Kicked into overdrive...
My winter gardening has kicked into overdrive, as I prune and dig, weed and plant. The Moosey paths are being formalised, too - widened and covered with wood shavings. There can be no more path shifting!
Red Wallflower
Monday 30th July - Some Good Advice
The Plan - swim in the rain (so to speak). During swim, plan absolutely all positions of all hebes and roses. Remember that some hebes grow big and fat, while others stay slender. Climbing roses climb, and ground cover roses are low to the ground. Simple. On arrival back home, prepare for long, wet, muddy planting session. So simple.
Right. I'm back. Now to implement The Plan. and take notice of Some Good Advice. Fat hebes and three thin ones go in Henworld, plus the Jester flax. Roses go in the rugosa rose garden, alongside newly widened path. Spare hebes, if any, go waterside. Two more standard roses are dug out and replanted in the Island Bed.
Reine des Violettes :- Reine des Violettes is a most beautifully fragrant rose, and such a wonderful colour. I hope she'll behave for me in the orchard.
Reine des Violettes gets dug out and transplanted, with the new climbing roses, straight into the Hazelnut Orchard. What a beautiful rose she is! Spare perennials go underneath the back fence. Wow! So much detail! So much action! So much energy...
And while I am doing all of the above, I will also be laying a second decent, wide path through the Hen House Gardens, which is to be covered with weed mat and wood shavings. Right. There's no time to lose. This is a major gardening day.
Four and a Half Hours Later...
I've been three quarters successful, and have retired indoors to enjoy triumphant feelings and organise the Moosey newsletter for August. I am lucky to be busy. And nine cats aren't too many on a country property with a large house. At the moment the only visible cat is Mugsy on her little fluffy mat by the fire.
Tuesday 31st July
This winter gardening lark is easy! The only problem is the lack of colourful visual material to photograph. Prepare for lots of close-ups of hebes, with the odd hybrid flax leaf thrown in. And please understand if I have to use pictures from a previous winter - enough said.
No - I will say more. I am patiently waiting for the web-master, who I love to bits, to 'do' my latest photographs. It's taking him longer than it takes me to prune three hundred roses. Warning to webmaster - I've been garden-busy, and haven't been clicking my camera as much as I should. But that can easily change...
Fireside with the Cats
Kitten Memo to Self
Even if indoors, take new photographs (with flash) of the three kittens for possible publication. Investigate (see webmaster) them joining the Moosey Most Valuable Pet Competition, if there is enough room. Suggest to webmaster (aargh!) that Percy the new ginger kitten could take all of long deceased Ginger Puss's votes. Nature's natural replacement...
Welcome Garden :- This is the first version of my Welcome Garden, before I started expanding it and filling it up with plants.
Now today. I stopped the car just inside the gates and stared at the Welcome Garden. Conclusion - this area is a mess, with random plantings. Fact - this area is inhospitable, and even New Zealand natives grow very slowly. Aesthetics - the mulch is dull brown. So dull brown flaxes, for example, are not a good look.
Solutions
Plant Solution - clean, green hebes, green Ake Akes, and some Yellow Wave flaxes, which look light and cheerful in the gloomiest place. Design Solution - hebes in little lines, pittosporums in arcs, and triangles of other plants to counteract slow growth, large space, and impatient gardener. Maybe even a sensible path - but why would anyone ever want to wander in there? Aha! Maybe some steps - to entice, and confuse the randomness. The Welcome Garden is possibly the only garden area I have with a noticeable slope. Use that slope!
And if none of the above works, cut my losses and install a ridiculously overweight and voluptuous terracotta pot, or a statue of a shepherdess. Eek!