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Garden Journal 2009

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2009 is to be a year of enhanced garden quality. It's been designated as the year of the garden accessory - more seats and benches! More structures - bridges, and sheds! It's also the year in which I pay huge attention to detail. This could be interpreted as concentrating on the garden I have already got, rather than expanding ever outwards and starting any huge new projects. Hee hee - we'll see...

I also want the journal to have more substance and less blither - like good quality gardening soil...

January New Year... Sun 4th Jan 2009: Happy New Gardening Year. If every gardener's dreams come even half-true, 2009 will be a grand year. Feed your soil, cherish your beneficial insects and your water supply, as well as looking after your lawns? Aargh! Why not make 2009 the year of the Non-Lawn...
January Week 1 - More... Tue 6th Jan 2009: Oops. If a gardener hasn't really done very much gardening, can she still write about it in her gardening journal? Too right she can!
January Week 2... Sun 11th Jan 2009: We think we have just had the hottest January day on record. Wow! No wonder my gardening has been restrained, and confined to sloshing up and down in the water race.
January Week 2 - More... Tue 13th Jan 2009: January is very much a 'look lovingly and tidy up slowly' summer gardening month. It's easy to be lulled into a false sense of security, thinking there's not that much to do out there...
January Week 3... Sat 17th Jan 2009: I could spend all day raking the summer gardens and lawns - far too many gum tree leaves are messing things up. Everywhere I walk there is crackling underfoot. Aargh!
January Week 3 - More... Tue 20th Jan 2009: I am soooooo excited - the perennials nursery closing-down sale has lots of plants for low, low prices. Nothing is over five dollars - I am in plant sale heaven!
January Week 4... Sat 24th Jan 2009: I don't know whether Mr Obama is a gardener, but I wish him all the best for his world landscaping adventures. Obsessive gardeners struggle gently in their own little garden worlds. Mr Obama must struggle forcefully with one big world. Aargh! Take care, and kia kaha (be strong).
January Week 4 - More... Wed 28th Jan 2009: Three wild kittens have turned up in my Wattle Woods, and I'm worrying (in a resonsible, semi-nice way) what to do about them. Rusty the dog has an amazing nose for finding them in the undergrowth - poor little things!
End of January... Sat 31st Jan 2009: Three wild kittens have turned up in my Wattle Woods, and I'm worrying (in a resonsible, semi-nice way) what to do about them. Rusty the dog has an amazing nose for finding them in the undergrowth - poor little things!
February Week 1... Thu 5th Feb 2009: To the Moosey garden - good luck and all the best for February. Please try and look your best, even when the hot dry winds are swirling over you and gum tree leaves and bark are dropping on you.
February Week 1 - More... Sat 7th Feb 2009: All of a sudden I'm trimming and pruning and dragging lots of tree and shrub rubbish onto huge heaps. It's all because Non-Gardening Partner has donated me a groovy pair of secateurs. Good gardeners should praise their garden tools!
February Week 2... Tue 10th Feb 2009: Gardening with kittens - it's important to train them young. Shelter underneath the wheelbarrow by all means, but when it moves off don't run forwards. Keep well clear from the hand digger, and don't - ahem - dig toilet holes where the Head Gardener has just planted Petunias.
February Week 2 - More... Sat 14th Feb 2009: Finally we a getting some wet - wettish? weather to bring relief to the mid-summer Moosey Garden. And I'm already planning my giant clean-up - before the Garden Club visits in April. Aargh!
February Week 3... Tue 17th Feb 2009: Right. February has turned into a very fast month. And the garden zooms along - now full of colourful dahlias. The fountain grasses have seed-heads which shine in the sun. I think everything looks really lovely - But, of course, I'm biased!
February Week 3 - More... Fri 20th Feb 2009: My garden book has a chapter on 'aging and distressing'. This is perfect reading for an older-lady gardener about to spend up large at - aargh! - THE DENTIST! Please, no - I prefer the garden nursery!
