Irrigating the garden...
Worked long hours yesterday, rewarded with a wind-free night and the sound of the whooshy irrigation on the side of the cottage. Yippee for the big irrigation! There'd be no trees, hardly any green shrubs, and certainly no roses without it. Just tussock and dry paddock grasses. And weeds!
Well irrigated!
This morning I have a music rehearsal (another one, yes) and when I get home the day is mine. And the evening, too. Yeay! I can stay home and relax.
Pebbles the Dog
Later...
Shifted the hoses, bucketed water onto the patio pots, collected two barrowfuls of trimmings. Trimmed old flower-heads off the Euphorbias. Not a very productive day garden-wise - hot, hot, too hot for me.
Thursday 12th December
Oh joy! Have just walked around the back gardens with my camera, since there's nice cloud cover. So scruffy! I haven't been over the water race for about a week - have been concentrating on tidying in the Pond Paddock and the house gardens.
The yellow water irises have finished flowering, and the large white ones have taken over. A lilac rhododendron is flowering - the latest of the late rhodos in my garden. Silly shrub, braving the fierce sun.
So what do I see? Mess, mess, and more mess. Old forget-me-nots (I thought I'd pulled them all out). Weeds, pieces of gum tree bark, dead branches on trees, and assorted garden horrors too horrible to name. This is not minor forgetfulness - it's major neglect. I blame the succession of hot, hot days. I blame summer!
Lunchtime...
My first Xmas Carols gig is over, and I've raced back home to put my garden to rights. This has to happen really quicky, before Christmas. The plan is not to think too much, just to concentrate on outcomes, count the number of barrowloads of mess trimmed, and so on. Even an hour, even if in the mid-day sun, will help.
Rose in the Gleditsia Tree
Two hot hours later...
Oh boy. Hot. But I just kept going, being careful not to clip my fingers with the secateurs or get jabbed by a nasty Gleditsia thorn (have a reaction to their poison or whatever it is). Have been clearing out the circular Driveway Garden - what a mess! And now I have to go back out - another rehearsal, followed by a wee concert that one of my choirs is giving. I do not need any finger injuries!