Yippee!
Winnie the Dog
Yippee! I'm off to pick up Non-Gardening Partner from the airport - he has been away for a couple of weeks. I hope he isn't grumpy or tired, having only flown from Vancouver. I have plans! Winnie's dog agility equipment in the long term, but in the shorter : Would he like to mow all the lawns as soon as he gets home? I have garden visitors arriving mid-morning. This surely would be THE perfect way to shrug off so-called jet-lag.
Later...
I did get the house lawns mowed - eventually! My morning garden visitors were lovely, full of appreciation for what others might see as 'natural, tending to mess'. Then the Grand-Toddler played in the Pond Paddock's autumn leaves. See - it was a great idea NOT to rake them up just yet! And then we went to the dog-park, which was a bit boring - none of Winnie's chasing dog-friends were there. It's so nice to have NGP back home where he belongs. The dogs miss him. Oh, me too!
Monday 11th May
Look, I know I have to continue digging up the Shasta daisies. But I just didn't feel like it today, so I weeded rather crossly in the Allotment Garden. Normally I am a neutral weeder, but not when all the little darlings arrived in new top-soil. And at least I did something. I reckon there are heaps of days left in late autumn and winter for me to catch up on these sorts of chores, anyway.
Northern Hemisphere Photographs...
NGP showed me his trip photographs. First I nodded at pictures of a potash mine in the middle of Canada, and random transformers on power poles. 'What's that'? seemed to do the trick. Then he showed me some photographs of spring things in Brookside Gardens (which is in Maryland).
Now this is more like it! Things like Cornus bracts flowering, at exactly the same time as my last autumn Cornus leaves are dropping. The seasons and the hemispheres beautifully in balance...
The Dog-Path is Weeded
Tuesday 12th May
A day of total triumph, which hopefully will sustain me through the cold rain that has just arrived. I worked for six hours, and I jolly well organised the pants off those daisies. To be more garden specific, they are dug out, divided up, the fused old roots thrown away, the new shooting plants in a bucket of water and/or potting mix. They are not replanted because I want to weed their patch in a few weeks, time. Thinking ahead, you see...
Then I took myself over to the other side to clear one of the dog-paths. Throughout summer the water flow has partially covered this path, allowing a luxurious mat of little grasses, clover, weeds, and - eek - Gunnera seedlings to thrive. Now the water is lower, so theoretically I could have chemically sprayed.
But that's not my style! So I sliced off all the greenery, helped enthusiastically by Winnie. There's not so much to see now, but it took me ages, and I carted three barrowfuls of wet sludgy weeds away. Then I took a deep breath and replanted three of the sweetest little Gunneras close to the Yellow Wave Phormium. Some gardeners (i.e. me) never learn.