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Garden Journal 2005

A close-up of the geraniums, to celebrate a new year with close-up button.

2005 - the year of the close-up photo

Will my garden journal for 2005 contain even more detail than past years? When will I run out of things to say? When will the Moosey Garden finish expanding and reach some natural equilibrium? Pressing questions...

And what about the pictures which accompany the Moosey 2005 Journal? Will the small flying things in the Moosey garden again be interrupted by the camera pressing close?

Let us hope that the novelty of the close-up button wears off and we get back to decent views and vistas, and some decent rural country garden ambience...

New Years Week 2005... Tue 4th Jan 2005: Happy New Gardening Year. No need for New Year's Resolutions - perceptive gardeners make resolutions each month of the year. I have a stack of Next November's Resolutions including spraying the roses before they get rust and sowing more pansy seeds.
January End of Week 1... Thu 6th Jan 2005: The first week of the new gardening year continues. Finally I am in the mood to garden - settled weather would help! How about some sunshine?
January Week 2... Mon 10th Jan 2005: Gardening weather is supposed to settle down this week - yippee! I do not require East Coast Australian temperatures - just some summer days in the balmy twenties (celsius) would do.
January End of Week 2... Fri 14th Jan 2005: Let the summer days begin! Barbecues on the patio, sitting in the garden shade reading, gently raking fallen leaves off the paths, gliding through the gardens at dusk, watching the sparkling water...
January Week 3... Tue 18th Jan 2005: It's now the third week of January, and finally we've had two really hot summer days. Just two! I am ready to do some extreme warm-weather garden watering.
January End of Week 3... Thu 20th Jan 2005: I've been having some summer reflections on the state of the Moosey Garden, where everything (when watered) is growing quite nicely! Even on dry blustery days the garden sparkles. I am very lucky!
January Week 4... Sun 23rd Jan 2005: I suddenly have huge plans to 'build' a shrubbery behind the pond. This actually means clear the ground, add organic matter to the soil, mulch, water, and shift in some very small plants...
January Mid-Week 4... Wed 26th Jan 2005: Yippee - the long hot days of summer continue, and I am trying to garden logically and sensibly. Mad dogs and old-lady gardeners go out in the mid-day sun?
January End of Week 4... Sun 30th Jan 2005: January seems to be going on for ever - endless sunny days of summer gardening with two cats, two kittens, a puppy and a gang of chooks. The big irrigation is now running at nights - serious watering has begun!
February Week 1... Fri 4th Feb 2005: The wind blows, the gum leaves, bark strips (and the odd branch) descend. I'm certain Beth Chatto wouldn't be silly enough to have flowery gardens and lawns underneath huge inherited gum trees.
February Weekend 1... Sun 6th Feb 2005: Ha! In past years the first weekend in February would have been spent back in the garden rushing around, trying to forget the pressures of the first week back at work. Ha! Not any more, as I settle serenely into my second year of semi-retirement.
February Week 2... Sun 13th Feb 2005: Oops! The Year of the Rooster has started a little vaguely. For each of the last three extremely hot days I've had to go in to work. I've been on light gardening duties, and have spent most of my gardening time shifting hoses and watering things.
February Week 3... Thu 17th Feb 2005: The Year of the Rooster continues, and my very own bird (bless him) has suddenly, randomly taken himself and his hens off next-door. I feel slighted, and wonder if this is unlucky for my garden!
February End of Week 3... Sun 20th Feb 2005: Discipline is required - the weather is beautiful, there is no wind - and I am feeling very garden-lazy. I have one week to get the whole Moosey garden ready for my special garden visitor, and there is far too much garden chaos.
February Week 4... Sat 26th Feb 2005: My late February garden seems to get scruffier by the day - and the mornings are starting to get darker and cooler. It's officially late summer.
February End of Week 4... Mon 28th Feb 2005: I have gone all fierce - I've suddenly had enough of the big drab Phormium Tenaxes which are dotted around the house gardens. These fearsome foliage plants have outgrown their positions. Large flaxes will in future only be allowed by the water race.
March Week 1... Thu 3rd Mar 2005: Aargh! It's March already and I'm still pottering away in my garden doing small items of general maintenance (and attacking my large flaxes). Early autumn is the perfect time for a major soil digging project - a second large pond would be nice!
