Messy can be romantic?
I have moved my gardening location to the messy end of the Hump Garden, an area which I ignore a bit, and therefore has gone a bit wild. The best thing about a big garden - one can always find a new location, full of surprises (hopefully not too many nasty ones). I remind myself that messy can be romantic - with a bit of imagination...
The Messy End of the Hump Garden
So yesterday I spent hours sitting on my bottom trimming overgrown Carexes and Anemanthele grasses. Weeded around the white Buddleia, trimmed stalks off dahlias. Uncovered two rhododendrons! Oops, had forgotten they were there, which means that they were completely submerged last spring. Wonder what colour they are?
This morning I'm about to do some more trimming and clearing. The sun is shining, the blossom is beautiful, abuzz with honey bees, the spring colours are amazing. To be honest I am feeling a little lazy, but the early morning was a bit cool (that's my excuse).
Red Rhododendron
Much later...
The resident gardener here is just hopeless. She had taken a wee morning tea break and was supposed to be thinking about an old unused path in the end of the Hump Garden. To ask (and answer) deep questions like : Why is the path there? Where does it go? Is it ever used anyway? And then to take sensible, thoughtful action.
So what does she do instead? Plants the tomatoes in the glasshouse. Brings out a box of pink dahlias and plants them in the sunny end of the Hump Garden. Weeds willy-nilly, leaving piles of mess all over the place.
Then abandons all her tools and comes inside, far too early, thinking she will have a shower, slosh on the hand cream, and go on a Youtube adventure with some intrepid Canadian white-water paddlers.
Well, I am not having this. I am sending her back outside to sort it all out. No hot shower, no pretty apres gardening white cotton shirt, no clean blue jeans, no paddling - until she has decided on this path thing once and for all.
Forget-Me-Nots
Later...
Ha! She did it. She decommissioned the path, collected all the log edges, trimmed all the big Carexes, and started covering the sensible main path with mulch. She also did more weeding in the middle of the Hump Garden. I am very proud of her.
Things are starting to look freshly green, and oh so pretty in the non-messy end of the Hump Garden. The forget-me-nots - loving them. The Alkanet - loving it, too - for now. The pink and white Campion is almost flowering. Pretty weedy, but fills (rather enthusiastically) the spaces between the roses.
Have decided that (garden-wise, at least) messy can easily look romantic if one sort of squints into the middle distance and smiles. Not sure if this would translate into a photograph, though...