Darling seeds...
Good morning, spring garden. I have so much I want to do with you, and it's all pretty exciting stuff. Granted, there is a bit of ho-hum weeding, and boring burning of yet more hedge trimmings, but the spirit of creation is in the air. My seeds are germinating. Darlings!
Friday 5th September
What a day. The bonfire roared for six hours. In-between dumping loads of hedge trimmings on it, I weeding the Welcome Garden, spread ten barrow loads of mulch thereon, and tipped buckets of water over the roses and shrubs. By lunchtime I needed encouragement - enter Rusty the dog! He listened. The definitive sentence went something like this : 'I suppooooose I could finish burning all the hedge trimmings today. All I have to do is keep on clearing them until there are no more left.'
The Last of the Hedge Trimmings?
Rusty thought long and hard about this stunning revelation. But, seriously, the word 'finish', all by itself, is quite scary sometimes for a one-woman gardener! But I did finish, so I spent the last of my day in the glass-house pricking out the purple cornflowers. Tomorrow I'll do the Calendulas. Then I came inside and had an excessively bubbly bath (oops). My day has been a great success, and by golly my feet are sparkling clean!
Pink Camellias
Saturday 6th September
Right. I have an Non-Gardening Partner to organise with a knapsack full of weed-killer (sorry about this, it's destined mainly the driveway) and a trailer load of topsoil to fill in the scoopy gouge marks left by the hedge trimmer. And then, the trimmings from the back of the big hedge to rake up and burn. Right. So he's disappeared. Where to? To where?
Later...
Aargh! First of all I weeded another strip of the Driveway Garden and spread mulch around. Then we (yes, I found NGP reading the weekend newspaper in the garage) loaded up the trailer and attempted to burn more hedge trimmings. These were from the back of the big hedge, short and scrappy, annoying to handle. They were also a bit damp, so the bonfire was a steam-smoke combo. We'll finish it tomorrow.
Sunday 7th September
And so we did. The word 'finish' holds no fears for me tonight as I face the process of delicately aging head-on. It is my birthday tomorrow. I have been using my Miracle Skin Perfector for four weeks now and nobody has noticed. Perhaps NGP is too polite to ask why I am wearing makeup in the garden. An engineer, and too polite?
Calendula and Cornflower
Oh, I've pricked out the Calendulas, and gently watered all the other seeds. There is much germination. Yippee! And bring on tomorrow's official birthday.