Work, work, work...
Now that I'm back gardening (and writing) I have far too much to talk about! By the end of this week I must have planted out my annuals and the new roses. I must work, work, work - and try not to mulch my new (ahem - borrowed) cricket radio.
A small warning to my web-master, who wants me to clean up the rose pages. Does he actually know that there are over two hundred different roses in the Moosey garden? Is he prepared and ready for the biggest Rose Photograph Collection ever? Be thankful that they're not all pink - but be warned!
The First of the Summer Daylilies
And irises - is he aware exactly how many big bearded beauties are flowering at the moment? What is the best view of an iris? They are an odd shape to photograph (for a keen amateur). Finally the patch of apricot irises are flowering brilliantly over the water race. Funny, I remember when I bought them - going out to a country plant sale, terribly excited - should we take the trailer? I was planning to spend up large, I was thinking BIG. All I ended up buying (very grumpily and randomly) was one small pot of apricot irises. Well, well, well! How I have matured as a gardener!
A Group of Big Bearded Irises
The roses are going well - I've found Constance Spry and Sparieshoop climbing all over the fence at the back of the Septic Tank Garden. Golden Celebration is celebrating by the woodshed underneath the pink rambler. Moonlight is flowering all over the apple tree. Roses spilling everywhere, the clear chimes of the singing bellbirds, warm sun, good health, cat company - what more can there be? Moosey Garden ambience is only partially destroyed by rust on the Masquerade rose, lawns that need mowing again, and that ghastly shrill rooster standing on one leg crowing his head off...
Three Hours Later...
Ha! I have been watering and weeding the Hen House Gardens. I have replanted the concrete water trough with variegated pelargoniums. This is rustic gardening at its most honest! There are no blousy roses and frothy peonies over here - just tough, uncompromising, dry, rock-hard ground, filled with survivors (like tussock grass). It's hard work even digging a planting hole.
Empty Garden Pond
Garden Growth
Right. It's even later, and I have just returned from a walk around the gardens. Things are happening! Rhododendrons I didn't know about are flowering! More peonies are bursting out of their buds. Roses, roses, roses everywhere. I have been doing the edges and marvelling at all the plant growth. The Wattle Woods stream is still running - the two end ponds look lovely full of water in the late afternoon summer sun. All is well.
Saturday 20th November
Right. Today had better be good! By the end of today I will have swept through the gardens over the water race like a gardening tsunami, watering hoses in hand. I will have planted all the potted roses at the back of the glass-house. By the end of the day all these gardens (the Willow Tree Garden, the Dog-Path Garden, Middle Garden and the Hen-House Gardens) will be of such a high standard that bus-loads of tourists could walk through them and be amazed (and take millions of photographs).
Rose Beds
I think I am getting the humble Moosey garden confused - perhaps with Mona Vale Botanic Gardens. As part of last week's compulsory socialisation programme my walking friend and I returned to Mona Vale Gardens in Christchurch to wander around the rose gardens.
Their Roses Are Bigger Than Mine...
All very fine and beautiful, much bigger rose bushes than mine, though they didn't have a Mutabilis (and the Moosey Mutabilis is magnificent at the moment). And their Constance Spry is much paler than mine (I think they've got the label wrong). I faithfully took the regulation photographs, and my friend was charged with the responsibility of remembering all the rose names...
Mary Rose
Back to the moment at hand - today had better be brilliant! Extremely good gardening behaviour will be rewarded with a wee spot of afternoon cricket watching (go NZ!), fresh bread (go bread-maker!), and real orange juice with orange bits in it. Simple things - simple pleasures! I love my garden!
Late Mid-Day...
I have spent all morning planting the new roses! And lots of pottles of flowering annuals. The hoses are running. The wind is booming and blustering, but I haven't been put off. I have worked really hard, so with my cup of coffee (decaf - part of the new healthy eating plan) and salad sandwich (yum) I am ready for the cricket.
A short poultry report - I didn't realise that hens lay down like Romans in togas and stretched their legs out sideways... they also do amazing arabesques, but synchronised, same leg, all at the same time...