A happy garden...

After 75mm of rain in two days (slightly more than our monthly average, good morning to my happy garden. Hope you enjoyed the precipitation. More and more shrubs are flowering - so beautiful, and bringing me so much joy.

Yesterday the water race was down (the intake gets closed off when the river is in flood). So I spent what time I had trimming more Phormiums, Carexes and Ferns, before I went to a choir rehearsal.

 Phormiums, Gunnera, and Alice Rhododendron.
Shrubs by the Water

Today, no rehearsals (but I do need to go over my part in the Stravinsky Mass). We won't mention the Bruckner, which is a huge, fat sing with lots of notes that are way too high for me. I have a gentle list.

  1. Weed the Welcome Garden, transplant in large species Agapanthus.
  2. Plant potatoes. Where? Haven't a clue. Hump Garden somewhere.
  3. Choose a garden area and weed it. Sneaky annual grasses!

Towards the end of the day, here are more things I could do : burn more of the rose and Wattle tree mess, and prick out the Hollyhock seedlings. Clean up more broken glass from the glass-house. Trim dead wood off the nearby rugosas, clear the path. Aargh! This is a second list, masquerading as a paragraph. Lots of things to do. Eek! Lots of fun? Maybe!

Later...

I did everything in the formal list : more of the Welcome Garden is weeded, one barrowful of Agapanthus is transplanted, and the potatoes are in. I also did more weeding in the Hump Garden, where lots more roses are suddenly starting to flower. How beautiful! Pink Campion and blue Aquilegias fill most of the gaps (along with annual grass-heads, oops).

 In the Hump Garden.
Blue and Pink Flowers

But the list disguised as a paragraph will have to wait until tomorrow. So there.

 In the Hump garden. very fragrant.
Roseraie de L'Hay Rose.

Tuesday 29th October

I only have the morning free. Can I do gardening wearing my lunch-at-a-cafe clothes? Absolutely not. So here's the plan. I do my piano practice.

Get changed!

Then I change into gardening clobber. I go into the Hump garden with my secateurs, trim the last Miscanthus, cut the Aquilegia flowers which are flopping over the path, and put them in a vase. I also chop down the suckers of a rogue Gleditsia. Perhaps I also do some weeding, and finish clearing the path. And trim the Alkanet which is flopping over everything.

Later...

Did it all. No, that's not true. Did most of it. But I kept my good clothes on. At least I changed my shoes!