March End of Week 1... Mon 7th Mar 2005: The flax removal continues - with wheelbarrowfuls of slippery flax leaves, and much flourishing of secateurs and the big kitchen knife. No half measures - I am reminded of my great Pittosporum Hunt last autumn...
March Week 2... Thu 10th Mar 2005: The days are getting noticeably shorter, and faster, too. This is a strange time of year, balanced delicately between summer (sun, flowers) and autumn (cool, leaf-drop). I should be digging new gardens, before time runs completely out.
March End of Week 2... Sun 13th Mar 2005: The plant sale season has started! Perhaps the small amount of paid work I've been doing has a purpose after all. I love the autumn sales - I immediately want new roses, and new shrubs - and new trees...
March Week 3... Thu 17th Mar 2005: It's nearly the middle of March and I'm mooching around. Where's the energy to put all my wonderful garden ideas into practice? I blame the cricket (which we keep losing, really badly) - this must de-motivate the staunchest of cricket-loving gardeners.
March End of Week 3... Sun 20th Mar 2005: The early autumn garden nursery sales continue - and I'm now spending up large (oops) buying plants for the Moosey garden - including new roses. I'm sick of being frugal and careful with money - it's about time I went on a new rose-buying spree.
March Week 4... Thu 24th Mar 2005: I have ground to dig, trees and roses to plant, and a carful of rejected hostas from a gardening friend. The new birthday garden needs to be finished (and photographed) by Easter!
March Easter Weekend... Sun 27th Mar 2005: It's the Easter weekend, and I've been to the big plant nursery sale once - so far. I plan to have the whole of the new Birthday Garden planted, manured and mulched - as long as the long range weather forecast for persistent rain is proved wrong!
March Easter Weekend 2... Tue 29th Mar 2005: The Easter weekend hasn't quite finished, and I haven't quite finished the Birthday Garden. It's dug and mulched, but needs just a few more roses to fill in the gaps. I wonder if the rose sale is still on...
April Week 1... Tue 5th Apr 2005: A is for April - A is for Autumn. The garden slows down, but the gardener has to speed up - leaf raking marathons, garden rubbish fires, pruning and clipping to clear paths, stones to collect, firewood to organise. And all those sale plants to plant!
April End of Week 1... Fri 8th Apr 2005: The early autumn days continue, bringing a peaceful ambience to the Moosey gardens. Even my digging and burning sessions seem to have become more relaxed. I love my garden in early autumn.
April Week 2... Tue 12th Apr 2005: I still have thirty (thirty!) unplanted plants from the Easter nursery sale sitting on the garden bench by the new Birthday Rose Garden. Guess what I'll be doing all weekend?
April Week 3... Sun 17th Apr 2005: The autumn temperatures are still quite mild. What a funny, in-between feeling there is in the Moosey garden!
April End of Week 3... Wed 20th Apr 2005: Hee hee! It's technically the first week of my autumn holiday. I have huge plans, and for once none of them involve spending any money on plants. Mind you, that rose sale is still on...
April Week 4... Sat 23rd Apr 2005: The autumn weather is still mild and dry, and my autumn holiday garden clearing programme continues. The very first solo Moosey garden make-over has almost worked...
April Anzac Weekend... Mon 25th Apr 2005: The autumn Anzac weekend continues - with a surprise stormy kick in the weather. Out comes the full set of gardening (and/or tramping) thermals. Standing in the water race weeding does not appeal, but it's on my list!
April End of Week 4... Fri 29th Apr 2005: OK, so now it's really Autumn. The Frisbee Lawn had a frost last night. A fierce southerly storm has blown down half the beautiful autumn leaves on the Moosey trees. And the soft-stemmed dahlias look like they're ready to expire.
Last Weekend of April... Sun 1st May 2005: I have far too much to say this autumn! It's the last autumn holiday weekend, and it feels like my last chance to get the garden ready for winter - which, of course, it isn't. There will soon have to be a mad mulching marathon throughout the garden.
May Week 1... Sat 7th May 2005: I have far too much to say this autumn! It's the last autumn holiday weekend, and it feels like my last chance to get the garden ready for winter - which, of course, it isn't. There will soon have to be a mad mulching marathon throughout the garden.
