My Garden 2009

[tahir_phoenix]

Asalaam alaykum everyone!! We're well into spring and things are starting to grow again in the garden and I've moved all my plants out the shed and back into the garden now that the chance of frost is very slim :)

I managed to finish the fence where there was once nothing but overgrown laurels and conifers - some over 12ft high and a pain to maintain!! :eek:

Still plenty needs to be done as inshallah I will eventually landscape the back part of the garden for my palms and exotics etc. A project maybe for next year :p

As u can also see the pesky weeds have shot up all over the place, some nearly as big as the plants/shrubs :mad: I don't like killing them but they will need to come out otherwise they will eventually take over!

[tahir_phoenix]

The shed which was hidden by about 5 overgrown conifers and a big laurel! The chainsaw was the only option with these guys as they were too close to the house and blocking all the light.

Also the boundary with the old broken fence supported by the huge laurel - both have been taken out and replaced with a proper fence and my palms can now sit in the full sun :cool:

[tahir_phoenix]

1st pic is the poppies hidden in the back corner of the garden along with a million dandelions and weeds which inshallah I will clear out in the next few weeks before the poppies start to flower (in mid may)

2nd pic, the massacre of the rhubarb patch - there was a huge conifer (3 car loads full to the dump site!) growing in the middle which I cut out last year to give the rhubarb some space and air.

3rd pic, the view from the back of the garden with the two apple trees in the middle growing happily and give me around 600+ apples every autumn :D

[Foz]

MashAllah your garden is lovely!

[Tania]

I agree with Fozia and in addition i must say you have a huuuuge garden. :)

[~Obsidian~]

Wa Alaikum AsSalaam

Masha Allah, amazing and huge garden! :eek:

[Riz]

Hi T..

The hedge looks prim and proper did you prune it, if so great job !!!. The rubarb will get really big now, great Jurassic looking leafs.. A hammock would look great inbetween the 2 apple trees :)

[tahir_phoenix]

thank you very much! :p

Riz - the big hedge is around 12-13ft and i will be trimming it inshallah next week (weather permitting), it only needs cutting once or twice a year (depending on the amount of rain!). The smaller hedge is easier to maintain but I would prefer it to be much taller (more privacy from irritating neighbours :mad:

The elderly chap who owned the house before me planted all these hedges and conifers, some are ok, some are completely in the wrong place like next to the house :eek: people dont realise these small trees grow massive within 10-15 years so a little thought about location of planting saves a lot of heavy pruning later on. By the way that big tree (spruce) will get chopped down later this year also :p

[Kirsten]

Oh I am so jealous :) that is a beautiful garden!

[edibles]

it is indeed a lovely garden.
when i was saw it was your thread i thought palms, palms, the odd palm, and a couple of err... oh yeah palms lol
but no instead its a well looked after nice garden.i like evrything about it.
is it the same garden as the one from garden makeover from a novice thread

[tahir_phoenix]

it is indeed a lovely garden.
when i was saw it was your thread i thought palms, palms, the odd palm, and a couple of err... oh yeah palms lol
but no instead its a well looked after nice garden.i like evrything about it.
is it the same garden as the one from garden makeover from a novice thread

Yes u were right to think that :) I have a few palms and the collection is growing - very slowly as I am growing them from seed - very slow process!

The garden in the makeover thread was my old house which I sold back in 2006, I bought this house back in 2007 and not really done much to the garden apart from chopping a few laurels and conifers down but I have to give credit to the elderly chap who lived here before me, he's made a very nice job of the garden - simple and not too difficult to maintain - apart from the pesky weeds :mad:

[tahir_phoenix]

We had a couple days of nice sunny weather and the poppies have started to flower :)

Does anyone know can I chop the heads off once the leaves have fallen off as I want to collect the seeds and grow the poppies in other parts of the garden next year?? ::o

[Riz]

no

way to early for that yet T.. you will have to wait until the pods turn golden brown and then you can cut the head of and collect the seeds..

don't do it before that as the seeds are not even made yet.. it takes time for that to happen..

i have pics ill post up later for you to see :)

[Riz]

look..

if the head is still green, the seeds are white and immature and not ready..

you will have to wait till maybe august to harvest the seeds, you can just snip the bud of completely and insert in bag, as you will get hundreds of seeds in one bud..

you can see the difference between the green head and the brown head , the latter is ready for you to collect the seeds :)

[Riz]

hundreds of tiny black seeds :)


http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa300/sajid_012/poppyseeds.jpg

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa300/sajid_012/jarfullseeds.jpg

[tahir_phoenix]

Salaam Riz - many thanks for the photos and the advice I'll wait till they go a browny colour before taking the pods off.

I have also sown some Papaver somniferum (giant poppy variety) which i bought off ebay, I hope these grow as my aim is to grow poppies of all varieties throughout the garden. :cool:

[GuitarCrazyo]

Not right now, but I would like to start a garden when we buy a house, hopefully in the next few months. I like most of the stuff youre growing, but I would add some fresh herbs, basil, thyme, rosemary, parsley, etc. Ive also always wanted an apple tree and a lemon tree, but that may be expensive or take a long time to have any fruit. My granfather used to have an awesome garden with figs trees, blackberries, rasberries, corn, potatoes, all kinds of stuff.f Fresh food is where its at.