A serious list!
I know what I'm doing today... I've made a serious list, and called it 'Water Race Work'. But what I'm planning is much more site specific - Rooster Bridge is going to get a make-over.
Saturday 31st July
Well, more specifically the vegetation around and about Rooster Bridge is going to be 'rationalised'. Ferns have grown over the bridge path, and if they don't trip you up a slippery flax leaf will. Self-sown Pittosporums crowd out the air above and the big Wattle trees overhead are a disgrace. Huge Phormium tenaxes on the water's edge need putting a little more firmly in their place. Gunnera is growing into the middle of the water race, taking up far too much room, and clumps of Anemanthele grass are well past their 'use-by' date.
Rusty the Dog on the Glass-House Garden Path
Right. Action. I need a kitchen steak knife (to cut dead flax leaves), my spade (to slice out the Gunnera and a Cortaderia, or Pampas grass), and my bow saw to get the fern roots out from the edge of the water. Then I need Non-Gardening Partner plus his chainsaw. The wheelbarrow can take out the dry burnable rubbish. I'll be weeding the water race banks - there are far too many self-sown coarse Carex grasses.
Green Wheelbarrow
Many ferns will be removed and as a result the water race widened. Then the paths which follow the water's edge will be much more pleasant to wander along. And Rooster Bridge will stop being a slippery obstacle course and be as it should be - a safe bridge, easy to cross, enjoyable to stop on and look up and downstream. Ha!
Much Later...
One thing I like about me is that I don't muck about. I get an idea (see above), and later that afternoon it's all done! Except that I found not one but three Pampas grasses right up by the fence-line - to dig one out would have been heroic, but to dig all three just lunatic. So they get to stay, but everything else is dug out. Now there is space and light, and I can see the little gate on Rooster Bridge from the Glass-House Garden path. All excess Gunnera crowns are planted, and so I shouldn't get any more nasty surprises finding them tucked away underneath random shrubs.
Head Gardener on Rooster Bridge - 2010
NGP did his Pittosporum chain-sawing, but escaped after only taking down one Wattle tree branch (he hates sawing Wattles, and this one is in bad shape, with cankers growing along its branches). Then I burnt all my rubbish, raking out lots and lots of gum tree bark to keep the bonfire crackling along.
And then - great excitement - we went to the hardware store and bought plywood for lining the interior walls and the inside the roof of Pond Cottage. I also bought some paint (a rusty red), nails, and screws. If the weather is warm enough tomorrow (the air temperature has to be over ten degrees Celsius?) I'll paint the outside!
Goodbye to July
By the way, goodbye to July, a month during which I have worked incredibly hard. So just think how much better my garden must be looking...