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Garden Journal 2010

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Ha! In 2010 I am transforming into a budget minded gardener, one who will exercise restraint and act sensibly at all times. Let's see how I make it through the year!

I can't guarantee that any excesses won't pop up in the garden journal, though. I will still write far too much about too little.

January Week 1... Sat 2nd Jan 2010: Happy New Year! All the very best for this brand new year, and may all your gardening dreams come true. Well, at least fifty percent of your sensible dreams, that is... May your weed population diminish and your treasured plant population soar.
January Week 1 - More... Tue 5th Jan 2010: Today's gardening plans are slightly tricky, as they involve Non-Gardening Partner, who thinks he is on holiday. The Welcome Garden needs a manly clean-up - there's much mess, dead Tree Lucernes need chain-sawing down...
January Week 1 - Yet More... Thu 7th Jan 2010: Tiny question - do I want to buy myself a cute shabby chic white wire two-seater garden seat? How do I reconcile this with 2010's Zero Dollars Gardening Budget? Could it be a late Christmas present from me to me, so I spent the money last year? Oops...
2010 January Week 2... Sat 9th Jan 2010: No time to chat - I'm off swimming, and then I'm working in the garden. What a surprise! My weeding and path clearing programmes are going well, and today (windless) is the last day before the fire ban...
2010 January Week 2 - More... Mon 11th Jan 2010: This afternoon I'm expecting two lovely visitors, who will be a trial run for the Garden Club's twilight visit in four weeks time. If the paths work, the lawn edges are trimmed, and the water features are presented well, then I should get away with 'it'.
2010 January Week 2 - Yet More... Thu 14th Jan 2010: Today I'm reclaiming the last messy, weedy path through to my Cordyline glade. Then the messiness and weediness by the Hen House will be dealt to. Moosey's Messy Country Garden will become a thing of the past...
2010 January Week 3... Sun 17th Jan 2010: Dates are strange. Would time go any slower if the date was hidden away? It's halfway through January, and this measurement immediately sets up a minor Moosey panic. Aargh! Summer is going too quickly!
2010 January Week 3 - More... Tue 19th Jan 2010: Mid-summer? Humph. Mid-summer and wood fires in the log burner, extra blankets on the bed? Another humph. One weather forecast says it will be 'dull and drizzly'. A third humph...
2010 January Week 3 - Yet More... Tue 19th Jan 2010: How hopelessly unadventurous I've become this year. All I want to do is gardening. I want to finish clearing behind the pond, saw some silly trees down, and beautiful the immediate environs of the new seat, that sort of thing...
2010 January Week 4... Sun 24th Jan 2010: What am I going to do in the garden today? I'll tell you what I'm going to be wearing - top-to-toe thermal underwear! What a sight! Battling winter-like wetness in a mid-summer gardening month...
2010 January Week 4 - More... Thu 28th Jan 2010: It's such a good feeling finishing something in the garden. It's not a feeling that I'm over-familiar with though... I must treat myself and finish my cosmetic house garden tidy-up.
2010 January Week 4 - Yet More... Sun 31st Jan 2010: I'm starting my big, major, thoughtful, rational and logical clean-up for the Garden Club visit. Specifically, I will start doing the paths. And I will not move off to some other task until all, absolutely all, the paths are passable and tidy.
2010 February Week 1... Wed 3rd Feb 2010: Hey - where did January go? That was quick! And February is that annoying gardening month which is short on days, but full of summer sunshine, lots of watering, and a Garden Club visit. Aargh!
2010 February Week 1 - More... Fri 5th Feb 2010: It's the final countdown to the Garden Club visit - six full days of gardening are possible, weather permitting. I have a slight problem with some of my Lychnis plants - they've finished flowering, and just don't make the grade. Eek!
2010 February Week 1 - Yet More... Sun 7th Feb 2010: Aargh! Suddenly it's the weekend, and the Garden Club visit on Tuesday at twilight. I am running out of time. There is so much I would like to do. I will get a reputation as a weed-harbourer (?) if I don't get onto it. I need help - where has Non-Gardening Partner escaped to?
2010 February Week 2... Tue 9th Feb 2010: 'Tis the day before the Garden Club visit. I intend to tidy up all the loose ends in my garden. This includes loose weeds, loose paths, and loose edges. Perhaps a few loose shrubs will need a trim, too, by a gardener in loose trousers...
