Miss Marple is an avid gardener...
Oh dear! I had such plans for major chain-sawing this weekend. Well - my plans were actually for Non-Gardening Partner. But it's raining gently on my garden. Maybe I should spend the afternoon with Miss Marple. She is, after all, an avid gardener...
Saturday 18th June
Already I've been swimming, bought a crochet daisy-patterned shawl at the charity shop, and on arriving home I've collected up four more barrow-loads of firewood. I've also taken some winter photographs. Everything is dripping, but I've found some patches of bright colour. John Clare - you are a wonderful rose, blooming just before the shortest day. Especially for me! I love pink roses, but of course you knew that.
John Clare Rose
I'd love to be gardening. Today's personal plans were to deal to a Pittosporum in Middle Garden, and maybe clear in the Hump. Instead I might have to do web-gardening, cleaning (that is, updating) the Moosey Garden Tour pages. Seats have been decommissioned, paths have disappeared - that sort of thing.
+10As I'm typing this (filling in time, wondering how wet I want to get) Histeria my friendly tabby cat has popped up to 'help' - 'i89999999u8' is her cryptic contribution. Golly - thinking about filling in time, imagine if people on Twitter actually got their cats to tweet...
Much Later, Dusk...
I went outside at 2pm, clothed head to toe in merino underwear, and immediately the rain seemed to ease. I divided some rock lilies (Renga Renga) to plant in the Hump, cut up resprouting Agapanthus roots and planted them with their friends on the fence, and then - yippee! Non-Gardening Partner nonchalantly appeared, having checked the sheep. Did he want to do my chain-sawing? I put on my most appealing face, he looked at his watch, and then said OK. Yippee!
Man and Dog by the Dog-Path Garden
Of course I helped - I always help when it's my idea. So we took another whole Pittosporum down, this time from the Dog-Path Garden. Each huge piece missed the trees (two Dogwoods and a Maple) and the rhododendrons, and not even the littlest stalk broke off the Weigela, Choisya, and Viburnum shrubs underneath. Piles of branches are now ready for the shredder, and the big logs are sawn up for firewood. I ended up standing in the cold, cold water race fishing out the last couple of branches. The Dog-Path Garden looks so much better, and I am thrilled.
Out, Out, Prickly Cotoneaster...
NGP also removed a nasty Cotoneaster which I remember buying for one dollar, planting, and regretting almost immediately. Horrid, prickly thing - yet some folk might say that about a rose bush. Different thorns displease different people, I guess...
Pond Cottage in Winter
So Easily Pleased...
Now it's totally dark outside, I'm wearing my new shawl, and I'm going to keep that date with Miss Marple. She's a gardener, too. And then I'll take myself off to bed in Pond Cottage with Minimus the cat, to listen to the rugby and read my Famous Five book (I'm up to book ten, hee hee). So easily pleased, some people...
Sunday 19th June
Finally I'm reading a Famous Five book whose plot I dimly remember - that's from about fifty-five years ago. And rather prophetically they are going off on a hike around the moors. I love doing that now - well, on my version of moors, anyway. I knew I'd remember something inspiring, apart from my child-envy that they all had sleeping bags. Oh dear.
Back to the Adult World of Weekend Gardening...
In the pursuit of limb fitness we went swimming first thing this morning. It's still misty outside, and I do have some plans. The first is to enjoy this rather lovely cup of hot coffee without feeling guilty that I haven't rushed out into the garden. The second is to skilfully direct NGP into doing some more chain-sawing for me, without getting a negative response. The third (hey - this is a list in disguise!) is to shred all the small Pittosporum branches and burn the scrappy stuff.
Lilli-Puss on the Wheelbarrow
Four Hours Later...
It's all done! I also cut down a huge Phormium which has been blocking the irrigation in the Dog-Path Garden for years. Now the Hebes along the edge will get the sun - that means they'll flower. The Dog-Path Garden looks brilliant, and the Maple and Dogwood trees have air-space.
Lilli-Puss kept me company, popping discretely underneath the hedge whenever big Fluff-Fluff turned up (he chases her). And then we had our weekly cuddle session sitting on the garden bench in Duck Lawn, and Lilli purred and clawed my legs and licked my fingers. Eek! I taste like her cat-mother?
It's only 3pm, but fine rain is dusting the bonfire and the light has gone very grey and gloomy. It's a good time to come inside and reflect on a wonderful winter gardening weekend - and peep at the tiny olive-green birds fluttering around the new, secure bird feeder. Rusty the dog ate the last one and had digestive repercussions for days...
Monday 20th June
Today has been a complete non-day. I've stayed out all day, and it's been drizzling anyway. However I bought a scented Pelargonium at the petrol station (as one does) and I have some plant gifts from my plantsman friend to think seriously about - Abutilons and small-leafed Olearias. I don't know much about Abutilons, and these are still in tiny pots. When in doubt, do nothing - or perhaps just pop them into bigger pots?
Webmaster :- Happy Birthday to the Moosey Webmaster.
Today is the Moosey Webmaster's birthday. Happy Birthday, Older and Therefore More Mature Son of Moosey! This is a grand day for the gardening web. Much love from your mother. You must be old enough by now to choose your own present - would you like socks or underpants?
Tuesday June 21st
It might be the shortest day, or jolly close to it. The interior Moosey house walls and surfaces are bare and there are drop sheets over lumps of pushed-together furniture. I'm playing the game called 'Wait-For-The-House-Painters'. It works like this. It's a bit sneaky
Hakea Gold Medal
If the home-owner (me) goes out all day (like yesterday) to get out of the way, then the painters won't come. This morning I am firmly at home, and so the theory is that they'll swoop and clatter into the house ay any moment. But they know I'm just pretending? Shush - I'm actually going into the city about 11am to help shovel liquefaction off my friend's vegetable garden. Grave fears are held for the leeks.
In the smallest of notes - I have identified the small shrubby tree growing by the patio as the Hakea hybrid Gold Medal. Aha! It's an Australian. This is an exciting breakthrough for specificness (?) in my garden...
Much Later...
Ha! A waited-for painter never arrives! Anyway, I've been in the city shovelling - an interestingly mellow experience, probably because it wasn't my house and garden covered in ridiculously thick wodges of sandy slush. Some very helpful men with diggers tootled up the side driveway and helped - they pushed the muck piles around and scooped them up and onto the back of a truck. Like magic!
Cross my fingers about the leeks - I'm going back on Thursday to dig the remaining mess out and rake in the sandy remains.