A tale of two lists...
Aha! Allow me to present this morning's list : prune two apple trees, chainsaw the stump in middle of path, trim Olearias by the cottage down at head height, deal to dead plum tree, deliver two scoops of mulch to the new rose garden. Wonder who that's for?
Wattles in Flower
I thought I'd better make one for me, too. What did I want to do in the garden today? Clean up everything! No - not suitable for a list. What did I want to finish in the garden today? That sounded better, though the resulting list still ended up being totally unrealistic. Here it is, for the record :
- Cover new rose garden with mulch.
- Plant roses therein.
- Clean up chain-sawing mess.
- Shift Agapanthus and replant in the Hump.
- Go to nursery! Buy potting and seed raising mix, and some pretty polyanthus plants.
Then, as an afterthought :
- Burn rubbish.
Holly
Start working off that list...
After a pleasant morning spreading horse manure and doing a little light weeding, I thought I should perhaps start working off my list. Getting Non-Gardening Partner to wander around with his chain-saw for half an hour, dealing to this and that, was very successful, so I should clean up the mess. I could start the bonfire (the last item on my list) much, much later in the day. Oh yes?
I carefully removed all the pieces of apple tree from a holly shrub, then started lopping and barrowing. Three loads came out of the garden behind the cottage - all gum bark and leaves, to help the bonfire. I dragged out all the pieces of Olearia (so much longer lying on the ground than sticking up in the air) and dismantled the dead pieces of plum tree (the rose Alberic Barbier had smothered and killed it, oops). Red Fred kept getting in the way.
Fred in the Plum Tree
Start the burning...
Huge piles of burnable rubbish littered the back lawn around my bonfire. So I lit the fire, leaned on the rake and started the burning. Five hours later - FIVE! - the mess was finally burnt.
So what about my list? Not one Agapanthus saw my shovel, the nursery remained unvisited, the roses were still sitting in buckets of water waiting. NGP (bless him) had delivered mulch to the rose garden with his tractor, but I had no energy left to rake it around.
So NGP works for half an hour, then escapes to go flying in his tiddly plane. It takes me the rest of the day to finish what he started. The phrase 'It isn't fair' pops into my gardening mind, but really - why should a day in the garden be 'fair' anyway? As long as it's fun, I reckon. And at least I finished one thing on my list. One out of five ain't bad? Hmm...
Bonfire at the end of the day