An heirloom list?
So what's on my list for the refreshing of the Pond Paddock? I wrote items down on a piece of paper which got drenched in my gardening jeans pocket. It looks like an heirloom list, a historical scribble worth drying out and filing somewhere.
Garden in the Pond Paddock
The tasks on it have certainly been mentioned before in this journal (probably more than once), but if I repeat them I just might finish them. Yeay!
- Plantings : Phormiums, variegated Euphorbias.
- Paths : Clear them.
- Paddock lawn : finish raking up oak leaves.
- Wattle Woods edge : Clean up Creeping Charlie, rationalise plantings.
'Rationalise' is a delightfully vague gardening word. One can do it mentally and not lift a finger, or one can get physical and dig madly like a dog posessed.
Weeping Maiden Camellia
The best thing about the word 'rationalise' is that it allows one to ponder, solve a garden problem (for example, decide the Weeping Maiden Camellia needs repositioning), and then do absolutely nothing about it. Hee hee.
Three hours later...
Am extremely satisfied with my progress. Planted the Euphorbias and the new Phormium very carefully (best not to swing my spade in this garden area and hit an irrigation pipe). Dug the planting holes with a hand digger, scraped out dirt and stones with my fingers, took ages, but yeay! No pipes were damaged. Phew!
Sunday 25th June
A list makes working in one garden area look easy and interesting. Sitting therein getting a muddy wet bottom is slightly less inspiring, and I get a tiny thought-tickle : do I really enjoy this damp winter gardening lark? How does it compare with sitting inside on the couch with a clean dry bottom, eating toast and drinking cups of tea?
Side of the Pond Paddock
I've worked hard for nearly four hours. I deconstructed the large Cream Delight Phormium which had got itself well and truly buried in the undergrowth. The pieces are now ready to pot up. Also raked up a lot more Oak leaves, trimmed a bulky Escallonia tree-shrub, and pulled some Creeping Charlie out of the lawn. My plan to get the Apple Tree chain-sawn down (or at least trimmed) didn't work. Blast!
Bags of Oak Leaves
Have completed twelve of the seventeen list items, a success rate of about seventy percent - not bad at all! Am off to take photographs (which won't do justice to the hours of hard hip-aching work, or feature my muddy wet bottom, which I'm not supposed to keep on mentioning in case it gives offence).