What’s happening in your garden today?

[mcelliott]

Been cutting pathways - one in my 'lawn', and the others around our grazing field, plus a path with a mini crop circle, just big enough for a small table and chairs and a bottle of wine. Lovely.

[Portofino]

Some lovely photos in this thread.

Latest in my garden:

These bad boys, as big as your hand.




Lovely rose with a beautiful smell.



A new delicate Iris I’ve not seen before.



& down the wild end of my garden. Wild Teasel, 6 foot tall, Compost bin for scale.

[Japveesix]

It's certainly not the standard immaculate PH 1/2 acre garden in Surrey but it still brings us endless pleasure and is very heavily managed for wildlife, who equally appear to appreciate our efforts.

This combo of self-seeded nigella, spirea, geum and snow-in-summer gives a nice backdrop for my car currently at the front:




Out back it's getting very green and jungley with a few things in flower.

Flag iris just over and a massive of elder behind the pond:



Tangerine dream, not at its best this year, plus a rose and the pyracantha in full flower:



Pyracantha very popular with the rose chafers:


Azure blue damsels on the pond:


We get a lot of slow worms in the back and out front so I manage it heavily for them, lots of rough/wild areas, log piles and slates to bask under (always in use):



Also get hedgehogs, who usually breed here, so they have houses and suitable habitat too

[thepritch]

Japveesix said:

It's certainly not the standard immaculate PH 1/2 acre garden in Surrey but it still brings us endless pleasure and is very heavily managed for wildlife, who equally appear to appreciate our efforts.

It’s not a contest, and I’m loving everyone’s garden pictures, but I do love yours…. Don’t take this the wrong way but some of those flowers and plants look ‘wild meadow’ like which I really enjoy. Think I’ll show my wife as they’re the colors and types of flowers we bad in mind for an area just behind our house. And we too enjoy having the wildlife here.

What other animals do you get?

Lovely

[mcelliott]

Our sweet peas are going bonkers, literally collecting handfuls daily for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Also doing a small experiment on planting a row of sunflowers on our rough patch. If they're successful we'll do a much larger block next year, which we're excited about. The oxeye daisy has just about reached its peak, and gives us immense pleasure.

[thepritch]

mcelliott said:

The oxeye daisy has just about reached its peak, and gives us immense pleasure.

Wow!

How many years has it taken to reach this density? Did you seed / plant them?

[Japveesix]

mcelliott said:

This is great, definitely something to aspire to for me. Both the wildlife friendly land and the vintage tractor!

I've been letting the weeds (wildflowers) grow the last few years. Generally only remove bramble, nettle and bindweed nowadays and then only because I have little kids for the first two.

Herb Robert with valerian (great pollinator plant) and buddleia coming through the middle.



Ragwort in the middle of the garden (not yet in flower), perhaps the most pollinator covered flower we get:



Hogweed, this is self seeding a bit and I sometimes remove them purely because they take up so much space:



The rough and wild corner (well one of them...). Great mullein, slender dock, nettle, woundwort, hawkweed and various others. I mostly just leave things to grow here and see what happens:


We get a lot of butterflies for a fairly small urban garden. Speckled wood in pic, plus things like common blue and meadow butterflies because we have long grass areas.



Obligatory frog (newt/frog wars are ongoing)


We've definitely spent more time watching the wildlife in the last 9 years here than we have watching TV. Badger, fox, squirrel, woodpeckers, jays, tits (wahey!), dragonflies and so on. There's always something to see and hopefully my two boys will grow up loving nature and happy outside too. We'll definitely miss the garden more than the house when we move.

[Ace-T]

An unexpected Dutch iris in the front garden. I may have planted it, I genuinely can't remember!

[thepritch]

Our cotoneaster is alive with bees and wasps. Tens, if not a hundred or so at one time. The sound of buzzing is immense and they're not interested in anything else.

And as a few posters were talking wildlife, we are lucky to have a family of red squirrels here. They are here every day, but this morning, this little chap finding his winter cache.

Cotoneaster video here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ben0509uk/5376194689...

Reddy video here : https://www.flickr.com/photos/ben0509uk/5376174069...

[abzmike]

What's happening in my gargen today? Mainly weeding, and I hate it. Seems that weeds grow more strongly than anything, just impossible to keep on top of the things. Tried chemicals, matting, bark, it's just s continuous job.

[RichB]

It's been all hands on deck this last week innpreparation for opening the garden tomorrow charity

[RichB]

It's been all hands on deck this last week innpreparation for opening the garden tomorrow charity

[CharlesdeGaulle]

I cut this rose today. It's from a plant called 'Congratulations' that my late parents gave me after a promotion. It smells lovely.

I've moved it around with me for the last 30 years and have a significant sentimental attachment to it.

[The Three D Mucketeer]

RichB said:

It's been all hands on deck this last week innpreparation for opening the garden tomorrow charity

Just planning on the Two visitors then and no beer

[RichB]

The Three D Mucketeer said:

RichB said:

It's been all hands on deck this last week innpreparation for opening the garden tomorrow charity

Just planning on the Two visitors then and no beer

Tea and cakes, no beer

[mcelliott]

thepritch said:

mcelliott said:

The oxeye daisy has just about reached its peak, and gives us immense pleasure.

Wow!

How many years has it taken to reach this density? Did you seed / plant them?

Thank you guys, the site was formally a large greenhouse vinery which we pulled down, got as much crap out of the soil, the spent an autumn and winter prepping it, we sowed the first patch in the spring of last year, mostly poppies cosmos and other stuff, the oxeye geminated as well but didn't flower until this year, any weeds have been smothered by the yellow rattle that was in the seed mix, at the end of the summer we will collect the seed heads by hand and ether sell them or use them for other areas. We also in the next few months plan to start building our new house in the top corner of the site, where the packing shed is visible in one of the pics, once we start moving I will start a build thread for anyone interested.

[AlvinSultana]

In my garden today, a Buzzard swooped and picked off one of the Moor Hen chicks from the duck house in our pond. Unfortunately his constant companions the crows mobbed him as he made his getaway and he dropped his dinner.

The chick was 3-4 weeks old and did not survive. This brood have been quite successful with 4 of the 7 still alive. We recently found a half eaten Mallard floating in the pond and I suspect this Buzzard might be a regular visitor.

No pics of the drama I’m afraid, but this is one of the chicks when they were a few days old.

[2HFL]

This fine looking fella has been hanging around all day in my garden.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Strawbs and chillis doing pretty well.

[loughran]

Those strawberries look good... and early ! Here in Yorkshire ours are still at the small green thingy stage but hopefully it won't be long now.

Meanwhile... a bird in the hand, this is a nuthatch in our garden today, resting briefly before heading off into the Dale.