Never dull...
Hello Fred Cat
Yeay! My musical life is never dull. I have my wonderful jazz choir. I sing alto in posh Mozart Masses. And now I have been asked to perform in a Bob Dylan 80th Birthday Tribute Concert. This new venture is very exciting - am going to sing backing vocals and play piano. C'mon Fred, lets go off into the garden and practice our Dylan growls.
Later, lunchtime...
Have come inside to think. Picked some tomatoes, and started clearing mess out of the lower areas of the Hump Garden. Found some puzzling plantings : two potentially large rambling roses, totally misplaced. A self-sprouted Viburnum with unpleasant silver leaf (thrips?), suckering madly, taking up too much room. Prunus seedling trees with scary spiky stems. A path which needs re-routing. A garden which needed re-thinking.
I crawled around weeding, wondering how expansive my thoughts need to be. Aargh! Looked around, and then thought some more. Talked to my friendly blackbird, hopping excitedly in my weeding wake. Talked to Fred, lounging amongst the self-sown Campion plants. Warned my blackbird.
Rose Label
Two Hours Later...
The earth hasn't moved much, in the gardening sense, but I've been thinking steadily while working. I've axed out some small Viburmum stumps and laid the new path route. Trouble is that it crashes right through the Roma tomatoes. Didn't feel like digging out the uber-scratchy roses - still not totally sure where they're going to go. Also found another rose with scary tendencies. Eek! Another rosy super-spreader!
Thursday 8th April
Hello. It's me again, feeling rather sheepish. Have I sorted out those super-spreader roses? Not a bit. I've gone from bad to worse : have been back to the rose nursery sale. I do not need any more roses. I cannot yet provide appropriate locations for the ones I've got. Oops.
Yellow Frau Dagmar Hastrupp
My friend bought four Claude Monet Standards. I was restrained and only bought two roses - a Kate Sheppard (my existing ones are in pots sulking) and an oddball called The Active. Odd name, so I will quote its origin : 'Quite a large shrub bred by Ken Nobbs of Te Kauwhata, a Mutabilis X. It has an almost continuous display of apricot buds and small yellow flowers in bunches. Very healthy.' Sounded like the perfect country rose, couldn't resist.
Buy me! Buy me!
Spent the rest of the day totally distracted, thinking about roses! Wondering if I should bring together all the old-fashioned roses in one area, next to the species pink one. Also wondering if Mrs John Oakley would like it in there, at the lower level, in between the Phormiums. Just a whole heap of wondering and little action, I'm afraid.