2010 February Week 2 - More... Thu 11th Feb 2010: Ah, the anti-climax, the day after a most enjoyable visit by the Garden Club! Thirty plus happy visitors, and they all fitted on the paths, on the seats, on the lawns... Guess what? I might allow myself a day off from all things gardening.
2010 February Week 2 - Yet More... Sun 14th Feb 2010: The lawn is a mess! And so continues my extreme relationship with Eucalyptus trees. Oh, the grandeur, the sculptural form, the majesty! And the mess - the noise as self-amputated limbs, crackling bark, and leaves pour down.
2010 February Week 3... Wed 17th Feb 2010: Eek! My garden needs me in so many little ways. But I have a rather large plan concerning the new path behind the Shrubbery and its environs. Part of me (the silly part) wants to completely clear this rough piece of land down to the paddock fence.
2010 February Week 3 - More... Sun 21st Feb 2010: I spend so much 'gentle time' in the garden - talking to the cats, doing things with the dog, sneaking up on my pond frog... I should never, ever take these good things for granted. I don't think there is any 'gentle time' at all in being a teacher of teenagers...
2010 February Week 4... Wed 24th Feb 2010: OK. I've got the hoses on. My short work commitment is finished. I'm totally back, and I've been thinking. Am I silly to be clearing the new garden area at the very back of the Shrubbery?
2010 February Week 4 - More... Fri 26th Feb 2010: Create a paper plan for the new garden design? Perish the thought! But I will lay all the path edges and look at the positive and negative spaces and shapes thus created. Ha! Impressed?
2010 End of February... Sun 28th Feb 2010: Autumn in my garden is allowed to start early. Some locals look to the first of March, others go with the equinox. I'll go with my gardening feelings - it's started! The dahlias suddenly look disgraceful, early leaves are fluttering down...
2010 March Week 1... Tue 2nd Mar 2010: Good morning March. Your autumnal timing is impeccable, though the last four days of February have been warm enough to be called summer. Oh well - welcome anyway. Please be a thoughtful month, and make my messy garden look beautiful again.
2010 March Week 1 - More... Fri 5th Mar 2010: Unusual excitement for this morning - a two-year-old is visiting, and the Moosey house is oh so not baby-proof. Nor is the garden, with its water hazards and horse manure and bumble bees and such. Rusty the dog isn't used to small people - hope he doesn't push past on the paths...
2010 March Week 1 - Yet More... Sun 7th Mar 2010: I am burning rubbish all weekend. Not only the stuff piled up underneath the fence, but the Wattle tree seed pods and gum leaves which are carpeting many of my paths. I'd like to thank the Cordylines and Eucalyptus trees (and the Wattles)...
2010 March Week 2... Tue 9th Mar 2010: Ha! Can I say that March marches on? The mornings are starting to feel autumnal - the sun is lower, the air seems fresher and edgy. And my lawns are returning to that lush green colour again. Yippee! Well - that's a tick for the lawns, at least.
2010 March Week 2 - More... Fri 12th Mar 2010: Today should be my Garden-All-Day day, but rain is forecast. I have gardens to tidy. I want to clear absolutely all that scruffy garden land and plant it in an easy care evergreen forest. Yes! I'm not so small that I can't think big. And get wet if I have to...
2010 March Week 2 - Even More... Sun 14th Mar 2010: Right. This weekend I am making up for four whole days of distraction from my garden. This is so not like me! So here's the plan - it's a bit bridal. I'll do something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue...
2010 March Week 3... Tue 16th Mar 2010: I am having a plants and bulbs week - the planting in the soil thereof. For example, the path behind the house is blocked with this and that bucket, each full of arum lilies, campanula, polygonatum, pieces of red flax, some purple Ajuga, and so on...
2010 March Week 3 - More... Thu 18th Mar 2010: My continuing plan for March is simple - to keep on planting, to do some more mulching in the new garden, and to sit on a different garden seat each day to read and contemplate life.
2010 March Week 3 - Yet More... Thu 18th Mar 2010: A weekend in the middle of March - no wind, no rain, and still plenty of plants to plant. And the new garden - my goodness how quickly it's growing! Can I finish it by the end of March? Hope so...