February Week 4... Tue 24th Feb 2009: The Moosey animals (and the gardener) have been inside for two and a half days, and mild madness reigns - as opposed to outside, where wet goodness rains, hee hee. Mugsy the disabled cat has started talking (in excited cat-chirps) to her kitty-litter box.
End of February... Sat 28th Feb 2009: Gardeners need to balance their life amongst their plants (and animals) with other experiences - like doing things with real people. Oops. Walking in the hills, going to cricket matches (yippee! We won)...
March Week 1... Mon 2nd Mar 2009: Hello, March! You're the month when I make war on my garden rubbish, weeds, and overgrown shrubs. Ha! Moosey Garden (and Non-Gardening Partner) - be warned. You both have just four weeks to be ready for the Garden Club's visit.
March Week 1 - More... Sat 7th Mar 2009: Aargh! The Garden Club visit is now about thirty days away, and I haven't even begun to get properly organised. A friend of mine is chuckling - he says 'They'll go absolutely everywhere and look into absolutely everything'. Aargh!
March Week 2... Tue 10th Mar 2009: Gardeners should never even attempt to write up their journals when sulking. And - let's face it - so many gardeners have so little to sulk about, really! Well, the Moosey Head Gardener certainly doesn't.
March Week 2 - More... Fri 13th Mar 2009: March is marching on - I'm sure I've said that before. The mornings are much darker, and there's a definite autumnal feeling in the air. It's goodbye to summer - all too soon!
March Week 3... Mon 16th Mar 2009: No time to lose. So much to do. What to do first? Get more compost? Weeding? Burning? What to do last? When to write my gardening journal? What about the newsletter? What to wear? Well, at least that last one's an easy question - blue gardening shirt and jeans.
March Week 3 - More... Thu 19th Mar 2009: Aargh! The Pond has had its bottom scooped out and is fully refilled. There is some truck mess, nothing too negative. Non-Gardening Partner (bless him) is going to get in some topsoil and relay the grass.
March Week 3 - Even More... Sat 21st Mar 2009: Yippee! My Garden Helpers have completely cleared the back of the pond - piles of wood and iron left over from the Pump-House rebuild, as well as my gardening rubbish piles. My garden visitors will be able to enjoy the ambience...
March Week 4... Sun 22nd Mar 2009: This is ridiculous. It's early-morning dark, and my head is overflowing with gardening ideas. Dig this, plant that... The silliest plan so far is to shift a sturdy metal rose arch.
March Week 4 - More... Fri 27th Mar 2009: I don't know about Garden Club preparations being on anything as smooth and obvious as a track! But there is some progress... Some progress... Somewhere I'm sure there is progress...
March Week 4 - Yet More... Tue 31st Mar 2009: Eek! My friend (a plantsman, plant collector, and plant-breeder) has presented me with several varieties of bamboo - only one of which is invasive. I have also come home with some giant reeds and a ditzy ornamental Oxalis...
April Week 1... Fri 3rd Apr 2009: Hello April. April fool? Hopefully not me - surely by now I must at least be wiser than I was last year. I know where NOT to plant rhododendrons, and I've learnt that weed-mat doesn't stop the weed seeds from landing on top and growing...
April Week 1 - More... Mon 6th Apr 2009: Hens, waterwheels, the cricket, and more great gardening plans will happily fill up my weekend. Wish my head-cold would depart, though - the garden is far too full of the non-romantic sounds of snuffling, sniffing, and sneezing...
April Week 2... Thu 9th Apr 2009: Seven days to go now before the Garden Club ladies come to have lunch in my garden. So how are my serious preparations going? Well, I've already wiped the kitchen cupboard doors, and removed some spiders webs from the downstairs bathroom...
April Easter Weekend... Mon 13th Apr 2009: Eek! Possibly my very first senior gardening moment - the first of many? Sitting reading my book, lingering over the breakfast pot of tea - then I remembered the Big Easter Nursery Bargain Bin Sale, which had been going for - shock, horror - over an hour without me!
April After Easter... Thu 16th Apr 2009: Ha! The Garden Club ladies have been and gone. They were absolutely delightful and lovely, and should be hired out to anyone who lacks confidence and is having an open garden. They have left me feeling very happy.
