Take time to notice and enjoy...
Aargh! Blast! This week my Moosey garden experiences will be rather thin on the (unweeded) ground. There may even be no journal entries! I hope the garden will wait patiently for my return. Roses - please don't all start blooming at once!
Bluebells
Saturday 15th October
What a delightful time of the gardening year this is - and so subtle! I will try again to do some time lapse photography, this time on the peonies. Their fresh new foliage is now knee high, and their flower buds are expanding. The birth of a peony flower will be recorded - hopefully!
Chatham Island Flowers :- The beautiful perennial Chatham Island Forget-Me-Not grows rather well for me - without being spectacular.
The aquilegias scattered around the various gardens are flowering. The beautiful blue flowerheads of the Chatham Island Forget-Me-Nots can be spied at the back of the woodshed.
yet more blues - the English bluebells (or are they Spanish?) underneath my yet-to-leaf Oak trees are beautiful and blue - and flowering. And yesterday I noticed the foxglove stems have shot upwards. Soon, soon, soon!
Canary Bird Rose
Rose News
There is early rose news, too. The single yellow Canary Bird in the Jelly Bean Garden is now in full flower, and edging the Pond Paddock the bigger single Fruhlinsgold has started - with the pink fence rose Clair Matin for flower company. In winter I sawed down huge tree branches which were overhanging Clair Matin, thus creating much more light and air - I am rewarded!
And I mustn't forget the bluish-white flowers of the iris confusa, spreading along the path edges in the Wattle Woods.
The weedy forget-me-nots scatter their little bright blue flowers throughout the house gardens, the blue irises are upright, strong spikes of colour by the house patio. Purple and white Honesty fill and brighten the rougher gardens (under the gums by the Pump House, and in the Hump). And the lawns are so beautifully green! Make the most of this, I should say!
In the glass-house my seedlings are up - blue cornflowers are already pricked out into pottles, and those relatively expensive pansy seeds have germinated. Lettuces are finger high, and the spuds are sprouting - they need planting.
Sun on the House Lawns
Today I have the last of the specimen trees to plant, and then a few pots of daylilies and other perennials to find places for. This planting time is fun! Then I will pot up the variegated pelargonium and daisy cuttings and sow some more seeds in the glass-house. Lovely! I can have a weed-free morning - well, weeding-free, at least!
Sunday 16th October
Most of which I said I'd do yesterday I did. The new tree looks great, giving easy height to the back of the Willow Tree Garden. But naturally I just had to weed underneath it - that took some time! I forgot to take my time lapse picture of the peony bud. That had better still be buddy 'today' - the growth and unfurling of a flower bud is not a linear function of time! Ha!
Cercis in Autumn :- The ornamental tree Cercis Forest Pansy is so pretty in autumn.
The Cercis Forest Pansy tree seems to have buds - from a distance (oops, not wearing my glasses) someone has sprinkled pink translucent beads all over the tree branches. A photograph is definitely needed before - pouff! - these magically turn into normal red leaves... Actually there are a lot of weeds everywhere. Blast! They are isolated (lumps of grass, dandelions, and so on), coming through the mulch. And those green and pleasant lawns? They need mowing. And their green and pleasant edges? They need trimming. Off outside I go...
Yippee for Rusty the Dog...
But there's one small thing I want to do before gliding outside in my stretch denims and 99 cent white gardening gloves - it concerns Rusty the red border collie puppy - or dog, really, as he is now nearly one year old. It may be controversial, but Rusty is the most faithful gardening companion I've ever had - cats included
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+5
It's time he enjoyed some star recognition in the world of Moosey pets - and specifically in the Most Valuable Pet Competition. I am awarding him five bonus points for being faithful and sensible, though he zoomed around doing circuits yesterday with a pot of purple perennial verbena in his mouth. No harm done...
Later...
I've come inside after a couple of hours spent planting and weeding by the water race. It's a great day (warm and windless) and I plan to return to do the lawn edges after my lunch break. The final rose is planted on the final rose arch - it's a fragrant David Austin short to medium climber called Crown Princess Margareta, and will share archway number four with Phyllis Bide. All that is needed now is a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and the new rose avenue will officially exist!
Red Maple and Pink Rhododendron
Oops - there were a few new roses at the market where I bought the ten dollar Crown Princess - David Austin roses that I haven't got growing (as yet) in the Moosey Garden. I might return with a larger cash float next weekend - there are lots of spaces for more new roses, and I need to keep up with modern, current rose trends. Hee hee...
Tuesday 18th October
Yesterday I weeded in the dry, dusty Frisbee Garden (which I also watered, out of sympathy). I've never really planted this little garden border properly, but it should be perfect for the bearded irises planted last autumn. Hope they flower!
There is definitely a second phase of blossom filling the gardens which surround the house. The flowering cherries in the pond paddock, the apple trees, the big shrubby Viburnum-tree, as well as the big fat Mexican orange blossom shrub which dominates the Island Bed. Every window I look out is filled with a froth of white and pale pink. And the delicate deeply vibrant pink 'things' on the Cercis Forest pansy are flowers - I peered very closely at them yesterday. Today's first mission is thus a deeply vibrant photography session! Hopefully I can also get some suitable 'mug shots' (hee hee) of my new, gracefully curving Chelsea Flower Show Tea Mug. Such style!
And the roses - more and more are blooming - this is a terribly exciting garden-time! Pity my hands are a bit sore from weeding, and I have to go into work later this morning. Double blast! And sorry to Stumpy the cat, my journal writing cat-companion, who I have just propelled rudely off my lap into the heater. Ouch!
Footnote - An Important Moosey Message
A big work-work assignment has just come up for me. For approximately the next week the Moosey life experiences will be rather thin on the (unweeded) ground. There may even be no journal entries! The garden will have to wait patiently for my return.