Busy-bee me
Bee on Purple Rhododendron
Ha! The busy-bee version of me is here, buzzing with fresh plans for another great day in my garden. What to do first? Plant some flowering annuals, or pull out some weeds? Flowers, surely...
Wednesday 16th October
I've decided. Blast - garden maintenance is the task of the morning. First I'm tackling the Shrubbery, carting out rubbish for the bonfire, weeding, and checking the old fashioned roses for rust. This could take all day, but I do have a boredom back-up.
The brick Koru courtyard needs weeding and de-mossing. I don't want to use chemicals on this area of tranquility - I think hand-scraping is much more spiritual. The new Camellias nearby have finished flowering, and their annual weed-friends can now be covered up with mulch. See - there's so much to do, and such fun thinking about doing it!
Lunchtime...
I'd like to think that because I'm so slow I must be really thorough. I suspect I'm just slow! Oh well, better slow than stationary.
Phyllis Bide Rose :- Phyllis Bide is fluffy and gorgeous, a mixture of apricot, cream, lemon, and soft pink.
It's taken all morning to half clear the rubbish out of the Shrubbery and deal to Phyllis Bide, an old lady rose whom the wind had blown down from her archway in the orchard. Rather than struggle with the mass of canes and risk being thorn-smothered I pruned her severely. So here's the deal now. A quick lunch and start the new jigsaw, in the time it takes for two Mozart symphonies. Then finish that which was started.
Much Later...
I got slower and slower and even slower. But I finished my work, I trimmed some of the edges, I said hello to the red tree peony (flowering) and the yellow one (a wee thing, just sitting there). The brick courtyard is un-mossed, and looks gorgeously warm, a terracotta red. It's amazing what one can do by hand, when one decides to accept sore knees. And not moan about them...
Red Tree Peony
The deciduous Azaleas are now in full flower - a trio are growing well by the path into the courtyard. They're a deliciously warm yellow-orange. I think they're Ilam hybrids, and somewhere in the depths of the journal I have recorded their names.
Deciduous Azaleas
Thursday 17th October
+10Night cat acrobatics - ginger Percy has become even more athletic as he leaps in and out of the cottage window. He does a chirping, twisting leap, hardly touching the edge of the bed, then reverses and is gone in an instant. Who was that flying ginger cat?
Cottage in the Blossom
Luckily young Minimus (the resident cottage cat) loves Percy, too, so there are no issues. Except the occupant of the bed (me) gets a rather sleepless night...
Tawny Gold Iris
A Watering Day
Oops. It's been a rather nice day, with a lovely warm sun shining, and not too much wind. All I've really done is the watering. But I don't really think that this matters.
When one has a large country garden there is a large amount of watering to be considered. Buckets, watering cans, hoses artfully pointed into the greenery...
Wandering around on watering duty I've see lots of new things, and said hello to lots of new flowers. The first of the interestingly coloured big irises, the first rugosa roses (Agnes, that's you), and the Hen House Garden's early roses (Fruhlingsmorgen, and a couple reds, names unknowns). But there's more!
Hello to more late rhododendrons - the red in the depths of the Dog Path Garden, and the pink in the Driveway Garden, and the purple whose pet name is 'Uncle Bert'. I know you all can get a bit frazzled with the warm sun and strong winds, so hopefully there'll be some calm overcast days for your enjoyment.
New Camellia
A spectacular Camellia, shifted in some years ago, is flowering properly for the first time. The flowers are so prettily designed they almost look artificial (this isn't a criticism). This was one of my first dig-outs, and was free. I do remember pointing at it and handing Non-Gardening Partner the shovel. I think it took him quite a while. Plant hybridisers who can create details like delicate little pink stripes on petal edges are rather clever.
Still not as clever as the bees as they spread pollen from flower to flower, though. Some of my most exquisite pansies have been bee-created.