May Week 2... Fri 13th May 2005: The autumn gardening song, heard over the water race where the head gardener has been lurking (and singing to herself) - 'I dug and I mulched, and I dug and I mulched - and I dug and I mulched myself sore....'
May Week 3... Sun 15th May 2005: I suddenly have remodelling plans for the gardens over the water race. My focus is paths. And I am worrying about the many Verbascum seedling plants which are appearing everywhere - some sensible preventative action may be needed.
May Week 3 - More... Fri 20th May 2005: I am determined to keep my gardening momentum going after my super-active garden weekend. Autumn leaves are now off the trees and on the ground - I'm planning to make leaf-mould. I'm going to dig and chop back every day.
May Week 4... Wed 25th May 2005: Blast! It's still raining, it's the start of the weekend, and I have huge, huge plans - which do not involve getting wet and muddy.
End of May... Sun 29th May 2005: May reaches an end, and everything in the garden seems to have gone really quiet. So far there have been no real frosts to spoil early morning gardening plans. I've already folded over all the Gunnera leaves - how well organised is that?
Very End of May... Tue 31st May 2005: I'm coping rather well with the short days and the winter sun slinking through the sky. The great Moosey Winter Clean-Up is slowly but surely gathering momentum - still no major morning frosts (or southerly snow storms) to spoil things! Touch wood...
June Week 1... Mon 6th Jun 2005: It's the beginning of June - the month with the feeblest of suns, the month of morning frosts and southerly storms - maybe even snow!
June Week 2... Sun 12th Jun 2005: We've now had the first frost (of about four degrees) - any daisies or pelargoniums still left in the garden will be history! I've temporarily become a winter weekend gardener - blame the weather!
June Week 2 - More... Mon 13th Jun 2005: Winter weekend gardening legends are allowed to write as much as they like about their successful weekends in the garden, with lots of plant details, and much boasting. Ha!
June Week 3... Mon 20th Jun 2005: This is terrible! I have been at work all week. The only time I've seen the garden is on animal walks with puppy and the ginger kitten. It always seems to be dark when I'm home!
June Week 4... Sun 26th Jun 2005: We are just past the winter solstice. The days have started to get longer - well, just a tiny fraction, but enough to lift my gardening spirits towards spring. Should I plant some more spring bulbs? Is it too late?
End of June... Thu 30th Jun 2005: The sun is low in the sky, the garden is almost asleep - nothing much is really happening to write about. So do I take the hint? No! I desperately wish to record every gardening detail! Here goes...
July Week 1... Mon 4th Jul 2005: My goodness! Where did June go? Looking back, I should now have every garden border weeded, cleared and mulched. It's much easier to garden in the warm expanses of the mind than in the reality frosts, southerly storms, and feeble winter sun.
July Week 2... Mon 11th Jul 2005: I'm gradually acquiring pairs of climbing roses for the new rose avenue in the Hazelnut Orchard. Which should be 'planted' first - the archways, or the roses which will twine up and over? Hmm...
July Week 2 - More... Wed 13th Jul 2005: Suddenly these July mornings have turned frosty - it's difficult to start any gardening before 10:30 am. Everything must be in order before we fly to Samoa for our winter-summer holiday!
Visiting Nelson... Sun 17th Jul 2005: It's late Sunday afternoon, and we have arrived back - not from Samoa but from Nelson. Brr! I have just wandered around the Moosey garden with my long range spectacles on, to see what's grown and what's changed in the last four days.
July Week 3... Thu 21st Jul 2005: Right. The Moosey garden is not looking its best. There is much maintenance work to be done and remedial action to be taken. Every garden border is full of weeds, weeds, weeds - and then more weeds. I will spend all my winter weeding. Humph!
July Week 4... Mon 25th Jul 2005: The great Moosey winter mulching machine struggles on - why does it take me so long to cover so little ground? The garden make-over programmes on television don't have this problem - they can plant and mulch in hours. Humph...
July End of Week 4... Sun 31st Jul 2005: I have to finish mulching (manure, newspaper and old lucerne hay) the Moosey garden by the end of July. That's approximately one garden area per day - eek! So far only the Willow Tree garden is done.
August Week 1... Fri 5th Aug 2005: Ha! Welcome to August, the majestic, dignified gardening month (according to the dictionary). I guess that means the winter gardener is poised and balanced whenever in weeding stance - the queen of the winter rubbish burning pile...