April Week 3... Mon 20th Apr 2009: Unnatural behaviour after the Garden Club Visit - two and a half days without once poking or scratching at the garden. Things have to change - it's time to get back to 'normal'...
April Week 4... Fri 24th Apr 2009: Now April is rushing past - slow down! I'm not really ready for winter's frosts yet. I love the autumn sunshine and leaf colour. I even love my dahlias. Please stay awhile!
April Week 4 - More... Sun 26th Apr 2009: Yippee! The weekend! I have a Non-Gardening Partner to seriously organise. I need more stones, I need the wet ash from the burning heap to be expertly dug out and spread on the garden. The ultimate recycling...
April Week 4 - Yet More... Thu 30th Apr 2009: I must remember that April only has thirty days. Why? Is this something important? It's just the measured moment at the end of the month, the stocktaking - have I completely finished ALL my April gardening tasks?
May Week 1... Sun 3rd May 2009: Evening - mad older-lady gardener, stripped down to underwear, seen in water building stone wall along edge of stream - by moonlight. Water very cold, air temperatures very autumnal...
May Week 1 - More... Tue 5th May 2009: Ha! My web-site spelling-mistake blitz continues indoors, as does my get-the-garden-ready blitz outside. It's less than two weeks until my overseas holiday trip to Washington DC...
May Week 1 - Yet More... Thu 7th May 2009: OK. OK. Guess which gardener now wishes she'd done what she thought about doing yesterday - laying newspaper and mulch behind the pond. Guess why? It's seriously raining.
May Week 2... Thu 14th May 2009: Brr... I was warm while I was doing mobile gardening - I've been carting and burning gum tree rubbish. But seven degrees Celsius are not enough degrees for static outdoor comfort - for the wimp in me, anyway.
May Week 3... Sun 17th May 2009: The wind's been blowing heaps more autumn leaves off the trees. I have two major gardening tasks before I leave for my tiny holiday tomorrow - raking and mulching. Aargh!
May Holiday - 1... Tue 19th May 2009: Yippee! I've arrived in Rockville, a leafy critter-filled place near Washington DC. So far I've seen a low-slung fox, red-headed cardinal birds, and a family of ground-hogs living in an exclusive excavation under the corner garden shed...
May Holiday - 2... Sat 23rd May 2009: Gardens, arboteta, tourist places - my short holiday in warm Washington DC continues. But my mind is starting to turn. I'm just starting to make gardening lists, and I've made some fiercely responsible new garden resolutions.
May Holiday - 3... Fri 29th May 2009: We've driven up the northeastern USA to Canada on Memorial Day. I think this is the unofficial beginning of summer. Back home the weather in my garden is lurching into winter. Eek!
June Week 1 - Home... Thu 4th Jun 2009: June - I'm back home after my short summery holiday. It's winter. It's coldish, the gardens are damp with fallen leaves. The most colourful garden sights are the red crab-apples and the bright blue painted garden seats.
June Week 1 - More... Sun 7th Jun 2009: Hee hee. I'm home, and still enjoying myself immensely. Holidays between the hemispheres are brilliant for contrasts. Great summer memories - gardens, gardens, gardens... Cosy winter treats - warm bed, hot chocolate, log fires...
June Week 2... Thu 11th Jun 2009: What was I doing this time last year? Eek! Exactly this time last year there was snow. I was extremely cheerful, though - as I am now! I love, love, love being home.
June Week 2 - More... Sat 13th Jun 2009: Aargh! Winter is so soggy. The 'sog' is in the soil and in the air - today there's moist mist. But I still love being home, and I'm still going out there...
June Week 3... Thu 18th Jun 2009: The winter garden is alive and ever-growing - in my mind, that is. But the winter weather has taken a rather serious turn, which even a strong-minded four-seasons gardener cannot ignore. Four letters, beinning with 'S', bluish white in colour...
June Week 3 - More... Sun 21st Jun 2009: The shortest day is nearly here. That's the very middle of winter, the winter solstice, after which my gardening days will get longer, the sun will get higher, and the weather will get colder, according to the statistics. Eek!
