Towards the new millennium!
Golden Celebration Rose
Disaster strikes the variegated cordyline. Paths are finished. The garden looks out towards the new millennium, as irrigation is installed over the water race. We WIN the cricket!
Wednesday 1st December
Cool! I am home from work and into my gardening clothes and it is only 3.30. I am off over the water race to enlarge the Hen House Garden. I have a carload of aquilegias to plant in it (they are payment for Calculus coaching from a student). I have to rethink the stumps.
Saturday 4th December
I am writing about the cool things I can see - like the peppermint geranium with the lovely leaves, the enormous nicotiana sylvestrises, and the row of angelicas. I will not mention my New Dawn (rust disaster). The roses on archways are behaving better this year. The yellow phlomis is cool. In fact, yellow is cool - roses, pansies and the orangey-yellow geum.
Sunday 5th December
I have been thinking about pots and what other gardeners put in them. When I visit other people's gardens I am always nosey about POTS. I like things in pots. Things that are frost tender here go in pots, like daisies, lemon verbena, helichrysums, succulents whose names I never bothered to remember, and so on. Also I plonk things in pots just to see if I like them, or if I haven't a clue where to plant them (like the two little variegated yuccas which I have just remembered to water).
Holy Cordyline
ARGH!!@$'!!
My most stylish and trendy pot planting WAS (until this morning) a large variegated cordyline in a large terracotta pot. This morning I noticed that most of the stylish and trendy leaves had huge insect holes in them!... Hmmmm...
Saturday 11th December
It's Saturday. It is the first day of my holidays. Today I will start holiday stuff. I will not even think about spraying the stylish trendy variegated cordyline.
Sunday 12th December
Watering. Weeding. Edges. Digging. Watering. Weeding. Edges. Digging.
Monday 13th December
The path through Middle Border is organised and edged with stones. Actually it looks a bit silly and needs plantings to soften the edges. The lemon lupin is nice there. There is a southerly coming.
Tuesday 14th December
I dead-headed and tied up things after the southerly storm. Yes, this should have been done before the southerly. But then I wouldn't have known which plants would blow over...
Middle Garden Path
Wednesday 15th December
I am wearing my new gardening shirt. I have bought some six dollar roses from the nursery and a red flax. I might put them all in the native border. Why not?
Later that day...
I have planted new roses in ex-native border. I have 2 frogs. Lara is out for 24... cool. Griffiths is out for 114... cool... Vettori is on a hat trick. The frogs are croaking in canon. I should shift the ligularia. It has ended up in the hot mid-day summer sun and is wilting in protest.
Saturday 18th December
I have been thinking. Perhaps only lonely people write gardening diaries. Or crazy people (the big nicotianas are flowering). What shall I do first? Perhaps only sad old ladies write garden diaries. And have breakfasts by themselves outside with their cricket radio and their cats for company.
Sunday 19th December
I thought about putting yoghurt over the stones that edge the paths, to get them all mossy and ancient looking. Then I remember reading about someone's dog who licked all the yoghurt off. I will wait until Autumn.
A Dog Designed Path
Monday 20th December
The green grasses? tussocks? sedges? by the water race look really nice. I'm not sure what I want to do today. Yesterday we won the cricket!!! later... I have just made a path along the water race. There is a nice place there for a hammock or a snoozable seat by the flowing water. I wonder though if hammocks are comfortable for sad old ladies.
Wednesday 22nd December
I have done two hours of weeding in drizzle. I have also planted all the orange annuals in the Pond Border - I am trying some Calendula and some orange Cosmos.
Friday 24th December
It is Christmas Eve. I dug a bucket of new potatoes. Taj-dog has been rolling in a dead thing. Merry Christmas to my stinky dog.
Monday 28th December
I am so boring. All I do is dig weed and do edges. Today is cloudy and must be made the most of. I will shred the Cerinthe from Stephen's border in Middle Border to encourage some self-seeding. I can't work cerinthe out - it's established itself in the driest sunniest border (Stephen's) throwing out heaps of seedlings which then get crisped and fried. Like it's got a death wish. Gardens I've visited have cerinthe growing in slightly dappled moisty places.
Tuesday 29th December
Stephen has laid out my Christmas present (irrigation hoses and assorted fittings) over the water race. Cool! Soon I can be irresponsible again and stop the bucketing water on new rhododendrons and trees antics.
Wednesday 30th December
WE WON THE CRICKET!!! I planted the gladiola bulbs. Probably far too late, because I forgot about them.
Millennium Sprinklers
Friday 31st December
Today is the last gardening day of the millennium. It is partly and lightly cloudy with a gently gusting NE breeze. The soft stripey grass in Jeremy's border is beautiful. There are lots of little tableaux. I am off over the water race to bury the irrigation pipes. They are connected and working!