Moosey News : January 2009

Dear Subscriber,

Please let's all have a good 2009 - a year where we do our very best to enjoy our gardens, our friends and families. A year where we plan wisely, and try not to spend too much of the housekeeping money at the plant sales. But we are definitely allowed to get the garden giggles every now and then!

This month's features :

  1. The Year That Was
  2. Yippee for Yellow
  3. Daylilies
  4. Garden Life Calendar 2009
  5. La Marseillaise Rose

Regulars :

  1. Plant of the Month : Peonies
  2. Animal of the Month : Stumpy Cat
  3. Garden Quote : On Proactive Pruning
  4. Garden Gallery : Spot the Bellbird
  5. Forum Focus : Burbling Energy
  6. Gardening Advice : A Recipe for Life
  7. Searching for Moosey : fun gardening
  8. Coming up this month : Lots of calm, broad, sensible garden thoughts.

This month's features

1. The Year That Was

A gardener just can't start a new year without looking back to the old - to the year that was...

2. Yippee for Yellow

In New Zealand December is the month which includes midsummer's day - in my garden it's a very yellow month under the hot sun.

3. Daylilies

Some summers I'm merely cross with them. One summer I made plans for mass evictions. This summer I'm madly in love again! Gardeners can be so fickle sometimes...

4. Garden Life Calendar 2009

Here's yet another garden calendar for 2009, free for you to download and print. It's full of typical scenes of the Moosey garden, with all the pets thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

5. La Marseillaise Rose

Red roses come and go a little in my garden. Some are good, honest doers, others delight in covering their leaves with rust or black-spots. A recent rose entry, rescued from a supermarket sale table, is La Marseillaise.

Regulars

6. Plant of the Month : Peonies

Aristocratic, high class bloomers? Maybe. Expensive? Not really. Beautiful? Beyond my wildest gardening dreams... I'm talking about my peonies, and the wonderful show they've put on this spring and summer.

7. Animal of the Month : Stumpy the Cat

Oh dear - Stumpy (one of the first cats at Mooseys) has passed away peacefully, aged seventeen. Finally this friendly grey tabby has 'pulled up stumps'...

8. Garden Quote : On Proactive Pruning

Aargh! Another well-meaning quote about pruning, one which I should jolly well take notice of...

9. Garden Gallery : Spot the Bellbird

This isn't so much an amazing picture as a lucky break for an amateur photographer (me). I love the New Zealand bellbirds that live in my garden - they're extremely elusive, and a drab camouflage green in colour. Getting a photograph is a special moment...

10. Forum Focus : Burbling Energy

The forums keep burbling energetically on - well, the friends who visit certainly do. We're always meeting new folk from faraway places.

11. Gardening Advice : Recipe for Life

Obviously there have been far too many recipes for Christmas Cake, Christmas Puddings and the like floating around recently. So it's back to plainer food - and a simple recipe for life.

12. Searching for Moosey : fun gardening

fun gardening
All gardening is fun, but some things are more fun than others. And sometimes things which aren't usually fun end up being fun... like weeding? Anyway, the writer of the Moosey Journal seemed to think so...

13. Coming up this month : Lots of calm, broad, sensible garden thoughts.

And the keeping of the serious Moosey New Years Resolutions, at least for the first few weeks. And not too much silly stuff like going on plant spending sprees, even when a nearby perennial nursery is having a closing down sale... Hmm... Can one ever have too many hostas?

Cheers,