I've gone to seed?
Autumn continues to 'march' in - I feel like I've gone to seed, a bit like my lettuces in the vegetable garden. It's Moosey the Moocher, let loose in her large country garden. And there is a slight problem with the Moosey garden photographs...
Photograph of Cat Food
No Photographs!
I wish to apologise for this page's lack of colourful, up-to-date photographs of early autumn roses, and yellow daisies, and lovely purple angelica-seed heads, and shining green astelias...
Webmaster Too Busy!
My web-master has been too busy to 'load' my latest garden images into the system. Humph. In lieu, please enjoy this photograph of the Moosey cat food, and try to imagine all the beautiful colours of early autumn.
Thursday 15th March
Mind you the last two days have been cold and rainy, and we gardeners are sensitive souls, much affected by water dripping down our necks and cold wet legs. And if, magically, we were able to publish our latest camera images, I'm sure we'd feel better!
Anyway, today the sun is shining, and I have gentle plans, which involve not only garden maintenance but a new set of piano pieces - new repertoire for the artistic soul.
Much Later...
Well, well, well. I have just finished gardening - I've been pottering out there quietly for four hours. The edge of the Frisbee Garden is redug - just a little bit bigger. I do this every year, so technically in about fifty years time there should be no Frisbee Lawn left. If I had my way there would be a peaceful pond in the middle of this lawn, anyway, instead of crackling dry brown paddock grass.
Photograph of Cordyline
Sorry, Cordylines...
I've also used up my weekly newspapers in the Welcome Garden, and put mulch over the top. I noticed three green cordylines sadly struggling in here - unfortunately, I won't be helping them, as this is very much a sink or swim garden area.
I've also been keeping a strict eye on Rusty the fattie foodie dog - my hens do not need him scavenging in their chicken run for chook layer pellets. Today, poultry paradise for the grey striped hens - a mouldy old lump of feta cheese, which they demolished quickly, chortling away. Hope that they know what's good for them!
I'm almost ready to buy some new native plants, new bulbs, new roses (the big rose sale starts soon) and some new shrubs for the Frisbee garden border. I think that's what gardeners do when the weather turns to autumn. Isn't it called forward planning? It's not just greed, is it? Anyway, I feel so much better now I've had a busy garden day. Moosey the Moocher is banned from the garden until further notice.
Friday 16th March
I've been thinking more about spring - it's six months away, but now is the time to make good plans and purchases. I might get some bags of scented daffodils later today - the ones called 'Cheerfulness' can inspire me to be a cheerful gardener. Tulips, too, for splashes of spring red - perhaps in little bulb cages so I can lift them after flowering, before they escape.
The Moosey Webmaster :- I have to resort to pictures of cat food, dodgy cordylines, and the webmaster as a toddler. Wish he'd toddle on and load those images!
Humph. Still my garden photographs are unable to be published. I have pictures of asters, and pictures of roses, and the giant Gunnera leaves by the water race - plus my beautiful favourite cat B-Puss... Please Mr Webmaster - for once in your life do what your mother tells you!
Saturday 17th March
Yesterday was an inspired gardening day. I'll make a list of achievements, since there seemed to be so many!
Yesterday's Achievements
- I ordered some spring bulbs online! Very modern.
- I seriously widened the Frisbee Border.
- I planted hebes and corokias, and laid mulch in there.
Oops - doesn't look quite as good as it felt! But I'm so pleased with the garden improvements - it's a bold solution, when a garden is giving trouble, to dig it bigger. Hee hee! And there was more inspiration apres gardening - I have 'discovered' that Albeniz wrote piano music, and I am playing some some. I always thought he wrote for guitar, and got occasionally transcribed for piano - all these years I have been wrong! Also I have found the grooviest Prokovief piano sonata, in D minor - every pianist needs to have at least one good sonata on the go.
And how about today? I've already raked some mess up from around the Hen House, while Fluff-Fluff showed off, cruising around with the chooks inside their run. Rooster totally ignored him - attack the human carrying food, ignore a stalking cat. Seems rather odd to me. And to finish off a delightful morning we have won our cricket match against England. Ha! This coffee tastes great!
Later, Mid-Afternoon...
Well, I have done another three hours clearing by Rooster Bridge. I have a new mentor (well, for the moment) - the famous Rosemary Verey, whom I watched on TV by chance yesterday afternoon. She talked about colour wheels which I sort of ignored. And then, with a lanky, manly garden help in tow, she said how she likes all parts of her garden to look good enough for visitors, every day. So they - he? - trimmed the comfrey down, because the weekend wind had made it look messy, and placed five large pots of almost flowering lilies in the gap...
View of Rooster Bridge, with Irises
And I thought about the small one-woman war I am waging on Moosey mess, and smiled. I will use her advice though, in a cheeky sort of way, for the next few days. Thus, I have tidied up the thoroughfare through from the glass-house to the Hen House - a hypothetical visitor who wanders off to see my chooks will be rewarded. Rosemary Verey appears to be a compulsive gap-filler - I can learn from this - but she doesn't like roses. Hmm...
Still No Photographs!
Aargh! By the time that I can show you photographs of my garden slowly turning autumnal, it will be winter! Aargh! Where is my webmaster? He must have London spring fever...