks, robins, wood pigeon, thrushes, blackbirds, finches (green, gold and chaff), and just one nuthatch, It’s a constant hive of activity, we love it. Really pleased the sparrow have done so well this year, they’re having a tough time at the moment.

Lilymary

I thought you might enjoy seeing the visitors to our hedgehog cafe. We've had it going for a while, but it's the first time we've had two hedgehogs in there at once, so very excited!

KazandNoo

Amazing! I love hedgehogs 😊

Lilymary

Me too, but I’ve realised why they don’t make pets, boy are they messy and smelly! But very sweet too.

stellabean

I raised 2 orphaned Hedgehogs we always caused a stir when we visited the vets we started with 3 but as with all wildlife they don't always survive to release size. You are right they are smelly but also very noisy but so adorable.

Lilymary

Good for you Stella! Our local rescue usually has 75 in at any one time. I dread to think what her she smells like 🦔🦔🦔😅

Mike1

Noticed that a cottage opposite my village shop have a stall outside to raise funds for animal charities so had to force myself to plant a couple of marigolds and a couple of sweetcorn plants. I am in the process of putting raised a train track over the pond in my garden so that I can run a live steam train from my chair. Will post pictures when it is done, which depends on if and when the promised help turns up!

Crookesey

Just been thinking (I know, it does hurt) we’ve got one of those green wheelie bins that cost us circa £50.00 p/a. We always manage to fill it for it’s fortnightly collection by the council, not many of our neighbours have bothered with one, what do they do with their garden waste? 🤔🤨

Mike1

https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/comment/670193#Comment_670193

Not that I have much but if I do I chuck mine over the hedge into the field!

stellabean

We used to get a green collection from our council you paid extra for it but they have stopped coming as we are a rural area even though many people used it. Now some people dump their rubbish in the river (which can lead to flooding down stream) . I have a huge compost bin that turns the composting it holds a huge amount of stuff but still takes ages to rot down.

Lilymary

We have a beetle love-in going on in our garden, an amorous bunch of common red soldier beetles, aka hogweed bonking beetles. They’re really very sweet (and very small), must have about 50 of them on the astrantia for the last few days 🐞❤️😊

Mike1

Well, although a couple of people have often said to me "if you need a hand all you have to do is ask" I have NEVER called upon them for help and have suffered their ear-bashings afterwards. Having completed my in-door train layout I wanted an outdoor one in my back garden so I can run my Mamod live steam train. It needed to be on a raised base as I can't bend over and I wanted to operate it from my chair. So I bit the bullet and asked for help and here is the result:

That's my seat in the bottom right hand corner so all I have to do is lean forward slightly by pulling myself forward on the handrail and fire up my train. I am not going to make it detailed but I did knock up a simple station out of scrap wood in the garage and then bought some figures to go on it.

Shell_H

Mike that train set up looks amazing 😊

I love the station, and it’s a brilliant idea to have your steam train outside, it makes so much sense. So glad you got help to make it work.

Lilymary

That’s fab Mike, looks like hours of entertainment there. Pretty garden too.

Mike1

Nobody has posted on here for nearly a month, so here goes:

Here is the train layout I am putting together in my back garden on which I run a Mamod live steam train, not finished yet:

It is at a height which I can work on from my chair or wheelchair. The cutout in the middle is so I can still see my pond

I have two goldfish in it, Fred and Ginger. Fred is all gold and Ginger is gold and white with orange lips. Vixen leaves them alone but she is rather partial to their fishfood so I have to give her some if she is around when I feed them!

Lilymary

That’s brilliant Mike! Lovely little pond too, I had goldfish years ago and my cat used to like the fish food too, I’d forgotten about that. Mine were Eric and Dylan, got them at a fair ground and took them home on my moped, hanging off my belt in their sad little plastic bags. I had them for over 17 years. Loved them to bits.

frogmorton

I love it! Mike it's brilliant!! What a fabulous hobby. Just keep quiet or all the village kids will be round to see it!

Miss Daisycat AKA 'Sleek' also loves fish food I can imagine why bless them🐱

I have two tropical fish left that's all from the days when my girls wanted them. They are clown loaches and extremely funny. Must post a pic in pets corner...🤔

Mike1

With Vixen being so keen on eating fish food I thought that I would try it myself, after a couple of flakes I don't know what all the fuss is about as I didn't find it especially tasty! 😝

Airwave!

Love th3 steam train! I’m just renovating a 1920’s steam yacht, alas the boiler will remain a relic of its time.

Apples are falling, our freezer is getting full, I tried a small bit of madams chilli pepper the other day, must remember not to put too much in the food, I’ll try and hang onto the top of my head, phew! Pears are nearly ready, lots this year. We had stuffed marrow the other night, yum. The peppers, spinach, toms etc went into the stir fry the other night and salads during the week, oh heaven.

The grass hasn’t grown much, not that I’m too bothered about that. Madams flowers are all doing well she’s just found some autumn cyclamen coming up which we enjoy, the bougainvillea is going strong and roses going round for the umpteenth time, Isuppse we could say things are rosy in the garden?

its a grin, honest!

stellabean

I have today received a letter from the parish council to say that after 13 years of trying I have won the best allotment prize on my site this year. Don't get too excited there are only 9 plots on it we are a select few. We heard rumors about 13 yrs ago that they were going to get rid of this site and decided to get a plot to put a stop to it as once they were gone they were gone. We ended up with 2 on a site so overgrown you could not get in through the gate. It was covered with wall to wall rosebay willow herb, nettles,docks, thistles and any terrible weed you can mention. Most of the other plot holders didn't do their plots some only had second homes in the area. so after many years of clearing the weeds getting all the plots filled and reporting the negligent ones we have a nice site. My hubby cuts all the grass around the site and keeps the hedge in check and we help new people get going , share plants and produce it is so good to see it used. The best was the old lady who the parish council rented it off has left it to them to only be used as an allotment for the locals, so her niece who wanted to build a massive house on it can't. It is apparently over 40 years since all the plots were worked.

Lilymary

@stellabean what a lovely story, well done!