2010 March Week 4... Tue 23rd Mar 2010: Yesterday I had a brilliant day in the garden. Why? Because I did lots of little, detailed things, and saw small messes transformed into beautiful orderliness. My garden was grateful, looking as if I really cared about it. Warm thoughts, warm thoughts...
2010 March Week 4 - More... Fri 26th Mar 2010: Hee hee... I've been buying a few plants in the online auctions. When I say 'a few', one needs to put this phrase in a large country garden context. Tonight I'm off to pick up twenty hosta clumps - the seller politely suggested they might not all fit into the boot of my little car...
2010 March Week 4 - Yet More... Sun 28th Mar 2010: Ha! It's the last March weekend, and what have am I up to in the garden? Oops... It's been the weekend of the new garden shed (possibly) and eight Rhapsody in Blue standard roses...
2010 End of March... Wed 31st Mar 2010: Oh boy. Lying in bed worrying about getting, or not getting, a groovy garden shed. People thinking about buying a house, or a farm, must get absolutely no sleep for weeks! And what colour should I paint the exterior? Aargh! Trivia!
2010 April Week 1... Fri 2nd Apr 2010: April, it is with some embarrassment that I'm starting you off with a completely non-gardening day. What's more embarrassing is that it's delightfully sunny outside, and I am going to watch some non-gardening daytime TV. Oops...
2010 April Week 1 - More... Wed 7th Apr 2010: It's not the garden that's a disgrace, it's the Head Gardener! We (sounds like there are lots of us - pity there's only one) have a new rule for our journal. Don't web-complain about something, just fix it. Fair enough?
2010 April Week 2... Sat 10th Apr 2010: Another day off, with no gardening done. My goodness, my April has started rather poorly. Well, that is all about to change. I have so many plants to plant - and one thousand mixed daffodils to pick up this weekend.
2010 April Week 2 - More... Tue 13th Apr 2010: Eek! Autumn has suddenly come alive, with its cooler nights and leaf colours. But the land is still too dry. I'm busy planting my new things, and then watering, and watering, and watering...
2010 April Week 3... Sat 17th Apr 2010: Poor Rusty the dog! Which would be more boring - a day in the dog kennel or a day gardening? If dogs could choose one human word to say I reckon it would be 'humph'...
2010 April Week 3 - More... Mon 19th Apr 2010: Autumn leaves, autumn leaves - I remember now. The yellow leaf fall comes first - the elm leaves turn the colour of ripe corn and the driveway gets its soft golden leaf carpet.
2010 April Week 3 - Yet More... Thu 22nd Apr 2010: I wish that the fire ban would be lifted and I can start burning all my mess. Then I wish that a kind garden fairy would magically (and lovingly) spread mulch on all my weed-prone garden borders. Yet another gardening fairy could pay for a trailer-load of path mulch...
2010 April Week 4... Fri 23rd Apr 2010: It's yet another stunning autumn day. All is calm, all is bright - and warm and sunny. Perhaps autumn is the best season of the gardening year after all. Or is this the perennial (ahem) garden debate for temperate gardeners?
2010 April Week 4 - More... Mon 26th Apr 2010: Clever me. Because my garden was still really wet from yesterday's rain, I decided to get wet myself in the water race, and slice out my rogue Gunnera plants. Never, ever, have their leaves been as big as they are this year.
2010 End of April... Fri 30th Apr 2010: The garden is filled with golds and reds, as autumn leaves colour on the trees, and carpet the ground below. And still I can't burn any of my rubbish - so naturally, it's the very thing I really, really feel like doing! Typical...
2010 May Week 1... Mon 3rd May 2010: Ha! 'Tis the merry month of May, when the Moosey Garden slows down and thinks about stopping, just in case winter arrives early. The merry Head Gardener would like lots of great gardening days with good day temperatures and no wind, please.
2010 May Week 1 - More... Thu 6th May 2010: Good Morning to the lovely smoochy Moosey cats, who all love me to bits when the food bowls are empty. Cats - I feed you on the condition that you provide mobile, interesting cat company in the garden. Feel free to pop out from underneath a tussock, scoot up a Cordyline trunk...
