My New Friendship Garden
White Nerine?
I'm building a new garden area for my friend's plants to live in, and calling it my Friendship Garden. Tomorrow I make my first trip into town and start digging - the first carload of many. My friend, very much alive, didn't really want it called a Memorial Garden. Fair enough!
Non-Gardening Partner approves (I think) of the location, a continuation of the Hump Garden. I've taken him into the Hump, waved my hands around, and babbled. The roses would go here, the soil would be levelled there, and so on. I think he listened, though he did ask one off-topic question : where would I plant next year's potatoes? Not a problem! He thought that was a great idea. I think that's what he thought (he didn't actually offer to help).
The initial process of this new garden is very straightforward. My friend asks me to rehome all her plants. Naturally I say yes. I think for a bit. I identify a space with sun and irrigation. Easy as. I rationalise - autumn is the perfect time for cross-town transplanting, my little car a mobile plant nursery.
New Plants
No hard work yet, hee hee. And no worries about the thirty other roses I have to find new homes for. Actually, the four wicked ramblers are to be incorporated just below the Friendship Garden, to form a gentle barrier. Oh yes? Ever known a rambler to be gentle? This morning's task is to drag over more half rounds for the retaining wall, place them just so, and then start adding horse manure etc. Off I go! P.S. Am so looking forward to digging out her lovely white Buddleia. Love my butterflies!
Floppy Senecio
Next day...
I am off to dig out another car load. Yesterday's haul (assorted wee shrubs, perennials, roses, nerines) are all in pots. Not sure the white Lavenders will make it - had to trim them severely, as they were very woody. A non-gardener would shudder at the earthy state (and smell) of my car's interior. Oops.
Later...
Oh boy! I'm back with seven Flower Carpet roses (both white and amber-apricot), three larger shrub roses, a white Buddleia, clumps of miniature Agapanthus, and two rather odd Senecios with large papery leaves. Aha! Senecio candicans 'Angel Wings' is what they are, a 'traffic stopping tender perennial' according to one New Zealand nursery. Will need to plant them where there is frost shelter. Everything is trimmed and potted up (which takes considerably longer that the digging out, and gets my back aching a lot more).
And a wee update on the Bob Dylan tribute band I am playing in. It's a hoot! Rather a talented, musical hoot, however, no matter what one thinks of Bob Dylan. The band is all-women, and is called the Bob Tits. Oops. Sounds like a name of a birdie, right?
New Plants
Now to clean out my car. It's full of fresh dirt and smells of vegetation and lavender. Oops again.