Back to n-n-n-normal...
Back to n-n-n-normal. I was weeding in the Island Bed (reverently) on top of dearly departed Fluff-Fluff the cat. One easy thing (pulling out the forget-me-nots) led to another, not so easy (Lamium has spread everywhere). Then even more alarming - cleavers everywhere, and issues with the big Choisya.
Invasive Yellow Lamium Flowering
This super-sized shrub has finished flowering, and seriously needs a trim, down to ankle-height. Suckers need digging out. Lamium is growing all around its base. The nearby Hellebores have been completely smothered. Something needs to be done!
Fluff-Fluff :- Dear Fluff-Fluff. He totally understood how to be a good gardening cat.
OK. Taking advantage of my position (kneeling delicately over Fluff-Fluff) I asked him what he thought. To be honest, there wasn't much of a response. I think he advised me to write all my worries down, promising they would immediately dissolve all over the page. And so I have...
Wednesday 16th November, Lunchtime...
OK, so where's this forecast rain? The sun is beaming down, and I'm making steady progress with my big tidy-up. Lots of the Lamium is coming out easily - I know I'll miss some of the smaller pieces, but I'm doing my best. And it is, after all, a finite nuisance of a ground cover, and won't grow from little pieces of roots I leave behind.
Purple Lamium
And, just for the sake of my pride (London Pride? hee hee), I didn't plant it in here! So there. I am not always the silly-billy who makes the monster mistake. Not this time, anyway... Time to top up the sun screen, and one more sunny session. I am gaily flinging all the rubbish onto the house lawn. It's quite a fun, naughty feeling.
Hours Later...
I worked so hard. I've managed to reduce the 'girth' of the Choisya roots, scrape out most of the Lamium, and not disturb too many Hellebores. Winnie has been 'helping' (not) by doing dog-acrobatics, leaping up to catch the thrown weeds and dragging them around. So the lawn is now an absolute mess. But it is a productive, sensible mess!
Kanzan Flowering Cherry
And the spirit of Fluff-Fluff, lurking in the garden by the flowering Kanzan cherry tree, has been smiling. He was always such great company in the garden, so I am paying him back. By the way, above is my most recent photograph of his memorial cherry blossom tree. It was in flower about three weeks ago. Love you forever, dear Fluff-Fluff.
Floppy Peonies
Next Morning...
OK. Well done me. Now it's raining, quite heavily - of course it's raining! The first cricket test between New Zealand and Pakistan is due to start in town at 10:30am. We can't have a cricket match disrupting the weather, can we? And it's a tad cool, so I am going to light the log-burner and do some web-gardening - gentler on the hands. We will not go to the dog park until much, much later. We might be tough, but we are not silly! Some of us, that is...
Later...
We've been blown around the dog park, and now we're going to blow around the garden to pick any flopped over flowers. The rain is wonderfully welcome, but it doesn't help the peonies to stay upright. Silly blooms! Too heavy for their stems, that's what I reckon. C'mon, my lovely dogs.
Friday 18th November
Most of the lupins in Pond Cottage's wee front garden have also nose-dived into the dirt. I've picked them and filled another house vase. It's hard to be cross, though. These flowers are so pretty, and have wonderfully clean green foliage. Some look to be one colour, until you check close-up - you'll see they're completely bi-coloured, lemon and blue, lemon and pink, and so on.
Bi-Coloured Lupin
Visitors!
All I did today was to weed around the house gardens and start the clean up of the Lamium and Choisya. It's all going in a heap by the fence - I can burn it after it's all dried off a bit. And in the afternoon I had visitors. Yeay! Proper people (who aren't cats or dogs) to talk to! Not that I can't and don't talk to Non Gardening Partner, but I suspect he doesn't listen properly.
Days Later, Sunday Evening...
I've had fun doing things with my house visitors all weekend, so I've done nothing major gardenwise - just a tiny bit of Alkanet and Forget-me-not pulling out. By the way, New Zealand won the cricket. But there can be no rest for the house hostess - NGP is back from flying and I hear the lawn-mower. Aargh! I need to shift the hoses and make sure there are no hand tools in the grass. Eek!