2010 May Week 2... Sun 9th May 2010: Oops. A giant, supersized oops. All I've done for the last three days gardenwise is rake leaves. I've been preoccupied with dancing (don't ask) and serious musical matters. My flute friend and I have enlarged our chamber repetoire - we are now attempting Poulenc's masterful (mistressful?) Sonata...
2010 May Week 2 - More... Thu 13th May 2010: Sorry about the silence. The Moosey house and garden has been internet-free for a few days. But I've still been diligently writing up my journal, and now I'm back in action! Pity there's been minimal gardening action...
2010 May Week 3... Mon 17th May 2010: I have a HUGE nursery gift voucher to spend, and have absolutely no idea what to get. Last night in a dangerous moment of extreme clarity I saw that my garden was full, as far as new plants were concerned. Full? Eek! I am letting down all my compulsive nursery shopping friends...
2010 May Week 3 - More... Thu 20th May 2010: I've been on an investigative mission in the kitchen drawers. Some years ago I bought three rose standards for the Island Bed, and recorded their names as Blackberry Nip, Dancing Pink, and Muddy Dreams. 'Muddy Dreams' the name of a rose? In my extremely muddy dreams! Now I wish to check my facts.
2010 May Week 4... Sun 23rd May 2010: Today I am working on the issue of my confidence. I CAN do big things in my garden. Mind you, I'm good at thinking big ideas, particularly when bed-gardening, snug under the blankets. Now I just need to get on with the 'doing'.
2010 May Week 4 - More... Wed 26th May 2010: It is supposed to rain all week - that means I can get lots of piano practice done, and keep some energy in reserve for the arrival of the new garden shed. There will be no mountain hiking, either...
2010 May Week 4 - Yet More... Sat 29th May 2010: Humph. I do not make a very good cold-weather non-gardener. It's now four days since I've been able to go outside - only four days, and my dog and I are both getting gardening-withdrawal symptoms.
2010 End of May... Sun 30th May 2010: Ha! It appears that the wet pre-winter weather has brought all the unwanted garden gnomes out of their closets. Or do I possibly mean their owners' closets? Oops. 'Gardens' might be a better word... For I now have two new garden gnomes.
2010 June Week 1... Fri 4th Jun 2010: Eek! It's June! It's winter! The shortest gardening day is in a few weeks' time, and I haven't finished raking up all the autumn leaf fall from the lawns. Winter leaves? I don't think so. They need to turn themselves into winter mulch.
2010 June Week 1 - More... Mon 7th Jun 2010: Brr! Cold fingers. Another frost. Hurray for firewood, and double glazing, and thermal clothing. And a huge yippee for the Moosey woolly apres-gardening owl jersey!
2010 June Week 2... Thu 10th Jun 2010: Oh dear. There's an unpleasantly wet southerly gale blowing outside, and I have gardening work to do! Rusty the dog is hunkered down in his chair - will my morning start the same way?
2010 June Week 2 - More... Sun 13th Jun 2010: It's the last weekend before I go on holiday. Before departure (in the ideal winter gardening world) I will have raked absolutely all the autumn leaves off the lawns, finished my clean-up in the Hump, burnt everything, and built the new garden shed.
2010 June Week 3... Wed 16th Jun 2010: Aha! Rain, rain, rain... and packing, packing, packing for the short holiday. The funniest thing is to fly out of a cold week in winter and not worry about taking any warm socks, or puffy down jackets.
2010 June Holiday - 1... Tue 22nd Jun 2010: The Moosey Journal is proud to present its first 2010 summer holiday instalment, compacted from pages (and pages!) of personal scribble in a travel notebook.
2010 June Holiday - 2... Tue 29th Jun 2010: Greetings from London, where I have already read two books - I am definitely on holiday. But wait - tomorrow I have big plans for a day trip to Sissinghurst in Kent, a garden that I should visit. It's a great excuse for some train travel (I love trains).
2010 June Holiday - 3... Fri 2nd Jul 2010: We are in Bangkok staying with Daughter of Moosey, in a 20th floor apartment with Bangkok noises all around - humming traffic, birdsong, and a rooster crowing (he's somewhere down there, at ground level).
2010 July Week 1... Wed 7th Jul 2010: I'm home to winter and a damp garden, gloomy light from a faded sun, and the patio covered with wet leaves. And I have the biggest list of garden (and general life) improvements to attend to...