June Week 4... Thu 25th Jun 2009: Life is good! I've sneaked slowly past the shortest day, and my winter spirits are high. And I love having something (like spring) to look forward to - imagine having no seasonal changes!
June Week 4 - More... Sat 27th Jun 2009: Right. Winter gardening discipline is needed. Writing well-meaning gardening lists and then sitting on the couch watching daytime TV, even if it's Hercule Poirot - this will simply not do.
End of June... Tue 30th Jun 2009: It's 9:30am, a serious frost outside, temperature still sitting at a shivery -1 (degrees Celsius), and summer holiday nostalgia has set in. I even find myself flicking to the Golf Channel on TV just to peep at the leafy green deciduous summer forests of USA. That's soooooooo sad!
July Week 1... Sat 4th Jul 2009: A pinch and a punch for the first of the month - seems rather physical and aggressive. Which is exactly the tone I need to set as I weed and trim and spread compost throughout the winter garden.
July Week 1 - More... Tue 7th Jul 2009: I'm definitely going to build my curved stone structure behind the pond. The trick is that I'm going to call it a 'folly', hereby gaining loads of designer credibility. Hopefully it will be presented to Non-Gardening Partner for his big birthday.
July Week 2... Sat 11th Jul 2009: I've just discovered a local native New Zealand plants nursery where everything costs two dollars. Hee hee. Naturally I am doing my bit for promoting the use of native vegetation in the community...
July Week 2 - More... Tue 14th Jul 2009: Wet winter weather - you can go away now. I'm getting sick of being rained on in the garden, though I'm sure my roses appreciate having some damp time-off. Where would I rather be? Possibly nowhere else, but I'd like to be drier...
July Week 3... Thu 16th Jul 2009: OK. I'm warm, well-fed, and I have shelter - three vital ingredients for a happy life. But I want more. I want some even half-decent New Zealand gardening weather - some mid-day winter sunshine, no extremes, nothing like snow.
July Week 3 - More... Mon 20th Jul 2009: I've decided not to personally saw down the apple tree in the Island Bed. Non-Gardening Partner's chain-saw will do in five minutes what it would take me all day to do. This seems to be very unfair...
July Week 4... Sat 25th Jul 2009: I am a foolish old woman. I garden in the frost. Today is the first warm winter's day for weeks, and so (perversely) I choose to spend it mooching around town in my disreputable gardening clothes - shopping. Shopping! I hate shopping!
July Week 4 - More... Fri 31st Jul 2009: It's been a bit of a lost and found day in the garden. My old spade has turned up - after lying in the mulch for months. To balance this I've totally forgotten where I planted a large tray of super special cyclamen - they should soon be flowering...
August Week 1... Mon 3rd Aug 2009: This is serious. August is here - a new month, another winter month for me, though the days are getting longer. I MUST behave and be a good gardener. I promise to be really, really good - all the time, every day - I promise, cross my gardening heart...
August Week 1 - More... Fri 7th Aug 2009: The life of a compulsive recorder of gardening trivia needs to be varied from time to time. Some gardening days (like today, for example) I will go outdoors early, without pre-writing (or pre-thinking) anything. A radical departure for an obsessive chronicler...
August Week 2... Sun 9th Aug 2009: OK. How strong am I feeling - mentally and physically? It's time to start cleaning out the back of the Shrubbery. Everything needs to be burnt. It will take days and days. There's over ten years worth of rubbish stashed in here. Oh joy!
August Week 2 - More... Thu 13th Aug 2009: My great clean-up behind the Shrubbery continues. Can I spend the third day in a row being a boring and repetitive gardener? Of course I can, if the writing in the Moosey journal is anything to go by...
August Week 3... Sun 16th Aug 2009: My resident bellbirds are very chirpy after the rain, whistling and chiming their bell-like songs. Rusty the dog is definitely not allowed to spoil this magical ambience by barking at them.
