What am I going to do in the garden today?
New Adirondack Garden Seat
What am I going to do in the garden today? I'll tell you what I'm going to be wearing - top-to-toe thermal underwear! What a sight! Battling winter-like wetness in a mid-summer gardening month...
Saturday 23rd January
I've stayed out of the rainy garden now for two days. Meanwhile Non-Gardening Partner, under shelter in the garage, has expertly put his first prototype Adirondack-style garden seat together. He's used building plans from the internet - it's a Jake's Chair. My goodness - what superior workmanship! And such a great design - the chair is big and deliciously comfortable. A great country seat for a great country garden? Hmm...
The Island Bed
So what should I try and do (or finish, or start) today? My garden has needs, and there'll always be ongoing maintenance tasks like dead-heading and weeding to do. How wet and muddy do I want to get? Or, more importantly, how creative to I want to be? I've just had a dreadful, alarming thought. I could go through all the lists I've written this year, and do all the tasks I've missed out. Aargh! OK - I can do this. First up is a 'finishing' task - getting enough stones to finish the stone wall by the fence. Wish me luck...
White Pond Seat :- Check out my latest Pond Tour page and meet the new seat.
It's now nearly mid-day, and I need more than luck - I need discipline! I've wandered around in the drizzle, trying to find my shy grey cat Lilli-Puss, eaten a few sneaky raspberries (does NGP really think it's the birds?), and decided that I'd do web-gardening instead. But I am seriously hoist with my own petard - is that really the appropriate phrase? Eek... Putting some new photographs on old pages in the Pond Tour, I'm now itching to go outside and do some real gardening work behind the real pond. OK. I'll go and put on the thermals...
Later...
The stone wall is finished, and I notice that several of the Agapanthus I shifted in late winter are in fact flowering. There's so little sun - I didn't really expect them to. I used left-over stones to finish the extended edge of the Shrubbery, and now this tiny area needs building up with organic matter. The old fashioned roses look really happy, having had daily rain for a while now.
White Lychnis
I finished my short day by dead-heading roses and dahlias. Dahlia dead-heading! Now I know that summer is in full swing. I'm hoping not to have to clean out the Lychnis before the Garden Club's twilight visit next month. Next month! Aargh!
And Concerning Lilli-Puss...
+10As a result of some random door opening and closing, Lilli got herself shut into the spare upstairs bedroom. She was in there for over 48 hours, and (dear cat) didn't make any natural mess what-so-ever. I'm relieved that the weather wasn't too hot. Silly Lilli (actually, silly me). She must have heard me calling her morning and night - I wish she'd howled or scratched at the door! All's well that ends well.
Sunday 24th January
Snoozing in bed, pondering the scale of one's personal worries: if the only body thing that's sore is a swollen arthritic finger, then there's no body problem. And if the only gardening thing that's worrisome is whether or not to pull out the blue cornflowers (past their best, nearly finished flowering) before the Garden Club's visit in two weeks time... Then there is no gardening problem.
Shrubbery Roses in Mulch
Anyway, this morning I'm warming up for the garden visitors - I'll be cosmetically tidying up all the house gardens and the patio pots. And yes - those cornflowers will probably go - chopped up with the kitchen scissors for mulch. There will be patio sweeping, and path clearing, and much trimming of lawn edges. NGP has promised to 'do' the driveway.
Topaz Jewel Rugosa
Much Later, Mid-Afternoon...
I've had a wonderful day. I've been paying attention to details - digging neatly around Driveway trees, pruning Hypericum that has flowered, weeding and doing edges, stacking firewood... My old roses, recently purchased and planted at the side of the Shrubbery, are doing really well. Topaz Jewel is a beautiful rugosa, and I have acquired a yellow rose which I hope I can name. It's the spitting image of an anonymous rose I grow elsewhere. Now where's that label? Blast - there isn't one. Yet another rose stays in the unknown category.
The blue cornflowers have a reprieve - I didn't get around to clearing and weeding their bed. And there are enough blue flowers left to enjoy for a few more days. Wow! I think the garden is looking magnificent. Hurray for the Moosey Head Gardener. I have gone apres-gardening, wearing a merino top (the southerly has arrived - brr) and my newest jeans. Hurray for the 'Shape Up For Life' campaign which guarantees that only one's trousers and gardening shirts get fatter. Hee hee...
Tiger the cat, who is also on the programme, has had an odd change of bodyshape. Alas - her cat-belly now hangs down nearly to her cat-ankles, and she also has 'cat-boobs'. Oops.