2010 July Week 2... Mon 12th Jul 2010: When I was on holiday I made a list, fifteen items long, of new resolutions. And, after five days back home, I'm staying on track. This is a very good thing.
2010 July Week 2 - More... Tue 13th Jul 2010: It's not quite as cold this morning - a mere zero degrees Celsius. But I've given up trying to present real-time winter photographs of the Moosey garden. I'm going to colour up these pages with pictures taken on my oh so recent visit to Sissinghurst.
2010 July Week 3... Sun 18th Jul 2010: I've nearly been home from my summery holiday for two weeks now, and I remind myself how very lucky I am. It may be winter, but I'm toasty warm inside a dry house, burning my own firewood. And my new garden shed is nearly finished - no problems!
2010 July Week 3 - More... Wed 21st Jul 2010: Quietly, gently, with minimum fuss and maximum efficiency I am going to have the best winter gardening day ever. And so far during the month of July I've set a pretty high standard...
2010 July Week 4... Sat 24th Jul 2010: Good day to the third week of wintry July, where, after a flurry of jolly good garden business, the weather has packed in somewhat. Oh well - there are still plenty of things to think about, like new roses, and more Agapanthus...
2010 July Week 4 - More... Fri 30th Jul 2010: The end of July is nigh, so I'm furiously planting and clearing, keeping up with my winter gardening plans. August is reputed to be the coldest winter month, so there's no gardening time to lose...
2010 Last Day of July... Sat 31st Jul 2010: I know what I'm doing today... I've made a serious list, and called it 'Water Race Work'. But what I'm planning is much more site specific - Rooster Bridge is going to get a make-over.
2010 August Week 1... Sat 7th Aug 2010: I'm just off outside with my first cup of coffee, which I will drink sitting on the porch of Pond Cottage. Yes! My garden shed has been officially renamed and painted a rusty red, and it's gorgeous.
2010 August Week 2... Tue 10th Aug 2010: It's raining cats and dogs - silly phrase - pressing down the new mulch on my paths and soaking into the new plants in the Shrubbery. Time for rest and reflection, piano playing - and housework! Aargh!
2010 August Week 2 - More... Sat 14th Aug 2010: Hee hee. There are some tiny signs of spring, not that I'm boasting. The palest prunus blossom, little primroses, even a few early daffodils and one pale pink camellia flower. Hee hee. Little things are lovely!
2010 August Week 3... Sun 15th Aug 2010: Oops. Non-Gardening Partner has got wind of my thoughts about him chain-sawing down pine trees. Wonder how? It really is bad form for the NGP to read a garden blogger's journal pages. And I definitely give too much away. Hmm...
2010 August Week 3 - More... Thu 19th Aug 2010: Today the fog is lifting fast, and soon I will be out there gardening in cool winter sunshine. There is much to do, particularly in the area garden maintenance. If I just get one small garden area finished each day...
2010 August Week 4... Tue 24th Aug 2010: It really feels like spring - I found a pink Camellia and a patch of miniature daffodils flowering - and the first early red rhododendron. And so it is spring! Out came the camera to take the same old pictures as last year...
2010 August Week 4 - More... Sat 28th Aug 2010: It still feels like spring. I love spring, but now the tempo of the garden will be speeding up. Eek! From molto adagio to allegro con brio in a matter of weeks? I must be sensible and make time to notice absolutely everything.
2010 End of August... Tue 31st Aug 2010: Hmmm... I could be in BIG gardening trouble. I have a leading bid on an online plants auction to dig out (and purchase really cheaply) forty assorted roses, all 'pinks, peaches, and pastels'. There are miniatures, shrubs, and climbers. Eek!
2010 September Week 1 - Spring!... Fri 3rd Sep 2010: Well, well, well. Well-come to spring! Blessed, lovely season where older gardeners feel younger again and ridiculous new ideas become totally possible. Not that I ever have any...
2010 September Week 1 - More... Tue 7th Sep 2010: Saturday 4th September. At about 4:30am we had a big earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) with epicentre about 5km away from Mooseys. What to say? We are all fine, the aftershocks are scary, and the cats have all disappeared. Our house has no structural damage. What a house! My goodness...