August Week 2... Wed 10th Aug 2005: The days get longer, but my late winter gardening sessions seem to get shorter. Maybe little and often is best? For example, I could always burn my rubbish later in the day, and go apres-gardening twice...
The Lost Weekend... Thu 11th Aug 2005: A Lost Weekend! Not a XXX-rated episode of Desperate Gardeners, but a journal in crisis! Due to a technological gardener error, two whole days of journal writings are lost somewhere in the cosmos - nothing to do with the flowering annual...
August Weekend 2... Sun 14th Aug 2005: I am so very lucky! How can I ever think that even one of my little garden problems is important? Like weeds in the vegetable garden? Or not enough colour in the garden in late winter?
August Week 3... Fri 19th Aug 2005: I thought while I am pruning the roses - that's all the roses - this week, I could do a count of them. Perhaps I could write all their names down in an impressive super-list!
August Weekend 3... Sat 20th Aug 2005: This weekend I must absolutely, definitely must finish pruning the roses, including all the house archway climbers. As a responsible rose grower I need to become more pro-active in providing good, healthy conditions for these noble shrubs. Sounds serious!
August Week 4... Wed 24th Aug 2005: All of a sudden August is nearly over, and that definitely means spring is near. The much blessed pink flowers will again fill my garden, and the greenery will grow large and lush. I need to be on top of my gardening game - weeding comes to mind...
August Weekend 4... Sun 28th Aug 2005: More and more spring daffodils are flowering, and I've spied the first patch of blue Muscari in the garden - sheltered underneath a lovely red-leafed leucadendron. Is it really spring? I hope so!
The End of August... Wed 31st Aug 2005: Eek! August is nearly over! Have I noticed everything that is starting to grow and flower - the daffodils, the muscari, the purple honesty? Have I done enough gardening this month?
September Week 1... Tue 6th Sep 2005: I can't believe that it's September already! And suddenly, overnight it seems, the Great Moosey Spring Daffodil festival is in full bloom. Everywhere I look there are pinks, lemons, oranges and lemons...
September Week 2... Sun 11th Sep 2005: It's the Moosey birthday week - the plum tree spring blossom is beautiful, temperatures are warm, there's no wind, and no rain to droop the daffodil patches. Will a truckload of birthday compost magically drive in? How about some birthday weeders?
September End of Week 2... Tue 13th Sep 2005: More and more spring things are pushing themselves centre-stage in the Moosey Garden Drama Festival. Little perennials like Stachys are suddenly looking tidy, with fresh new growth. And all the lawns are as green as green!
September Week 3... Tue 20th Sep 2005: Aargh! The semi-official start to Week Three - September is springing is past with such speed! I'm now keeping a colourful-flower-eye on the Moosey rhododendrons. Will they enjoy the coming flowering season?
September Week 4... Sat 24th Sep 2005: I'm busy cleaning up after the (short and sweet) snow storm. Snow in late September! The daffodils now have good reason to droop, and the Honesty has been knocked back - as has the gardening confidence of the head-gardener.
September Week 4 - More... Tue 27th Sep 2005: Humph! The more I do, the more I find that needs to be done. Unseasonable snow storms have left soggy daffodils everywhere, and the orchard definitely has magical powers - every time I complete a row of pruning, a new row appears out of nowhere...
The End of September... Fri 30th Sep 2005: Too much to say! Too much to do! I love September, and there are just days to go. I have my New Zealand Native plants to create a new garden with - very exciting, even if the area is not quite dug yet...
October Week 1... Thu 6th Oct 2005: I am getting the garden ready for a group of lady garden visitors. Eek! Suddenly gardening priorities have changed from sweeping vistas to sweeping the house paths!
October Weekend 1... Sun 9th Oct 2005: Ha! The Clematis is flowering, as are the big Japanese Flowering Cherry trees in the Pond Paddock. It's time for reading and picnics underneath the blossom - never mind the garden maintenance, or the new garden needing to be dug and planted! Eek!
October Week 2... Fri 14th Oct 2005: This will be a week of planting. New climbing roses, a cluster of native New Zealand plants for a small new garden, a couple of new specimen trees - and one rather blobby conifer, for which a subtle place must be found.
