December and Christmas...
Merry Christmas to everyone - and especially to the Moosey Garden, with all its flora and fauna. So far this morning the cats have had Christmas beef, the humans have had a special Christmas breakfast, and the chooks some fresh 'fat hen' (it's a green weed that they love to eat). Rusty just got boring dog biscuits, but he got to lick the bowl with the remains of the hash-brown mixture... Ah well, it's a dog's life...
Best Wishes from Me
Thursday December 25th
It's drizzling lightly outside, so the trimming of the Christmas edges is postponed for later. Non-Gardening Partner reckons that he mowed all the lawns yesterday evening. All of them - and he claims he moved all the garden seats. Hmm... Oops, just checked, and he has!
Dog with Ginger Cats
My Dog Is Bored...
All the gardens look beautiful with their lawns cut. It's a fatal flaw in my garden style that I have 'paddock lawns' which tend to look rough. I'll take Rusty the dog (he's bored with Christmas already) outside to trim some edges just as soon as that rain stops.
Actually, I've had a small idea to remove one of the scoopy lawn shapes over the water race, the one by the small Koru Garden - remove meaning dig and convert it into garden. I haven't done a major dig since building the Birthday Rose Garden. The back of the Shrubbery doesn't really count, because that was so grassless I just laid thick newspaper down and covered it with mulch.
Hmm... a Christmas dig? Sounds interesting...
Friday 26th December
Some decent Christmas gardening is required. Yesterday I 'pottered' between showers, cleared a barrowful of weeds, picked a posy of roses and cornflowers, and then got garden-bored (actually a bit wet). So today the plan is as follows:
Christmas Gardening List
- Plant rescued rhododendrons and pieris.
- Weed vegetable garden.
- Dead-head Dog-Path Garden roses.
- Weed the Welcome Garden.
I have some more general things to think about, which will be burbled rather than listed: Where should the half wine barrel go? It's been sitting in the Welcome Garden doing nothing for six months. There are pelargoniums (from cuttings) in the glass-house, ready to plant out. Naturally there are edges to trim (and several hebes, spilling over the path to the Hen House).
The bright pink Flower Carpet roses look amazing at this time of the year, when many of the other roses are resting. Perhaps I could buy in a few more for the edge of the Shrubbery. I'm always dreamily staring out the house window at this new garden, which is green-leafy and spiky above its stone retaining wall. Perhaps some patches of shocking pink?
Hello Hydrangea!
My incredibly scary analytical gardening library book called 'The Authentic Garden' is an inspiring, if daunting, read. It's given me at least twenty 'somethings' to think about, concepts of garden integrity to contemplate, and lots of pithy quotes. Plus new gardening phrases like 'wabi sabi' (which may or may not describe the Moosey garden gnome - must think about this one). Ha! And a sensible philosophy about sheep sculpture...
Later...
I'm back after four hot, hard-working hours gardening. I've christened my new super-pull-along-behind-me gardening rubbish cart, my Christmas present from younger son, who understands absolutely the responsibility of having a gardener for a mother. It's a gardening version of luggage on wheels - I feel like a reality TV contestant who has been asked to pack her bags and go home. From New Zealand's Next Top Gardener? Hmm...
Crepuscule :- Two Crepuscule climbing roses grow up and over the pergola. Well, there used to be two...
Yes to the first two items on the list above, too, and I've done much more. Non-Gardening Partner has chopped down the one diseased Crepuscule rose (on one side of the pergola). It was damaged a few years ago in a snow storm when some of the woody stems split, allowing entry for some nasty fungal problem. Well, that's my amateur diagnosis. I trimmed it heavily this last winter, hoping that the new growth might be healthy, but alas, not the case.
Now I'm off to plant some of my cutting grown daisies around the big gum tree. NGP is mowing the Frisbee Lawn. Christmas time at Mooseys is a quiet time of pottering, where life goes peacefully on - one doesn't have to lie on the couch eating fruit mince pies and drinking alcohol. Phew!
Sunday 27th December
I'm off for a Christmas swim with my friend who made me the most beautiful set of artistic cushion covers for Christmas. I gave her a Moosey calendar, complete with the following disclaimer:
The Moosey Management (me) accepts no responsibility for incorrect dates, or giving any month the wrong number of days. Always check first when writing in important appointments.
I will take her some spare calendula plants - she has small raised beds for her vegetables and calendulas (like my friend) are great companion plants. Then my gardening plan is as follows:
Second Christmas Gardening List
- 1. Weed the Welcome Garden (left over from yesterday).
- 2. Weed the orchard roses and tie in canes.
Ha! the shortest list of the year!
Later, Mid-Afternoon...
It's far too hot! but I've stuck to my list. Half of the climbing roses in the orchard are tidy, and Meg (a beautiful peachy-apricot single climber) gets the prize for the most dead-heads on one bush.