A Lovely Way to Spend a Morning
Sings in croony contralto voice: 'It's been a lovely way.... to spend a morning...' I have been in the Wattle Woods pulling out Creeping Charlie. It is my intention to remove him and all of his brothers, cousins, uncles, etc. from this whole garden. Don't laugh!
Friday 25th August
Pieces which are entangled in the Toad lilies (busy sprouting) and the Ajuga are the trickiest to get out. One big thing at a time - I am ignoring the Alkanet, and have even reprieved some clumps of Iris foetida. I am also pruning dead rose canes and making plans for dumping in some compost and manure.
Red Rhododendron Kaponga
+5 
+5The big red rhododendrons are now blooming underneath the gaudy yellow Wattle trees. The plum trees are big with blossom. I've had 'purrfect' cat company - Minimus hiding in the undergrowth, and big Fluff-Fluff enjoying the sun in the nearby glass-house.
My Seeds are Germinating...
Aargh! He'd better not have stomped all over my seeds! They are just starting to germinate, and I have a new personal rule about watering them:
She who bothers to sow seeds can jolly well bother to water them properly each day with a puffy spray bottle.-Moosey words of wisdom.
Rather long-winded, and terribly obvious, but needs to be recorded, to offset the random and the hopeless elements lurking in the Head Gardener (me). And so far so good with my puffy water-spray bottle. I haven't lost it, and nothing has broken!
Plum Blossom
It's a really lovely day with that lots of spring softness. I am terribly inspired, and so lucky to be here. The garden feels beautiful. Things are greener, more daffodils are flowering, and really - to continue my song: 'Can't think of anything... I'd rather do...'
Much, Much Later...
Aha! I have been gardening for nine hours. Can I repeat that? NINE HOURS!!!! Can I put it in bold type? Nine hours! This is surely the most gardening I've ever done in one day, and I am so proud. I've already told and retold Non-Gardening Partner several times.
Creeping Charlie :- The proper name for this ground cover nuisance is Glechoma hederacea.
I've almost finished pulling out the Creeping Charlie. I realise that there will be lots of tiny pieces of him left behind, but he's very much a surface nuisance, and surely I can be vigilant for the next few months. He does have a bad habit of creeping off everywhere - across paths, into the lawns, and so on.
Saturday 24th August
In the middle of the night I was 'entertained' by animal noises. First ginger cat Percy leapt in the cottage window, chirping with delight at the full moon. Then a pair of night-flying mallard ducks circled above the cottage, with much quacking and honking. They landed in the pond with two huge splashes. This was pretty bad timing, since Percy instantly leapt back out the window to investigate. Poor ducks! Off they flew, honking fortissimo.
Pond Cottage and the Wattle Woods
I was obviously awake by now, so Minimus the cottage cat started squeaking at me - her food bowl was empty. The only thing missing was the B-Grade horror movie monster-groaning of the possum!
Pink Plum Blossom
Garden Noises
Moving on to garden noises. This morning Non-Gardening Partner kindly got me a trailer-load of compost, so I started dutifully barrowing it onto the garden by the red rhododendrons. Aargh! The chain-saw! I raced over to the Jelly Bean Border where NGP was doing what I'd asked him to do - sawing down a Pittosporum. He does have to supervised, you understand.
I went back to barrowing compost. Aargh! The shredder! Back I raced to check that all the branches were stacked and ready. Another compost load. Aargh! The lawn mower! I'd have to move all the garden benches out (otherwise NGP just mows around them, not a good look). And then I'd have to move them all back. And cross my fingers there'd be no loud crunching metal-on-metal noises (a hand digger left nonchalantly in the grass, for example).
Did I feel like burning to end the day? Not today. It's time I sorted out our meal (left-overs) and a large goblet of Larry's home-made wine (slurp). Hope it's quieter in the cottage tonight!
Sunday 25th August
Today I'm shovelling more of the compost off the trailer and onto the garden. Then perhaps I'll read a bit of my book, take some more blossom photographs, peep at the little miniature daffodils, water the seeds, find planting spots for the few remaining recycled roses...
Teddy Bear Confession...
Maybe I could sew some pants for the teddy bears in the cottage. Oops. I've got four now, and they all sit squashed together in a tiny cane basket. Oops again. This could be the beginning of something really unfortunate. How many teddy bears will fit in there with Minimus (my cottage cat) and me? Confession: I had my first ever teddy-bear conversation with the newest chap (who wears a lovely red hoodie). 'You're a nice bear' I said, encouragingly, as I sat him down on my patchwork bedcover. Oops, oops, oops...
Me and Fluff-Fluff the Cat
Better get back into the sane world of gardening, I reckon, where there's lots to do, wonderfully mild weather to enjoy, and no trouserless teddy-bears to talk to.
Eight Hours Later...
Oh yes. Eight hours, with the shortest of breaks sitting on the plum coloured Adirondack with a coffee, the newspaper, and Fluff-Fluff the cat. I've done a lot of everything today.
I've weeded, I've collected rubbish for burning, I've redug the front curve of the Island Bed and planted two roses along the edge, I've trundled compost into the Wattle Woods underneath the red rhododendrons, I've thought about all the new shrubs I could fit in the garden (hee hee), and I've thought about those scary boats in the America's Cup (more accurately the Louis Vuitton series for the challenger) yacht races. I've seen the Forsythia flowering bright yellow and the species Bergenias flowering pink, I've rescued Forget-Me-Nots out of the driveway and Lychnis out of the paths and planted them properly in the garden.
I've watered (oh so carefully) all my seeds and taken a few more daisy cuttings. I am so happy! There's not really any more, except: 'And I think to myself.... What a wonderful world...' Well, it is for me anyway. I'm so sorry for the gardeners in parts of the world where things aren't so good.