Gardening shoes...
I've been cleaning up the car porch by the back door. It's mainly my mess - old pots, piles of newspapers, buckets of rose labels, hand tools, string and rusting secateurs (oops)...
Autumn Asters
Saturday 26th March
I've also found two pairs of spidery gumboots and eight pairs of gardening shoes. Eight! Eight different shoe needs, according to the changing status of the garden - wet, muddy, soggy, slightly soggy, slightly damp, frosty, neutral, sunny... And then, with apologies, I wiped down the cobwebs, rescuing any spiders I found. Off you go into the garden, you lovely leggy chaps...
Much Later, At the End of the Day...
Success! After morning tea with my friends (during which several small spiders dropped out of my hair) I have made much garden progress. Now Middle Garden's paths are reorganised. I've split up and replanted some beautiful creamy flowering Bergenias which were blocking an entrance. And I've moved on to the Dog-Path Garden. I am getting somewhere!
Stone Border Edge
Friends visited for afternoon tea and we wandered around looking at the garden. Naturally I saw many new obstacles and hazards. But I thought the foliage textures in the Hen House gardens looked lovely, and all the paths were inviting, with really clear stone edges. As soon as my friends left I felt revived and invigorated and worked until dusk. The power of real people (but they have to be nice people) to inspire should never, ever be taken for granted...
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday to Daughter of Moosey who has left our earthquake city and is back in her island paradise. For her birthday present this year I am going to build her a little herb garden at Son of Moosey's house. Hardly seems very fair, does it? Hee hee...
Birthday Garden Rose
Sunday 27th March
Ha! One week until the garden visitors turn up. Am I panicking? No way - I don't panic, I plan... Well, maybe I'm allowed just a few tiny pre-panics. The house decking is replaced, the lawns have been beautifully mowed, and this morning's rain will freshen up my new Agapanthus plantings.
Shasta Daisies :- Summer is well and truly over when I start trimming the Shasta daisies.
Now I'm going outside to rain-garden for an hour - hopefully I can finish off the Dog-Path garden. There's a flax stump to dig out, squillions of Shasta daisies to trim down, and creeping grass and clover weeds to pull out. I'll get the coffee making things (and dry clothes) ready for my return. Hopefully later today I can pick up a trailer load of bricks - I want to make a tiny brick path in a koru shape, hopefully before the garden tour. Eek! That's seven days away...
Monday 28th March
In the interests of fascinating, energetic burbly-blogging the super-tired me did not return yesterday to write up the day's achievements. I've woken up today 'full of birdseed', so to speak, feeling very lively. Good! And confident that I've tidied all the gardens over the water race to a reasonable cosmetic standard. Hee hee - good for me! The last thing I tried to do yesterday (after five hours work, I might add) was burn the day's bonfire. The last thing the weather decided to do was to produce fairly heavy rain. We compromised in clouds of smoke.
Back of the Dog-Path Garden
I love fine mornings. I sit inside at the computer, do a visual sweep around the house, peeping through all the windows and beaming with delight. No, wait! I must clean the cobwebs off the outside of the bay window. Then I pour my pot of tea, and puzzle as to who ate the bread loaf I baked yesterday evening - for it has disappeared. Non-Gardening Partner? Surely not - he's supporting me on my Reshape Up For Life campaign. Tiger the senior cat? Rusty the dog, perhaps, in conjunction with Tiger - a catpaw, to tip the bread onto the floor into a waiting dogmouth...
Ginger Cats Eating
Super-Productive
Today I am going to be super-productive. And in any spare moments I'm mass-making jam from a carton of Black Boy peaches. Gardenwise it will be a day for first impressions, the garden seen from the mind of a visitor. Right! Quickly! Before I start pondering some eternal gardening question and start trying to write about it (or start chatting to someone nice on Facebook)...
Lunchtime...
Oops. I've started my first impressions clean-up by Car Bridge. I've cleaned up the Stables garden superficially, and weeded in the opposite Agapanthus. Three barrowloads of gum tree bark and branches have been wobbly-wheeled through the Birthday Rose Garden. Naturally, being a capable busy woman, I am making jam while I have my lunchbreak and coffee. How many things can a busy woman do at once, while not burning the jam?
This afternoon I redirect myself to the Birthday Rose Garden. My only problem - I have 'lost' the kitchen scissors which I was using because I'd 'lost' my secateurs. Now I'm eying up the dressmaking scissors in their cane basket. Should I? I could promise to put them back afterwards. My goodness, I hope I'm pleased with my garden by the end of the week. It's such fun being focussed.
Tuesday 29th March
Yippee! Another day of gardening and jam-making - or should that be garden-making and jamming? Hee hee - Black Boy peaches have a rather short 'box-life'. What to do first? The gardens along the Driveway, I think, continuing my 'First Impressions' plan, making sure particularly that paths are clear and raked. Jam in the lunchtime break, maybe.
The Perfect Garden Spot
New garden thoughts - the perfect place for the new brick feature has been suggested by this photograph above - featuring Fluff-Fluff the cat and the Cercis Forest Pansy in autumn mood. But laying a brick koru SIX DAYS! before the garden visitors arrive might be a bit of an over-reach, an over-balancing lunge into the greenery of garden plans and schemes. I need to stay on track!
Uetersen :- All my Uetersen roses are supposed to be climbers. Hmm...
Before I start my work I'd like to thank the bright pink rose Uetersen for blooming so magnificently right now, just in time to delight the weekend garden visitors. Your label says you're a climber, but I've already forgiven you that. You have to be one of the best of the best bright pink roses. Cheers!
Tiger in the Rhubarb
Two Hours Later...
A quick coffee and then I return. I'm making progress. I'd like to call it good progress - but it's all very cosmetic. For example, I'm not getting the roots of the nasty grass weeds out. But the gardens around the Driveway Lawn do look much better. Now I'm off to plant some spring bulbs out in the open by the drive, and two Agapanthus clumps further in the Hump by a path. Back soon.
Ha! Four Hours later...
I've had a wonderful day. You always do, says Non-Gardening Partner. But that's all good! My dog potters around after me, the fantails follow us both, he barks to chase them away...
Cat company has been scarce in the garden these last days, except for silly Lilli-Puss the grey. I notice that cat lounge is full of snoozers at the moment. But Tiger the senior cat (and oh so lazy) was spied earlier staking out the compost heap, which is technically in the garden. It's such a rare occurrence that I just had to grab the camera.