Back to the list!
I promised my garden I would be really good and would take notice of my large, excruciatingly detailed March Gardening List. Shut my eyes and picked a page at random - the Hump Garden.
White Dahlias
OK. The Hump Garden always has problems with paths and overcrowding, so there's no shortage of things to do in here. My generosity of spirit gets me into trouble, as I tend to let self-seeders rule my garden. Here's a typical scenario...
Red Dahlia
A typical scenario...
In the Hump Garden a sweet little Viburnum shrub throws up sprouts of greenery. Awwww. How very, very kind! So I let it grow, and grow, and it eventually blocks a path. That's OK - it's still green.
But I know that these shrubs behave badly in my garden, their leaves becoming silver-browned (mites? fungus? both?) unless in full sun.
Today I found one such blocking an important access path. So I took to the suckering cluster of unhealthy two meter high stems. Did an awful lot of lopping, with ten loads of mess barrowed away, but now the path is finally cleared. Yeay!
I also dug out a self-sown tall green Cordyline which was in the way. Same problem - sweet thing for growing without me planting it, but there are at least a dozen others nearby. I weeded, tidied up Anemanthele grasses, and wondered what I could plant in the gaps. As one does!
Self-Sown Cordyines
Winnie was very happy dog company - I'd found one of her tennis balls in the soil. Not a dead ball, or half a ball, or a slimy ball either - it was pristine! All afternoon I threw it for her.
Winnie and her Ball
She'd wait patiently out of sight on the lawn. Then out of the greenery the ball would magically appear. She'd catch it in her mouth, scuttle into the garden to drop it by me, then scuttle back out via the path to wait again. Winnie understands paths. And parabolas. And the value of waiting, obviously.
Orange Dahlias
Feeling powerful...
Am feeling rather powerful, for once. I'm in charge! I've decided what grows where. Yes! Ha! Take that, garden, filling yourself with all sorts of plants without even bothering to ask.
Saturday 11th March
I had a small window of gardening opportunity between swimming and going to a singing rehearsal. So I decimated another Viburnum, brown-silver leafed and looking dreadful, in the Allotment Garden. Out of there! Will get Non-Gardening Partner and his chain-saw to finish it off.
No Viburnum photographs...
Refuse to take and show a photograph of the Viburnum. It's just too dreadful. Please enjoy the pretty dahlias on this page instead.