Slow is good
Garden - yeay! I am back, finally, motivated, clear-headed, bright-eyed and up for it. 'It' is weeding and watering my summer garden! Campion, Alkanet, Forget-me-nots, and other assorted lovelies are coming out. Roses and ornamental trees ans shrubs are getting bucket watered. A slow process, but slow is good.
WIlliam Lobb Moss Rose
Here's the plan. I pick an area of the garden (there are so many to choose from!) - in the shade, by the water, where-ever I feel I will be happy working. I put on my disgraceful jeans and my seedy shirt. And I mean seedy - covered in biddibids! Then I work for a couple of hours. I try not to think too deeply or analyse things too much. I come inside to get a drink, walk my dogs around the orchard, and then off I go again. Gardening life is simple, as long as one stays patient, and positive, and shuts out any peripheral messes.
Gunnera
I've just finished my second weeding session behind the glass-house. I have cleared the path. Just over the water I've spied the Japanese Irises flowering, surrounded by friendly weeds. So on go my gardening shorts and crocs, and now I'm off to do some refreshing stand-in-the-water weeding. Ooh! Something different! Hope the water's not too cold.
Japanese Iris
Saturday 14th December
Today I've spent ages hand-watering the roses and the screening Pittosporums in the Allotment Garden. I plod around, filling buckets from the hoses, and it takes forever to do virtually nothing. But hey! My Pittosporums surely will be grateful.
The big irrigation now runs every second night, but doesn't reach the Allotment Garden. The recent weeks of daytime hot winds have sucked moisture out of the soil. So I remind myself that I am gardening on an old sand dune, and that I am a good gardener. Most of the time. Good is slow (sometimes). Certainly bucketing water around is both!
I've also planted a Sycamore tree-ling, some pots of Dianthus in the Hump, and the last pottles of Orlaya in a pot by the house. Now I promise to clear up all my mess, gather up my hand tools and shovels, and get personally clean (including a hair wash). And then I will practice The Messiah. Did a wee bit earlier today. Oops. Have never sung it before. Others in the choir have sung it over thirty times, for example in Vienna and Budapest AND London... Hmm. Well, I'm singing it in Christchurch New Zealand. First time. So there!
Merino Sheep and Lambs
My favourite chorus is, oddly, 'Oh we like sheep'. The musical mind of a country gardener, perhaps? Hee hee...