Happy New Gardening Year!
Happy New Gardening Year. If every gardener's dreams come even half-true, 2009 will be a grand year. Feed your soil, cherish your beneficial insects and your water supply, as well as looking after your lawns? Aargh! Why not make 2009 the year of the Non-Lawn...
Perennial Daisy
Thursday January 1st
Ha! I've got some personal New Year's resolutions, hopefully some sensible ones. Here goes...
- 1. I will play the piano every day.
- 2. I won't write as much. Less is more, as far as garden journals go.
- 3. I will read more garden books and magazines.
- 4. 2009 will be the year of garden detail, and the garden accessory.
My first gardening list for 2009 now follows. Oops - I can't think of anything. This could be a good start for the year, meaning that resolution number two has already kicked in.
Sunny Lavatera with Hebe
Mid-Day, Mid-Summer, Hot...
I have started my year well. How's this for detail - I've lightly pruned the Wisteria, dead-headed the climbing Masquerade rose, planted some woody Lavateras in the Shrubbery (brilliant filler shrubs for providing summer flowers), chased rooster and the hens out of MY hen-House Garden into THEIRS. I've weeded and tidied the Lavender garden around Rusty's dog kennel - the smaller lavenders are pink! Hope that's OK for a dog-dog...
Does Water Feature in Your New Year?
I have aroused the wrath of Non-Gardening Partner by asking, ever-so-politely, what his water feature plans are for this New Year. I have skimmed over the words and peered at the pictures of my latest Garden Design book. Wrapping areas in yellow flowering plants creates warmth - I knew that! And I love my new Brahms sonata. One flaps ones hands from the lowest bass to the top of the treble - this is power piano.
The Pilgrim
Friday 2nd January
Today in the garden I have some rather typical summer work to do. Dead-heading, trimming hebes away from paths, and dividing up my first old iris patch - white irises which will live to flower again in the Hen House garden.
Cosmic Worries
I can't get used to the 2009 number yet for our new year. And it seems only yesterday that the new millennium was foisted upon us by the newspapers, with stories of computer chaos. Hmm... How about climate chaos instead? One cosmic day, probably a day too late, enough of the wealthy world will realise that something's changing. Big people can all too easily ignore the power of the anecdote and the silent shoulder shrug...
Gum Trees :- This is a picture of the base of the big gum tree, the cause of all the lawn mess. Aargh! Chop it down!.
Blimey! One cosmic day? The garden of the mind needs some deep weeding... Anyway, down to earth, and some hours later, I'm sorry to report that today is far too hot and far too windy for any sensible gardening. I've done a wee bit of watering - that's all. The norwest gales are gusting through the treetops, and the house lawns are littered with gum tree bark. Tomorrow, I think, will be better...
Saturday 3rd January
Well - I'm not so sure exactly how better. In fact, thunder, rain, and even hailstorms (help! my hostas!) are forecast for this afternoon. This is when the cricket starts, and thus a gardener with a slightly droughty garden faces the most terrible dilemma. The garden needs watering and the cricket does not.
Gum Tree Mess
Gum Mess
Upon reflection I think (before breakfast) I'll clean up the house lawn (gum bark), divide up those white irises, trim the hebes and the edges of all the gardens over the water race, pick up all old cordyline leaves, put the hoses on Henworld, plant the latest batch of silver beet, calendula, and nicotiana plants, and finish raking the grass clippings off the lawn. Phew! Like the big winds did yesterday, I shall roar hungry through my garden, but I will be creating order out of chaos.
Sunday 4th January
Yesterday afternoon we had twenty-five millimetres of rain in half an hour (that's one inch, tropical deluge without the tropical location), and hail hitting the house roof so hard that the upstairs cats were frightened. Jerome hid under the bed, while Percy showed me the most circular cat-eyes ever seen. Wow! Needless to say the cricket (twenty-five kilometres away) stopped. The Moosey drains didn't cope as well as they should have. Histeria the tabby came in drenched, with spiky wet fur, looking like a punk cat. But, as always, she was bouncy and happy.
But before the rain - success! Three hours of detailed gardening, as per my New Years Resolution, and almost exactly the tasks detailed in yesterday's journal entry. So there's no need to repeat anything...
Forsythia Goldilocks Shrub
Today - what shall I do first? Non-Gardening Partner was caught trimming driveway shrubs yesterday, and then given permission to attack the Forsythia at the gate. MY first job could be to sort out the tiny triangle of mess where-in the Forsythia grows. This shrub has never ever flowered - because NGP keeps sneakily trimming it at the wrong time of the year? Well, that's what I reckon.
Welcome to My Garden...
It's all to do with the approach to a garden. The Welcome Garden is tidy, its shrubs are growing, and a good impression is created. The gate entrance to the Moosey property deserves to be upgraded. Forget the idea of flowing roses, though - this is definitely tough, rocky territory, and I may need to totally dismantle things. NGP, sensing his potential involvement, has immediately gone into hiding...
Much, Much Later...
I reckon that ninety percent of the gardening I do is maintenance, five percent is creative, and five percent is so mindless that it cannot be classified. Today has seen five hours of peaceful maintenance - summer sun, no wind, pottering in the shade, with the full complement of hand diggers, scratchers, rakes and the like. I've had a brilliant day, with aerial cat-company - Histeria and Fluff-Fluff have been climbing trees above my head.
Pale Pink Pelargonium
I did go and check the denuded Forsythia - my decision is to leave it to regrow and see what that looks like. It seems to be powered from at least a hundred suckers, so will be difficult to remove. Non-Gardening Partner has breathed a sigh of relief. It is to my advantage to show intelligence and forethought as regards tree and shrub removal. The more NGP can trust my judgment the better he will work for me when required.
There's minimal hail damage from yesterday's weather storm - just some of the large-flowered daylilies look ragged. I'm not even sulking that we lost the cricket. Games that are shortened because of rain and thunderstorms are a bit hit-or-miss.