August Week 3 - More... Thu 20th Aug 2009: There's no logic in the gardening mind. Yesterday was sunny, so I sat outside for hours and read a rather large book. Today, damp and misty, I'm keen to garden. So, after an hour of seriously snug bed-gardening, I'm about to hit the local nurseries. Yippee!
August Week 4... Sun 23rd Aug 2009: I love the springiness of August. The Camellias just get on with flowering, no fuss, no tantrums. As well as the first baby pink, a hot pink is now blooming, as is one of the messy reds. And my new path curves so naturally past them all. So clever - what a great garden designer!
August Week 4 - More... Thu 27th Aug 2009: Ha! It's me, almost as fresh as a daisy, the day after a long, strenuous hike in the foothills. Shrubs of interest - lots of New Zealand pepper trees (Pseudowintera), those funny upside-down Lancewoods, and green Astelias which any five hundred dollar terracotta pot would be proud of.
End of August... Mon 31st Aug 2009: Yikes! August is nearly finished. That means it's less than two weeks to my BIG birthday! Wow - time to get my presents list published, I reckon! Hmm... That's sixty rugosa roses, or sixty loads of compost, or a voucher to buy sixty new plants from the nursery...
September Week 1 - Spring!... Thu 3rd Sep 2009: Yes - it's officially the beginning of spring. And so much is happening in the garden - the white Camellias, the red rhododendron, the bigger blossom trees - and, of course, patches of brilliant yellow daffodils everywhere.
September Week 1 - More... Mon 7th Sep 2009: Terribly important - I need to choose garden positions for my new birthday benches. I have two fat singles and a double to site - all with sturdy wooden slats and decorative wrought iron ends. Suddenly I have twice as many places to sit and admire the new spring growth. Eek!
September Week 2... Thu 10th Sep 2009: Happy Big Birthday to meeeeeeeeee. Finally I have reached dignified older-middle-age - a milestone in my random, rambling journey through LIFE. Hee hee. Think of a number, divide it by 6, add 2, multiply it by 5, and you get the number you started with. And that's how old I am...
September Week 2 - More... Sun 13th Sep 2009: So far this week has been the best birthday week of my life. And today - great news for the Moosey birthday garden gnomes. All six are having their first photo shoot, in location by the pond. Some gardeners seem to get more juvenile the older they get...
September Week 3... Thu 17th Sep 2009: Sorry - I've been a bit journal-absent, sulking in the house with a bad cold. Gardening with a head cold isn't pleasant. A gardener leans over a lot, the nose reacts accordingly, and the head feels even more woolly than usual. Enough self-pity!
September Week 3 - More... Mon 21st Sep 2009: I love spring. But gardening with a spring head-cold has been so uncomfortable. Just as well I am alone with my thoughts and my bag of tissues, and the occasional swear words. Lucky I don't get any pollen allergies...
September Week 4... Fri 25th Sep 2009: Eek! September is racing past - please slow down! I love, love, love every minute of every gardening day, especially at this springy time of the gardening year. I'm sure I've said that already...
September Week 4 - More... Wed 30th Sep 2009: This has been the speediest month I've ever gardened through. But boy! Have I been good! I score myself 10 out of 10 for perseverance, good spring maintenance, general hard work - and vision. Mustn't forget the vision...
October Week 1... Fri 2nd Oct 2009: Right. Last month I was brilliant in the garden - modest, too. Can this new month be even better? Oh yes, yes, yes! Take today, for example. I am about to go weeding. I will probably do this every day...
October Week 1 - More... Mon 5th Oct 2009: Oh boy. I am so busy. No time to get bored, or go all dreamy, or get sidetracked. No tangents - I need to work, work, work... My garden needs at least three versions of me. And we won't mention the weeds...
October Week 1 - Yet More... Wed 7th Oct 2009: I've been thinking. What on earth would I do if I didn't garden? And when I'm not gardening I'm thinking about gardening. What would I possibly think about? And when I'm not doing or thinking about gardening I'm writing about gardening...
October Week 2... Sun 11th Oct 2009: Wow - it's the second week of October already. I have been doing such great gardening - time whizzes past. So it will be Christmas soon? Eek - not that fast, please!