2010 September Week 2... Thu 9th Sep 2010: For the first time ever in my whole life I have shifted my birthday. It is rescheduled for next week, by which time hopefully my earth will have settled down and I won't be feeling quite as small...
2010 September Week 2 - More... Fri 10th Sep 2010: Well, well, well. Normal transmission for the spring of September 2010 is - dare I say it - resumed? The aftershocks are lessening in frequency, the two pet lambs seem to be doing OK in their lamb creche, and more and more daffodils are flowering.
2010 September Week 2 - Yet More... Mon 13th Sep 2010: I love my garden - but I am oh so slow planting my new roses. And I scratch around doing grasshopper weeding in an aimless, random fashion. I need to be tougher with myself.
2010 September Week 3... Sun 19th Sep 2010: A gardening book has asked me this terribly serious question: 'What Do You Want Your Garden to Be?' Ha! Today I can answer that, as follows: I want my garden to inspire me when I'm feeling a little down, and overwhelm me when I'm feeling lazy.
2010 September Week 3 - More... Wed 22nd Sep 2010: I've given the pet lambs Stu and Milly their six o'clock feed and retired back to bed with tea, toast, pen and paper. I've written a list. Ha! That surely means that I mean business - gardening business - today.
2010 September Week 4... Sun 26th Sep 2010: I've been quietly pottering around underneath the blossom trees. Yellow daffodils are scattered everywhere. I'm still catching up my energy levels. But the spring garden is such a beautiful place to relax in... And my pet lambs are doing OK.
2010 September Week 4 - More... Thu 30th Sep 2010: Right. After several false alarms I am back, a one-hundred-percent gardener, ready to knock my spring garden into shape. That seems a bit harsh - perhaps the words 'cajole' and 'con' would be better!
2010 October Week 1... Sun 3rd Oct 2010: Hello, October. Being a recently humbled gardener I'm not sure I'm in a position to demand anything of you. But do you take bribes? You see, I'd love to have a better month...
2010 October Week 1 - More... Wed 6th Oct 2010: A visiting friend looked around my garden in the weekend, and to my horror we passed far too many weeds, delightfully visible, along the garden edges. So that's my first job for today - I need to do some wandering weeding.
2010 October Week 2... Sat 9th Oct 2010: I'm pleased with my spring garden. I'm pleased with the blossom trees, and my pet lamb Stu (he's feeding properly), and my watering and weeding programmes. I'm pleased with my new October attitude, too.
2010 October Week 2 - More... Tue 12th Oct 2010: More spring flower news - the Clematis is flowering on the archway leading into the pond paddock, where two big flowering cherry trees are nearly in bloom. And there sits Pond Cottage, beautiful as ever, nearly finished inside.
2010 October Week 3... Sat 16th Oct 2010: I'd like to welcome the Wisteria on the patio pergola - you beautiful fragrant thing, you! And the flowering rose Canary Bird with delightful ferny leaves and lovely shaped lemon flowers, the perfect size and colour for late spring...
2010 October Week 3 - More... Wed 20th Oct 2010: Sings: Oh what a beautiful morning... Then stops singing, just in case everything isn't going my way! It's very mild today, but the wind has stopped - phew! I don't want all my cherry tree blossom blown down just yet...
2010 October Week 4... Sat 23rd Oct 2010: Right. I'm off with my shovels and the gardening iPod. Remind me not to put it on 'shuffle' - it's disconcerting when a spooky Bach organ piece barges in between the frothy little Chopin waltzes...
2010 October Week 4 - More... Mon 25th Oct 2010: It's sheep shearing day, so there's been much coming and going and bleating and baa-ing. This morning I drove (in the sheepish sense of the word) Fred my ex-pet lamb and his friends down the driveway. What a large fleece (and a large bottom) he has.
2010 October Week 4 - Yet More... Thu 28th Oct 2010: Confessions. Today I'm going to spend ten minutes weed-killing the rough scruffy area behind the Welcome Garden, rather than ten hours weeding it by hand. Sad that it has come to this, but the saved hours can then be spent playing the piano...
2010 End of October... Sun 31st Oct 2010: A new spring day, a new journal page, and some new spring photographs - of something that always sneaks up and surprises me (the yellow Banksia rose) and something new (a white Lilac).
