It feels like summer...
Suddenly it feels like summer, with twice as many roses as yesterday climbing up over the pergola and the woodshed. I love it when that happens.
Climbing Roses
Thursday 11th November
Today I'm going to garden first and write later. Back soon - but not too soon!
Three Hours Later...
This morning was almost too hot to garden. Yippee - this means summer! I started off with huge intentions, but ended up standing in the water race clearing more rushes and grasses from banks. Being immersed in the water was really the only place to keep cool.
Maintenance of the sloping water race bank needs careful consideration. Excuse me if I think out aloud for a moment... If I weed by hand, more and more of the bank falls away. So I have to weed spray with my little hand held gun. But not just the once. I can pull out the bigger weeds - if I must. But I need to do this every two weeks.
The Water Race - Dog-Path Garden
Then there's the problem of an odd weed growing on the bottom, caught up in piles of mud. More and more of this is collecting, and should really be dug out - I will ask Non-gardening partner his advice before starting. I also need more river stones for the banks. The dog-paths are difficult, too, to keep weeded by hand. The weed mat I laid has been hopeless (the weeds just grow on top of it) and the path surfaces need bags and bags of stones.
Pink Patio Pelargonium
Three More Hours Later...
I went back out into the water after my lunch break. Being a genuine English rose (if a little blotched with age) I am careful with the sun, wearing long sleeved shirts with collars, hats, sunblock etc. So I keep getting each set of clothes totally wet doing this watery work.
Details, Details...
Details, details... I've scooped out some dreadful personal underwater rubbish - clumps of my own Carex grasses, bit splodges of mud, garden weeds, and grasses. I wonder if I could ask the district council to turn off the water flow for a couple of hours to make the clean-up easier. Hmm - I'm probably not important enough.
Friday 12th November
Non-Gardening Partner promises to do the final interior wall of Pond Cottage and put down the fancy floor today - he is 'on holiday' (dear chap - I do wonder why he is so loathe to retire). Meanwhile I am removing that weedy sludge from the bottom of my water race. A lot of 'rubbish' - saturated pine tree debris - has been coming downstream and catching. Then this underwater weed has pounced and glued the mess together with mud. I am quite sure it is undesirable - well, it sounds dreadful, doesn't it?
Lots and Lots of Hours Later...
One of the things I like about me, said the Head Gardener modestly, is this. I think of doing something, I decide, and then I do it! Ha! I have been in the water race for ages raking and scooping and fishing out pieces of saturated wood - including some huge bits of gorse which have obviously been sawn. Some dodgy, thoughtless person has let them merrily float downstream. So I sloshed up and down, and thoroughly enjoyed myself, getting extremely wet.
Blue Geraniums
Lots of Blues
And then - dry clothes, a cup of tea and my camera, and I collapsed in the grass by the little Koru Garden, under the copper beech tree. There were lots of blues - the Rhapsody in Blue standard roses flowering, random dark blue aquilegias, and the sweetest little blue geraniums flopping over the path edge.
Enter Lilli-Puss
Enter Lilli-Puss, my dear random grey cat, who spent the next half an hour lolling all over me, this way and that, spluttering with her hot day purr. I think we had a conversation.
Lilli said: Even though she only saw me every two or three days, she still loved me with an overwhelming love. And she really loved living at Mooseys, too, with all the beautiful gardens, fresh running water to drink, and so many places of shelter if the weather got nasty. Well, that's what I think she was saying! Oh dear - sometimes my most affirming conversations are with my furry friends.
Lilli-Puss My Grey Cat
It's been yet another wonderful summery day, with not a puff of wind. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be. Those big roses are gorgeous, and I feel so lucky to be able to grow such beauties. Now I need to put the hoses on, and make sure my seedlings in the glass-house are OK. And my tomatoes, and the silly white flowering Viburnum in the Shrubbery which wilts after one sunny day. Hmm...