October Week 2 - More... Wed 14th Oct 2009: Some people who trade plants online are oh so generous - others are ridiculously overpriced! I say this smugly because I have run out of money to bid on anything, even garden gnomes...
October Week 3... Fri 16th Oct 2009: The garden is absolutely beautiful - I'm biased? You bet! I've been working hard for hours each October day, ending up slumped in a garden chair. Then I start plotting and planning for the next gardening day...
October Week 3 - More... Wed 21st Oct 2009: I've woken up filled with new personal resolutions rather than gardening thoughts - blast! It's time for seriously pruning and trimming the Head Gardener and getting her into a healthier shape. Hopefully that's all I'll say on the matter.
October Week 4... Fri 23rd Oct 2009: Right. The shaping up of the Head Gardener - and the Moosey Garden - continues, as October zooms past. And the spring garden looks even more beautiful than ever. The Head Gardener is to be warmly congratulated...
October Week 4 - More... Sun 25th Oct 2009: It's the weekend of the vegetable garden. Alas, the wood to raise the sides is too heavy to be person-carried into place, but vegetable plants and seeds can certainly get planted! My English Lavender edge rows are growing well...
October Week 4 - Yet More... Wed 28th Oct 2009: Yippee - I love my garden! What shall I do first? Weeding, or weeding, or weeding? I'd much rather be planting - I've got several shrubs and a Skunk Cabbage to find places for.
End of October... Fri 30th Oct 2009: So yesterday the hedge trimmer spent four hours on the Moosey property. Today the Head Gardener starts four days - or is that four weeks? - cleaning up the mess. Stand by for some extremely boring gardening journal writing!
November Week 1... Mon 2nd Nov 2009: Hello, November - the New, Now, Never-Mind-About-the-Weeds gardening month. For this is the month when summer rolls in, the sun shines down, and everything in the garden grows - and grows - and grows...
November Week 1 - More... Wed 4th Nov 2009: Hee hee hee. Checking first with Non-gardening Partner (whose response was typically mannish - do I really want more of those?) I have 'bought' three monster Cordylines for one dollar. He will help me dig them out this weekend.
November Week 1 - Yet More... Fri 6th Nov 2009: I am not a boring, predictable person! Today I do things in a different order - piano first, then breakfast, then gardening. I might even finish my digging project later this afternoon, when the sun has sunk a bit.
November Week 2... Tue 10th Nov 2009: What a weekend! Three monster Cabbage trees dug up from another garden, driven across town, and planted on the far edge of the Frisbee Lawn. This morning Non-Gardening Partner and myself are off to pick up a wooden garden bench - another one! Gardens need lots of benches...
November Week 2 - More... Fri 13th Nov 2009: Oh dear, dear, dear me. I have eleven clumps of (free) Agapanthus to dig out. So more Agapanthus plants are coming to be planted in the Moosey country garden. And none of my gardening friends will understand why. It's so obvious to me, as a compulsive recycler.
November Week 2 - Yet More... Sat 14th Nov 2009: If the Head Gardener puts up a whole web-page with just one day's gardening news on it, then that must mean she does heaps of work, and has oodles of amazingly interesting things to talk about. Forget the phrase 'less is more'...
November Week 3... Tue 17th Nov 2009: Wow. A new week - I can't remember the garden ever looking so good. Out come more and more roses, accompanied by the descriptors 'beautiful', 'extremely beautiful', 'incredibly beautiful', and the more colloquial 'oh so very beautiful'. It's rose time!
November Week 3 - More... Thu 19th Nov 2009: The good life of the Head Gardener is full of simple things - like windless rain in the night (good for the Moosey Garden) and going swimming (good for the Moosey cardiovascular system) and playing Bach on the piano (good for the Moosey soul).
November Week 3 - Yet More... Sat 21st Nov 2009: Today I start pulling out the forget-me-nots in the Driveway Borders. But what about my half-hardy gap-fillers - all those daisies and pelargoniums that I've been growing from cuttings? They're all finger-sized. Hurry up, you lot...
