Colour echoes...
Red Maple and Variegated Reed
Fiery autumn leaves and late flowering golden and red roses - together they form the most perfectly timed colour echoes in my autumn garden. Naturally I planned this to happen...
Tuesday 10th April
Eek! This morning I'm leaving the house before 8am to go swimming. We older-lady gardeners take our personal fitness very seriously - or should that be our sushi morning tea with our friends?
Anyway, the hoses are on, and when I get home I'll do some piano practice (if the weather is still nice). This might seem silly, but my big gardening issue today is the bonfire, and I'm putting that off until outside is less pleasant. I hate spoiling a nice day with smoke.
Later...
Blast. I cranked up the bonfire and then the wind arrived, on cue. It was far too whooshy to be sensible. I watched and prodded at the flames for a short while, then gave up and bucketed water on. I started shifting some loads of compost instead, but wouldn't you know it? The only thing I felt like doing was burning that bonfire. So I'm inside for some R'n'R, which is not really deserved.
Graham Thomas Roses
My wheelbarrow route went back and forth along the back lawn, passing the coloured trees over the water in the Dog-Path Garden. Who was the inspired gardener who planted these beauties?
Roses in Autumn Colours
And such a great thought to have warm golden roses (like Graham Thomas) on the near side of the water, flowering late, to echo the golden leaves. And red roses (like Ingrid Bergman), similarly flowering now, to complement the red Cercis Forest Pansy and the red Maples. Just brilliant...
Colour Echoes
But It Wasn't Planned...
Oops. Squirming confession: it wasn't actually planned like that at all. I had no idea when Ingrid Bergman would flower. And one year the Cercis's red leaves all blew off before I'd even noticed them. Random.
Oh, that same clever-clogs gardener chose to paint Pond Cottage the exact colour of the autumn Prunus leaves in the Pond Paddock. Well, the colour will match for a couple of weeks, at least... Photograph to come, by the way.
Later, Dusk...
I'm back! And I've been very, very, very good. The wind finally dropped, presenting me with a small window of opportunity, through which I leapt gracefully. I burnt all my rubbish - all the tree trimmings, the Hebes, everything. I even collected more gum bark, raked the paths free of debris in the Wattle Woods, and cut down the summer phloxes by the pergola. Pouff! It all went up (and up, and up some more) in several puffs of smoke.
Wednesday 11th April
Ah - a rainy morning, after splodgy rain all night - the perfect time to take stock of my autumn clean-up. For, without actually meaning to, that's what I seem to have been doing. A musical diversion first. We - that's Non-gardening Partner (violin) and Head gardener (piano) like the new Schumann sonata. Yes, we do. NGP thinks the piano part sounds hard (and I've practiced it), while the violin part is easy. Ha! So he doesn't need to practice? Just because he has a few bars of innocuous minims and semibreves...
Blue Skies, Autumn Trees
Back to the garden. I don't understand why I can wander past things for months without 'seeing' what's really there. I get too easily distracted by displays of foliage and flower colours. And I guess that's why autumn is my garden make-over season. But not in the rain, hee hee...
Thursday 12th April
Two midnight mice were presented to me in the cottage last night, thanks to young Minimus. Unfortunately one is very much alive under the bed somewhere. Aargh! It may have been as quiet as a mouse all night, but I'm not happy! Do mice eat dried cat-food? I'm thinking a mousetrap...
Golden Smiles Roses
Hiking Up Mount Herbert
Today I'm going hiking with my dear friend up a benign mountain (a more modest hiker might call it a hill). It's Mount Herbert (the tallest on the peninsula), standing just over 3000 feet above sea-level, and we're starting at a saddle two-thirds of the way up. So we should enjoy a pleasant doddling wander, with lunch high above the harbour in the (hopefully warm) autumn sunshine.
Much Later...
We had a glorious trip, though the tops were very misty (Mount Herbert was being a little shy). But we'd taken careful note of all the backwards views, if that makes sense, and the cloud wasn't too thick to be a worry. In a Harry Potterish moment we were followed along the top spur by a pale golden bubble of almost-light - feeling safe in the mist makes for some quite magical moments. And on the way home, back down to earth, I bought a mousetrap.
Friday 13th April
I've enjoyed the warmth and calm of today with minimal exertion. I have done a few things - visited the dentist (I fibbed about flossing), gone swimming, done some web-work, fallen asleep in the sun reading my book, finished TV couch-cycling from Paris to Roubaix (ooo, those cobblestones!)...
Barking Dog Rusty
But I haven't done any gardening what-so-ever. Oops. I took a few garden photographs. Does that count? And I took my dog Rusty for a walk down the road. His fur is growing back nicely, so he looks more like a border collie. He's been a very barky collie today - bored, maybe?