Gardening with a head cold...
Yellow Spring Daffodils
Sorry - I've been a bit journal-absent, sulking in the house with a bad cold. Gardening with a head cold isn't pleasant. A gardener leans over a lot, the nose reacts accordingly, and the head feels even more woolly than usual. Enough self-pity!
Tuesday 15th September
I am still sick. But today I feel more like gardening... watch this space!
Later...
I'm puzzled - it's happened again. 'It' is that peculiar distortion which happens after I've had a couple of days off from the garden. Today I am seeing SO MANY things which I need to do. These things were not visible to me three days ago. I think it's quite unfair. Anyway, I've been gently weeding and trimming edges around the house gardens - and sniffing. I'm still a bit sick, so I'm off to buy a couple of new flaxes to cheer myself up.
Wednesday 16th September
Wow - so much is happening in the spring garden. Unfortunately I am still a bit sick to be fully enjoying myself. Yesterday there was an amazing snowfall of blossom from the big flowering cherry. A scrumptious new pink Camellia is flowering in the Driveway Garden - I must check on its name. the flower is as beautiful as a peony. I can see new colours - bright red tulips, blue Corydalis, purple Honesty, white Iberia...
Pond Paddock Garden Bench
Light reading for the slightly sick - some English garden magazines. I'm amazed by the advertisements for replica stone statues, fancy wooden seats, bronze sculptures, evocative summer houses, and the like. I wonder if any normal English gardeners have the money to buy such things. It makes my motley collection of seats, pots, and gnomes look pretty ho-hum. Do I care? When I'm slightly sick I seem to - just a little. It's the 'poor me, poor me' syndrome.
This Cat is No Angel...
Quirky Loveliness?
To reaffirm that my garden furniture is indeed a picture of quirky loveliness I've just sniffed and coughed my way around the garden taking photographs, accompanied by scampering cats, one of which seriously chased Minimus the kitten. There was much scary squealing, and Rusty the dog found a heap of fur on the lawn. Eek!
I'm going to continue my watering and weeding, and plant my new flaxes and my birthday rose (Ellen). Minimus is holed up underneath the decking, and I need to check her for damage.
Lunchtime...
I've had a much better morning. Yesterday all I could see were huge looming garden tasks - mountains of weeds, borders desperate for hours of my attention. Somehow today the look is less daunting. I've just put the hoses on my new transplants (a pink Camellia and a President Roosevelt rhododendron) and have retired inside for a short rest. Just quietly - it's a TV stop, an episode of Midsomer Murders, one of my easy-watch pre-recorded programmes.
Later...
Right. I've been back outside burning my rubbish and potting up a bag of irises. I've been coughing all over my plants without feeling unhygienic. The Miscanthus Zebrinus is trimmed, all stalks and seedheads burnt, and I finished the day potting up a bag of new irises (bought for small dollars, colours unknown). But it got too dark...
Rusty by the Stone Wall
And luckily for Minimus - those clumps of fur I found on the lawn belong to a rabbit. I haven't found the rabbit yet. Anyway, I'm pleased with my day, and am looking forward to bed.
Thursday 17th September
Ha! I'm back! I am even more better (grammar?) and today I promise to be positive, energetic, and totally well-organised. Does that sound like a sentence from a sick woman? No way! I'll be watering again, possibly planting some of my new roses, and potting up the last of the new irises. I wonder if they will flower this season? I am about to drink my first cup of hot coffee in days...
Percy by the Euphorbia
Much Later...
Stern words to the Moosey nose - stop making the Moosey gardener feel so dreadful! I've been trying to keep going, but it's hopeless! It's TV and cup of tea time, I think. I also read another of those posh garden magazines over lunchtime - called 'Gardens Illustrated'. Oh boy - big mistake. Gardens Illustrated is not to be sniffed or sneezed at. It has a precious upper-class feeling, as if everything is aimed at the discerning client rather than a grumpy gardener with a dripping nose. But the replica watering cans are super stylish! And I found a 95 year-old woman on the back page who has just created a new garden out of a wilderness. I do so want to believe her, but I can't picture her up ladders pruning. Sorry.
Friday 18th September
Today I have big plans. I'm off to a friend's garden to dig out some Agapanthus, some sad flaxes, and some variegated irises (they're not proper irises - possibly Dietes). I still haven't cleaned my car after carrying three super-sized Hebes in it - so that would have been a waste of time. On the way home I can fill any spaces left with bags of horse manure. Some gardeners have really unsavoury car habits.
Later, Mid-Afternoon...
Yippee! I'm back, and I've planted all the new Dietes clumps (I'm going to call them that until I find out otherwise). Some are in the Frisbee Border, the rest are on the edge of the Hump. I've been gardening non-stop for three hours. I also planted my new pink Phormium in the Frisbee Border, underneath the climbing rose Cecile Brunner. They will look beautiful together later in summer - two pink friends, yet hugely contrasting.
Cinnamon Cindy Camellia
The hoses are on, and I'm about to go apres-gardening. I've had a groovy day. All my new plants are filling up garden gaps so nicely. I've been super-lucky with free stuff - more Agapanthus are coming (from another friend) next week. Thus old, unwanted plants and shrubs are getting a new lease of life in a superb country garden. Nice! And I've bought another gnome (for four dollars). Oops.