Set unattainable gardening goals...
My new gardening policy : set unattainable gardening goals. And why not? How about the following? Place and plant ALL the new pots, and spread ALL the compost.
Echeveria Glauca
Having just spent X hundred dollars on compost, new pots, and new plants, this seems fair enough. By the way, X is an integer between 6 and 8. Oops. I did get rather carried away...
The Start of the Potty Craze
Mustn't forget the 'bookcase' of patio succulents, which started this whole potty craze off. There I was, looking at the web-site's container gardening pages, cringing at the ancient photographs and gushing dribble, obviously written by someone who knew nothing about succulents.
Calling her Echeverias Sedums! What a disgrace. Actually, I've read books on succulents in the library which pretty much do this. When in doubt, call it a sedum?
Friday 25th July
Oh my goodness. A little wax-eye (silver-eye) birdie, overexcited with the fresh patio bird-feeders, crashed into the glass doors. I left him (her?) to hopefully recover, keeping a watchful eye for signs of life resuming. Aargh! My cats recognise the dull thump of a flying bird hitting glass - first Fluff-Fluff, then Histeria, then even lazy Tiger appeared from nowhere to investigate. So I shut them all in the house, scooped the dazed bird up, sat him (her?) on the patio table, and kept guard.
Wax-Eye - Dazed and Confused
My little birdie puffed up his feathers until he was the size and shape of a tennis ball. The cats slobbered and twitched on the other side of the glass (old blokes in the front row of a strip show? Hmm...) After about ten minutes my bird slowly deflated - I rather hoped this was a return to full bird consciousness and preparation for flight. Aargh! Ginger Percy appeared on the patio. I shrieked in alarm. And phew! This woke up my birdie, sleek and aerodynamic once more, and he flew away. But those cats. How do they know?
More on Unattainable Goals...
The nice thing about an unattainable goal is that, if I am doomed not to finish, I have some rather sneaky choices. It's Maths again, by the way. Here are two of the basic non-completion options :
- I fluff and flap around the whole garden, half-finishing half of the tasks.
- I focus, get really bored, and completely finish 25 percent.
Hee hee.
le Tour de France :- A favourite non-gardening winter activity - TV Couch-Cycling.
And then I just roll the left-over unattainable goals into tomorrow. But first, I'm slurping my early morning coffee while I fly over a few more Chateaux in the Rhone. Le Tour continues - I know, I know, the real cycling chaps have got to the Pyrenees. I won't be able to catch them up, but at least I can do my best.
Dusk...
Yeay for me! Blue pots - half organised. Green pots - completely organised. Sifter's red Camellia has changed into a smaller pot, and his old pot now houses a green Cordyline alongside the gate to the Pond Paddock. The second huge tea-pot is now floating in a sea of green Alkanet in the Wattle Woods. It will look gorgeous then the little blue forget-me-not flowers appear in early spring (they can't be too far off).
Blue House Pots
But because I am a super-gardener with extraordinary abilities to multi-task, I have also pruned the Compassion roses, swept the patio, half-organised the strawberry pots, photographed the Hellebores, and entertained an afternoon guest for coffee. Yeay!
Hellebores - Winter Roses
Saturday 26th July
Today Non-Gardening Partner (Non-Gardening Pilot) is up there somewhere flying. I wonder if he'll look down from his Cessna 172 and see a flash of creamy white fur as Rusty the dog escorts him off our property? Oops.
Doing the Pots...
Anyway, I've been doing more pots, and spreading more compost, and I'm about to dig up some of the squashed Cream Delight Phormiums. One more big blue house pot needs planting. I've pruned the Ballerina roses by the pond. I've moved one of the big teapots a metre or so it's surrounded by a sea of Periwinkle, and I've taken some flower photographs.
I feel very, very well-organised and super-confident. Unattainable goals don't scare me at all.
Sunday 27th July
So what do I do first? Spread all the compost? Or finish all the pots? Ha! Neither. I'm having an early morning coffee, and then I'm picking up loads and loads of firewood logs. Late yesterday NGP did lots of chain-sawing for me. I also have a rose to plant. Then I'm going into the back of the Shrubbery to think, think, think. A path, perhaps?
Blue Polyanthus
Much Later...
My goodness, it doesn't take much to make a good gardener happy. I've started that path - I rather like the look of it. It forms an oval garden area, and joins the existing path by the garden bench. Tomorrow I'll rake and spread compost and finish the edges. I've had a nice circuit going - dry stuff for the bonfire is replaced by compost for the Hosta garden, etc. I've worked for seven hours, and I've even burnt the rubbish.
The rescued Cream Delight Phormiums are too floppy and damaged to be ornamentally potted, so I've filled the last two house pot with a fat-leafed yellow and green Carex. Carex? I think so. And a pink-flowering Hebe, one of the so-called 'Wiri' hybrids.
What else? I've now pruned all the roses in the Birthday Rose Garden, and trimmed down the last large ornamental grasses. I've also tidied up more of the water-side Phormiums, removing dry flower stalks and dead lower leaves.
I reckon I've done about one tenth of what I needed to do today. Perfect! And I've had a silly thought. One way of always feeling good about one's gardening day would be to set such a low standard that it's impossible not to finish it. Hee hee...