November Week 4... Wed 25th Nov 2009: Eek! Where's November gone? It's three-quarters finished. And I think it might have turned into summer - the barbecue is coming out of storage, and the patio pergola roses are flowering. Only yesterday it was the Wisteria - or have I missed something?
November Week 4 - More... Fri 27th Nov 2009: It is definitely Summer. There's actual cricket commentary on the cricket radio, roses in bloom everywhere, and the hoses are on all day (oops). I can work standing in the water race to keep cool. And the optimum time for comfortable gardening is after three in the afternoon.
November Week 4 - Even More... Mon 30th Nov 2009: Oh dear. I go to buy peonies and discover a yard full of old fashioned roses, all shouting out 'Buy meeeee! Buy meeeee! Buy me tooooo!' I haven't revisited the romance of the old-fashioned rose for a while now...
December Week 1... Wed 2nd Dec 2009: Hello December - you've started off rather damp and drizzly. However this is more a gardener's problem than a garden problem. Natural irrigation is always welcome in summer. I've had the big whooshy irrigation running as well...
December Week 1 - More... Sat 5th Dec 2009: The rain has really kept me out of the garden this week (apart from picking flopped-over flowers) - but I've certainly been thinking. Can I persuade Non-Gardening Partner to give me another tiny slice of the ram paddock? It's the perfect spot for my new old-fashioned roses...
December Week 1 - Even More... Mon 7th Dec 2009: Right. As the proud new owner of 26 mainly old-fashioned roses I have been preparing the ground, so to speak. A nice compromise with Non-Gardening Partner has been reached - I can plant thorny things on the 'other side' of the sheep fence in the ram paddock.
December Week 2... Wed 9th Dec 2009: I've had that dreadful thought again - is it time? Time to stop garden expansions and start properly maintaining that which I've got. A distinctly sobering and aging thought. Hey - I'm not that old! And nor is my garden.
December Week 2 - More... Fri 11th Dec 2009: Today I should find places today for the last of my new old roses. My plant collector friend is laughing about the potential that Kiftsgate and the Rambling Rector have to spread seriously all over my garden. 'Plant in haste, repent at leisure'...
December Week 2 - Yet More... Sun 13th Dec 2009: Ha! It's the weekend, and nearly two whole weeks of December have scooted by. The rose balance in my garden is subtly changing, with more and more new roses flowering. For every modern hybrid I should soon have a species planted somewhere.
December Week 3... Sat 19th Dec 2009: The new roses are still sitting in their pots, expectantly. I peeped at Kew Rambler - it looks really pretty, and the rose nursery has typed on its label: 'A nice rambling rose'. This sounds like one of my own mundane descriptive phrases.
December Week 3 - More... Mon 21st Dec 2009: Big gardening news (groan) - I am on a serious gardening budget. Seriously serious. No more wild purchases which need the trailer to get them home. No more garden seats which are such a bargain (e.g. twice as cheap as they usually are). I'm going to become a zero dollars gardener.
December Week 4... Thu 24th Dec 2009: Oh dear, dear, dear. My Christmas calendars are at the printers, but half the months have their Mondays turned into Sundays etc. Naturally my priority has been choosing just the right photograph of Percy the ginger cat from hig gallery of beautiful images...
December Christmas... Sat 26th Dec 2009: Yippee! It's Christmas! Merry Christmas from me and my faithful Moosey sidekick (AKA Non-Gardening Partner) who has been asked (very nicely) to do some Christmas lawn mowing. This seems a bit harsh, but since I'm going to do some gardening, anyway...
December Week 4 - More... Mon 28th Dec 2009: Such restraint - I have passed up the chance to bid for five more garden gnomes in an online auction. And since my budget declaration I haven't bought a single plant. It''s actually quite easy to keep to a budget...
December Week 4 - Yet More... Thu 31st Dec 2009: Christmas is slowly retreating, the days are getting minutely shorter, and now I am busy getting the garden ready for New Year. I still have two rambling roses and one rugosa (the old faithful Roseraie de l'Hay) to plant. And lots of summer colour to enjoy.