The Occasional Non-Gardener...
It's OK to occasionally become a non-gardener for a few days. Sometimes I do hugely serious non-gardening things with my time. This week I've been writing arrangements for my jazz choir, going hiking in the mountains, and watching the winter Olympics on TV. This is jolly serious - well, maybe not the curling...
Golden Tribute Roses
I still spend lots of dreamy down-time wandering around the garden. I see lots of lovely things, like the re-blooming roses. I sing snatches of my latest song to them, and gratefully take their photographs. Oops - I also see lots of things to put on my 'to do' list...
Cottage Tea-Pot :- My lovely friend is going to embroider me the tea-pot's pattern for my very own sampler.
By the way, I've discovered that my five dollar teapot is of ancient lineage, having been made between the years 1902 and 1922. Wow! That's seriously old. Perhaps I shouldn't use it for a pot of tea - it might dissolve with the shock of boiling water. I absolutely adore the pattern, which is called 'Sampler'.
Earlier this week my friend and I went for a day hike in the mountains, on the tussock lands by Porter's Pass. It's a beautiful place to be, up on a tiny 'tableland' surrounded by higher mountains. I looked over the ridges up at Foggy Peak (wonder why it's called that?) and felt extremely happy to be where I was, lower down in the sub-alpine vegetation. Joyous, robust grasshoppers leapt back and forth, staying just out of reach of my boots. It was yet another magical day, when I get all my confidence back. My knees and legs are great! I am not too feeble yet to enjoy hiking for five hours. Everything is still working. Hmm...
PInk Iceberg Rose
Friday 14th February
But enough of this self-affirmation. Having now done some groovy four-part arrangements of 'Bernie's Tune', 'Hit That Jive Jack', and 'The Nearness of You' (which I keep mis-spelling as 'the near-mess of you'), its time to return to the garden. Today I'm finishing the new improved Pond Cottage garden area and planting my new roses. This involves digging out as much of the stony dirt as I can, and replacing with new stone-free topsoil. I am back on the gardening track.
Later...
Oh boy. It's taken me four hours to dig two holes for two roses (Blanc de Double Couberts) and finish replanting the Agapanthus edging plants. I've barrowed out loads of stones and shovelled in top-soil. Minimus my cottage cat has been supervising, lolling in the sun on the verandah showing her tummy. It's time for bed, I reckon. I've spent the last few hours with eyes on the alpine ski-ing (so scary looking), the musical mind writing a four-part arrangement of 'Sweet Georgia Brown' on Sibelius (for the jazz choir), and the mouth slurping a huge glass of wine.
Jiggling and Jiving
I will be jiggling and jiving over to the cottage. There's a near-full moon, so I shouldn't trip over the decking. Oops. I'm not the only silly one here - Minimus has actually fallen into the pond more than once, arriving in the cottage absolutely drenched.
Off to Bed in the Garden
Saturday 15th February
My two Henri Martin roses are now planted water-side, I've barrowed in more topsoil, and tidied the lawn edge of the Wattle Woods garden. The Centranthus has been trimmed, and hopefully it will re-flower in autumn. Both the white and the pinky-red varieties grow happily and self-seed in this border.
White Centranthus
Blue Skies...
This afternoon I wrote a jazz choir arrangement of 'Blue Skies', which seems rather apt at the end of a beautifully calm and sunny day. My new enlarged, improved garden by the cottage is a success. But - hee hee - there is definitely room for more roses. Am I tempted? Oh yes...
Sunday 16th February
This morning I'm going back to the basics of late summer garden maintenance - specifically, raking up gum tree leaves from lawns and borders. I did this last weekend, and probably the weekend before. But this is not me grumping. I'm gently reminding myself that I like my garden to look relatively 'un-gummy', yet I adore the big Eucalyptus trees which are dotted around it. So be it.
Maybe I could reward myself. For every barrowful collected and dumped on the bonfire I could buy half a new rose...
Later, Lunchtime...
Slight change of plan. It's far too hot for bonfires, so I've dumped three barrowfuls of dry rubbish over by the fence-line. While over there I dug another of my potato patches up, bucketed water on the Pittosporums, and ignored the neighbour's cars whooshing past me. Pittosporums, I know you are doing your very best. Please grow quickly and give me back my privacy.
Tree-Grabber at Work
An update on the tree-clearing next-door is timely. For two weeks there has been much clanging and groaning of the super tree-grabbers, and two-thirds of the front forest is now cleared, with logs graded in piles. The pines along my fence-line are coming down any day now. Each requires two machines, one to grab while the other cuts - otherwise they will fall 'the wrong way'.
Blue Lobelia - Yes?
It's now too hot to garden in the sun, so I might pop inside and watch a bit of Olympic snowboarding to cool off.
Much Later...
Aargh! The nearest pine trees to my garden are being felled, and I was drawn back outside to watch the drama. So I did some gardening near the fence-line, and to cool off I weeded along the water race banks of Stumpy (AKA Willow Tree) Garden. I've just had a good idea to enlarge the waterside garden, by moving the little stone retaining wall closer to the water. I can fill in the gap with topsoil.
Another thing - I've found some perennial blue flowery plants (weeds, maybe?) waterside. I wonder when (and if) I planted them, and what they are. I suspect a type of perennial Lobelia. How about Lobelia siphilitica? Sounds dodgy, looks about right...
The Copacabana...
Let me finish with a quick word on Barry Manilow's 'Copacabana'. Hands up if you think this is one of the silliest songs ever written. Shame on you! If you can block out BM strutting around in a silver blouse with frilly puff sleeves, the song is brilliant - beautiful melodically and richly harmonic, with lots of sneaky minor ninth chords. I've arranged it for my jazz choir, and they will love it. THEY WILL LOVE IT. Ha!
Sing along, if you feel so inclined...
Her name was Moosey, she was a gardener
With twigs and spiders in her hair
blue shirt buttoned up to there
She would do weeding, and tend her bonfire...