I'm biased?
Still Spring!
The garden is absolutely beautiful - I'm biased? You bet! I've been working hard for hours each October day, ending up slumped in a garden chair. Then I start plotting and planning for the next gardening day...
Thursday 15th October
I love this springy October month. It's different though - several of my larger Rhododendrons are having the year off. More specifically, they're flowering on about a quarter of their shrub-bulk. I know this happens, though - and I'm happy for them!
Today I'm off to do the edges around the Driveway Lawn. Then I need a quick flick through the Moosey glass-house to tidy it up - a friend (with her new dog) is coming to visit, and wants to see how I've set my glass-house up. Aargh! I know what I'm doing? Always, always...
What Else?
What else am I up to? I'll plant the red flaxes on the edge of the Hump, and then I do have seeds to prick out. This might be an impressive thing to be doing when my friend arrives? The beauty of this little plan is that it gets me out there early, and I pay attention to details (as I should).
Spring Shrubs in the Driveway - 2009
Right. Hoses on, cup of coffee, sunscreen on face, find new gardening gloves, and tell Rusty the dog our plans for the day. Rusty loves gardening. He does. Yesterday he lay by the pond staring at the water for about an hour while I planted roses and irises nearby. I did get the slightest impression that he wasn't connecting with me...
Dog and Tulips
Lunchtime...
My friend said really nice things about my garden - I love her lots! So the two dogs and the two friends have had a wonderful time. Chester the visiting Golden Retriever puppy is totally deaf - my friend uses dog sign language. She rescued him from the Dog Pound - he'd been badly mistreated, was extremely underweight, with cigarette burns on his ears (!). But now there's no looking back - he has a good home in the country and is learning to trust again.
+20
I may be dogsitting Chester next week for a couple of days. Rusty was very helpful today, keeping a track of where Chester had got to. My strategy for spending the day with a deaf puppy...
Aubretia
Right. Back outside I go. I've got the hoses on and the Driveway Gardens are almost finished. It doesn't take much to weed and tidy edges, really. I don't know why some gardeners (for example, me) moan about it so much.
Later...
I've been a good gardener - I've planted all the new red flaxes, and weeded, and shifted the hoses around. Every shrub in the new Driveway Garden has had a special watering. Aargh! Tiger the cat has just waddled past with a wriggling mouse in her mouth. Aargh! Please take it outside, Tiger! I'm not intervening - wriggling mice make me jump into the air, and shriek like a girl...
Friday 16th October
Today it's a bit grey and drizzly. I thought I had heaps of energy when I got up, but... Hey! I've pricked out my viola seedlings. I've also potted up the first rooted cuttings of sage. Now I've decided to be lazy and work on the website. So I'm still gardening in a theoretical kind of way...
Percy Cat in the Forget-Me-Nots
And I have taken THE MOST BEAUTIFUL (check out the upper case letters - and the bold type - for emphasis) photograph of my ginger cat Percy. See if you like it...
Saturday 17th October
Humph. My policy of allowing the cornflowers and pansies to self-seed has a fatal flaw. Think of the most worrisome word in gardening language - the W-word. Weeds! Aargh! I've spent an hour and a half trying to weed in, around, and underneath plants in the Birthday Rose Garden. I've come in to rest my hands - I am allowed to grumble nicely (?). When I return it will be with loads of little sticks to prop up the peonies. Yippee - they are all in bud...
Pink Rhododendron
Rusty the dog has been roaring around barking. I've explained to him that we all must share the garden with shrieking plover birds, and whistling bellbirds, and droning bumble bees... And, of course, cats, though only big Fluff-Fluff has been helping this morning.
Sunday 18th October
Today I speed weeded for fifteen minutes on the Dog-path by the water. It's been raining all day and that's all I did - apart from doing lots of web-work. I've found two old journals from 1996 and 1997, and have been copying and editing them into webpages. Son of Moosey says it's important and a good idea to complete my historical records. Would I really rather have been weeding in the rain?