October Week 4... Sat 29th Oct 2005: Aargh! Blast! This week my Moosey garden experiences will be rather thin on the (unweeded) ground. There may even be no journal entries! I hope the garden will wait patiently for my return. Roses - please don't all start blooming at once!
October Week 3... Tue 18th Oct 2005: An assortment of plants are suddenly in flower! Perhaps it's time to step back from the hard garden work and take time to notice and enjoy these little bursts of colour - before the big bossy roses take over.
End of October... Mon 31st Oct 2005: Roses everywhere are starting flowering. Flowering shrubs are, too - and the Rhododendrons by the water race - outbursts of colour and foliage fill every border. The garden is positively blooming, radiant with good health!
November Week 1... Sun 6th Nov 2005: I am still here! Lost in the garden's greenery, amidst a thousand rose blooms - well maybe! There's been a small matter of paid work, which has kept me rather busy, and will not be elaborated on. I must spend the money on new plants!
November Week 2... Sun 13th Nov 2005: I think summer has arrived! It's warm, the roses are blooming, and we've started to run the big irrigation. Sweeping lawns do not create a nice framework for the early summer borders unless they are green and pleasant.
November Week 3... Thu 17th Nov 2005: The harsh New Zealand summer sunlight does exist! Today the weather is overcast and the garden looks beautiful. This is exactly the same garden which glared at me, looking washed out, hot and bothered, in the hot thirty degree sun on Friday.
November End of Week 3... Mon 21st Nov 2005: A new pet lamb to look after and enjoy, good books to read, surrounded by blooming roses and vibrantly coloured irises - let the 2005 Moosey Summer of Gardening begin!
November Week 4... Fri 25th Nov 2005: The rosy month of November continues colourful and flowery. Everything is looking great - except the lawns. Why do I have such scruffy lawns? Here are some inspiring lawn adjectives - verdant, lush, green...
End of November... Wed 30th Nov 2005: The lawn mowing of the Moosey lawns is just not up to scratch. The cut is rough and uneven, and there is far too much long grass by the edges. Perhaps some supervision is required?
December Week 1... Sun 4th Dec 2005: The first official day of summer, a brand new month, and the garden is looking more lovely than ever - as long as I don't wear my spectacles, or peer too closely at the rose leaves (aargh!) or the lawns (another aargh!)...
December End of Week 1... Wed 7th Dec 2005: I am still getting the garden ready for Christmas - weeding the banks of the water race, watering, trimming the edges of the borders. In three weeks time absolutely all parts of the rambling, random Moosey garden will be incredibly beautiful.
December Week 2... Sun 11th Dec 2005: I am still getting the garden ready for Christmas - weeding the banks of the water race, watering, trimming the edges of the borders. In three weeks time absolutely all parts of the rambling, random Moosey garden will be incredibly beautiful.
December End of Week 2... Wed 14th Dec 2005: Hmm... Lovers of positive, optimistic garden journal writing should read no further. Ridiculous - surrounded by my summer garden and loving, faithful animals, I have got into a sore-hand-sulk. Are there such things as power secateurs?
December Week 3... Sat 17th Dec 2005: It's the third week of December. No more gardening grumps are allowed - but there needs to be some gardening maintenance done. It's time for more dead-heading, and weeding, and path clearing, and so on...
December End of Week 3... Tue 20th Dec 2005: I am still weeding and trimming madly so that the Moosey garden can be as beautiful as possible for Christmas day. Oops - only one Christmas present has been purchased so far, a frisbee for the dog. The Frisbee Lawn can come alive.
December Christmas Week... Sat 24th Dec 2005: The Christmas week lurches onward and ever upward (a bit like the Golden Hop) - the Moosey Country Garden joins in, bravely. Minimal money is to be spent on non-gardening items. I've ordered a trailer-load of soil conditioner to be one of my presents.
Christmas Day... Tue 27th Dec 2005: Merry Christmas! New Zealanders get Christmas morning first, before anyone else has had the chance. Good wishes from the Moosey Animal Farm and the Beautiful but Sadly-Neglected-and-Thus-Too-Weedy-For-Christmas Country Garden.
Last Week of the Year... Sat 31st Dec 2005: My summer holidays so far are full of kittens, food, and mind-gardening! Today I get my presents - soil conditioner, and a printer for the Moosey computer. Photographs of kittens and roses can deck the walls! Real gardening can recommence!