Tougher!
Am getting sick of trimming super-sized Phormiums. But I am just as tough as they are. Tougher! And I can last just as long. Longer! Have decided that my garden itself isn't too big - just maybe some of the plants in it are.
Wandering around the garden with my camera I've found some beautiful things (which are not Phormiums) to take photographs of. The dahlias are starting to flower. Yeay! But I've seen messy garden areas which need my immediate attention. Bad luck for them - I am virtuously sticking to my New Year's rule for 2024. Finishing one thing at a time, if I remember rightly. Aargh!
Friday 5th January
Regarding this enormous Phormium which I am chopping down with a puny bread-knife. It is taking me longer than playing all Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues. Am going to ask Non-Gardening Partner if there is another way. Something electric? Man-muscled? Hope he doesn't suggest using the yellow-handled axe (I lost it in the garden a couple of years ago).
Hello, rain...
Today rain is forecast, so I'm going visiting. All day. Will also go to the library - have a book on hold to pick up (short stories featuring Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, all written by different contemporary authors).
Spot the stone steps and the stone path?
I've been thinking. One reason that things are trimmed and shrubs are pruned is so that the gardener (me) can pass by them without getting scratched or tipped over. I forgot to trim the Hypericum and the Hydrangea outside the laundry. Now they are both flowering - too late (or too early, same thing?) to do anything about them. The wee stone path to the washing line is impassable. And I've just remembered the Philadelphus. Now this is THE perfect time to prune it.
Phormium Half-Down
Vital information?
Some vital background information (oh really?) about that Phormium behind the Stables. It's a species one, designed to grow fat, to spread and flatten itself out. So it pushes other shrubs out of the way, and blocks my cute little access path to the water race.
Now all I have to do is clean up my mess. Wait a minute - I still haven't finished slicing it down. Blast! OK. I can do this.
Several days later
An update on the fat green Phormium. Five more hours work, three more little cuts on my hands, four more on my legs, six spiders flicked gently off my body, and it is down. Sort of down.
Not completely down - NGP is going to try and slice through it lower down with something he calls a brush-cutter. And guess what? A few days ago I cleared up heaps of mess. Then today I left all the new stuff on the lawn. Hee hee.
The Phormium is Down