Summer scruff...
I've been working in the shady gardens around the Pond Paddock for the last week. While I've been away (just over the house fence), the sunny areas have suddenly become summer-scruffy.
Lots of Dahlias
Plants like Lychnis have (rightly) gone to seed, and are ready for trimming. But I'm loving the blue Agapanthus flowering, and the white Shasta daisy clumps, none of which have yet flopped over. Have just gone to peep at the mass of dahlias flowering in the Hump. Do they need dead-heading yet? Phew. Not yet. A wonderful display.
Weeping maple rescue...
My friend is madly deconstructing her garden (in mid-summer). We have just dug out a wee ornamental Maple tree, transported it across the city covered in a sheet, and dug it in again, hose dripping. It won't notice that the hose is different? Very few roots, you see, and my friend was watering it pre-shift.
Pond Cottage Garden
It looks gorgeous in the border near Pond Cottage, echoing the red Prunus tree further along, its feather red leaves contrasting with the smooth grey stones which mark the border's edge. And so on, etc. etc. Hee hee... If it doesn't survive, then I'll buy something similar from the nursery.
Saturday 19th January
Today is a designated trimming day. Phormium flower stalks are now heavy with seed pods, drooping down - they can easily split a flax open into sprawling pieces. The flower carpet roses - last to flower, last to be dead-headed. I've already done some work and shifted the hoses, but at 1:30 just a little summer hot for me.
Later...
It's been an afternoon rich with background noise : bell-birds whistling their signature tune (they all have the same one) over my head, the water race chattering and burbling arpeggios. Changed into shorts and crocs and stood in the water to continue trimming. Very refreshing, lovely way to get clean feet...
Leek Seed-Heads
Another trimming day - this time in the sunny Dog-Path Garden, in a cloud of well-behaved bumble bees (they adore the tiny red Scrophularia flowers and the Oreganum flowers). That blasted Oreganum! It's popped up everywhere - in the lawn, all through the garden, between the bricks of a path. But the bees love it so. And it does a great cover-up job.
Lucky to have bees...
Thought (again) about how lucky I am to have lots of bees, a layer of gentle buzzing on top of the watery noises, and the chiming bell-birds. Realised that my dogs, for once, had found nothing to bark at. Delightful!
Scruffy Fence!
I'd rather have a scruffy garden that's my very own creation, full of bee plants and thuggish shrubs, than a tidy, sterile garden designed by someone else. So there. Just as well!