Grubby...
Thinking about how grubby I can get when I garden in winter. I sit down in the dirt, and sometimes I lie down, getting muddy from my shoulders to my ankles. Total immersion!
Me on Middle Path
But the only selfie photographs I take are of me looking quite clean. I always smile, too, presenting the perfect image of a senior gardener enjoying being outdoors. Hmm...
Crepuscule Rose
Thursday 11th July
This morning I went to my ballet class, then made a quick visit to family, then home to work all afternoon until dusk. Was weeding in the Allotment Garden (which is next to the Welcome Garden).
Beautiful Crepuscule
The big Crepuscule rose (so beautiful) had badly fallen over, had to crawl under it on my stomach to weed. Ended up very muddy and extremely stuck at times. But I soldiered on, pieces of rose cane in my hair. Slow work, took me ages to get out of there. Thornless, though!
Friday 12th July
Am soooooo lucky! Managed to get Non-Gardening Partner outside to do some chain-sawing in the Welcome Garden. It started off so well.
Then I looked around, and he was gone. Probably off sharpening the chain? No. He'd escaped while I'd been carting the smaller branches over to the bonfire.
Man at Work
I dug him out of an armchair (it's NGP's day off, but that's irrelevant when the garden needs his attention, hee hee). Told him that no, he had NOT finished. Got him back out there, pointed at a dead Pittosporum and another half-dead Tagasaste (tree lucerne). Look!
Later, mid-afternoon...
So now all the tree mess is either cut up into firewood logs or burnt on the bonfire - a great day's work for me and for NGP.
At the End of the Day...
Gardening fact : it takes so much longer to clean up than it does to point at a dead tree and watch it get chainsawn down.
Brown Ferns
Ignore, ignore...
Propped up the Crepuscule rose, ignored the remaining grass weeds. Ignored all the brown ferns I saw, while walking to and fro with branches. Two or three light frosts is all it takes. There are now squillions, all damp and dishevelled, waiting to be trimmed. And too wet to be burnt.
Remembered I needed to transplant the Hostas by the house (they're smothered in ferns). Or dig out the ferns. Or both. Ignored the memory. Another day.