2010 November Week 1... Tue 2nd Nov 2010: Aargh, November! Or should I say welcome, November. How nice that you've started, and by golly you're punctual - in fact, haven't you popped in just a bit early? I'm thinking of all the things I haven't finished from last month...
2010 November Week 1 - More... Fri 5th Nov 2010: Early this morning I finished spraying the roses - and counting them. The count includes a recycled Flower Carpet rose which looks deceased, and a tiddly little white Banksia which will eventually smother the Island Bed's plum tree. Oops.
2010 November Week 2... Mon 8th Nov 2010: I am typing this in a huge hurry, before I start my big gardening day - but no-one can really tell that, can they? Nobody's fingers 'scribble' when they type. A gardener's 'brainwriting' can be really scribbly, though - illegible, even...
2010 November Week 2 - More... Wed 10th Nov 2010: Today needs to be a serious gardening day - I notice with puzzlement that a lot of November hours have already passed. I always seem to be missing the time bus, so to speak. Someone has tinkered with the timetable? Hey, where did all those first November days go?
2010 November Week 2 - Yet More... Fri 12th Nov 2010: Suddenly it feels like summer, with twice as many roses as yesterday climbing up over the pergola and the woodshed. I love it when that happens.
2010 November Week 2 - Even More... Sun 14th Nov 2010: Pond Cottage is getting its floor laid today - all the walls are done. And then the sleeping platform goes in - and then I can move myself in. I can be a recluse in my own paddock, hee hee...
2010 November Week 3... Wed 17th Nov 2010: Oops. I've had a few rose moments these last few days. It's those orchard roses - their time for flowering has started, and some adjustments have been necessary...
2010 November Week 3 - More... Sat 20th Nov 2010: It's summer! Well, the days are suddenly too hot for much mid-day gardening. The hoses are on all the time, and the big irrigation whooshes through the night.
2010 November Week 4... Mon 22nd Nov 2010: Ah, summer! Garden seats, gentle breezes, roses... Now I'm remembering this dour quote from Rudyard Kipling: 'Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful,' and sitting in the shade.' What an unfortunate sentence!
2010 November Week 4 - More... Thu 25th Nov 2010: All the things I have to do in the garden are very obvious. All the remaining Forget-Me-Nots must go. All the weeds must go, too. And I have to start dead-heading the roses already! My goodness, but that was quick.
2010 November Week 4 - Yet More... Sun 28th Nov 2010: November, November - you've been very speedy, and your days have been full of colourful wonders. You're just the best month ever, providing so many things to see, and do, and enjoy in the garden. And you're almost finished. Eek! That means Christmas!
2010 End of November... Tue 30th Nov 2010: I'm sorry about getting all steamed up about rose names. OK, OK, it's probably a good time for that Shakespeare quote: 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'
2010 December Week 1... Sat 4th Dec 2010: I love December. It's the month when all the summer promises I made myself should come true. My vegetable garden should be brilliant. My roses should bloom on and on. And nothing should fall over (especially not the Head Gardener, lurching around in the heat).
2010 December Week 1 - More... Tue 7th Dec 2010: Many of my foxgloves are disgracefully finishing their flowering, and they tower, ungainly, above beautiful roses and penstemons, taking focus away from the fresher flowers. Their time in the sun has nearly come, while mine has only just begun.
2010 December Week 2... Wed 15th Dec 2010: Oh dear. I have been rather too leisurely this week in my gardening - so far, so not so good. But the garden is full of lovely flowers and shrubs, and it has been a bit drizzly. Any excuse...
2010 December Week 3... Mon 20th Dec 2010: Oh dear. I have been rather too leisurely this week in my gardening - so far, so not so good. But the garden is full of lovely flowers and shrubs, and it has been a bit drizzly. Any excuse...
2010 December Christmas Week... Sat 25th Dec 2010: The hot nor-west summer winds continue to blow, and every hour the garden dries out more. Aargh! Hoses on, buckets of water - the big whooshy irrigation can't go on overnight when the wind blows so fiercely. I need to get the garden ready for Christmas.
2010 December After Christmas... Fri 31st Dec 2010: Two cricket matches to watch and a garden full of weeds. Oh boy. Oh joy - my summer holidays have really started. I love this feeling. And the wind has stopped blowing - for now. Phew! How about some summer holiday gardening?