Garden Journal 2012

Aha! I love a good leap year, and I have high hopes for 2012. An extra day of gardening, for one! The Moosey Journal is well and truly a teenager, having been going now for sixteen years. Same old, same old? Maybe just a little, but 'same' can be a very restful thing in the garden. Often the icing on the gardening cake is to write about my 'same old' day. Hope I wont get too boring...

2012 New Year's Week...
Tue 3rd Jan 2012

Yippee! 2012 is the year of the New Year's Resolution. I've got lots, which I've tried to make into a sort of sandwich. For the garden, for the piano playing, for life in general really...

2012 January Week 1 - More...
Thu 5th Jan 2012

I've washed my hair, and am off into the Shrubbery to see if anything vegetative has died. Not that one needs clean hair to spy a deceased plant. Some gardener (me) forgot about summer and foolishly planted roses in here, out of reach of the big irrigation.

2012 January Week 1 - Even More...
Sat 7th Jan 2012

Oh yes, yes, yes. With regards to that burning question, the hedge trimmings are completely finished. All gone, leaving behind a huge pointy volcano of ash, which I'll dampen down and shovel onto the garden. Finally finished!

2012 January Week 2...
Tue 10th Jan 2012

Ridiculous. I've been too frightened to check on the 'progress' of my archway climbing roses, just in case... Today, alert and armed, I sneaked apprehensively into the Hazelnut Orchard. What horrors and mayhem would be waiting?

2012 January Week 2 - More...
Sat 14th Jan 2012

Hee hee. Going on a cycling man-holiday (via a library book) is terribly exciting! Early this morning (in bed in Pond Cottage) I cycled through Japan. This evening I'll be off to China. And in between I can just pop outside and do lots of good gardening.

2012 January Week 3...
Wed 18th Jan 2012

It's super-windy, but I'm going to pick up all the gum bark that's fallen from the huge Eucalyptus trees. OK, more will fall tomorrow, if the wind''s still blowing. But one doesn't wait until all the weeds have popped up before weeding, does one?

2012 January Week 3 - More...
Sat 21st Jan 2012

Some thoughts regarding semi-madness (or eccentricity, if the 'mad' word is too much of a worry). For I consider I have arrived at the Golden Age of Semi-Madness. It is the perfect time of my life to go a little peculiar...

2012 January Week 4...
Tue 24th Jan 2012

It's a chamber music morning, and we are playing two (TWO! Oh joy!) Bach Trio Sonatas. Our trio needs a name. Head Gardener, Non-Gardening Partner, Flautist Friend... Hmm... Nothing springs to mind. HGNGPFF? Nope. The Moosey Garden Trio? A bit self-centred...

2012 January Week 4 - More...
Fri 27th Jan 2012

A big day - garden visitors are coming! Already, before breakfast, the Shrubbery paths are cleared. And now I'm having a pile of peanut butter toast, while my big musical passion - Brahms's piano concerto (B flat major) - plays really loud. Hee hee.

2012 January Week 4 - Yet More...
Sun 29th Jan 2012

Ridiculous. Two days later and I'm still feeling sad having been outbid in a garden gnome auction. I've had to speak severely to self. Moosey, be thankful that losing some scruffy garden gnomes is all you've got to be sad about. Foolish oldish woman!

2012 End of January...
Tue 31st Jan 2012

The retired older-woman's Monday is so restful. The dishes are done, Scarlatti tinkles away on the stereo, my dog is slumped in his chair snoring, the cats are lounging, all fed and relaxing - no, wait! I've shut the kitten outside by mistake. Eek!

2012 February Week 1...
Thu 2nd Feb 2012

Shape-Up-For-Life gardeners do NOT complain in their gardening journals about how hungry they are. They simply pat their middle bits (discretely) inside the gardening shorts (not the favourite ones, which are too tight) and sigh wistfully. And then they go gardening.

2012 February Week 1 - More...
Sat 4th Feb 2012

The gardening world always feels hemispherical when I start planting daffodil bulbs. Gardening friends 'up there' are enjoying their first daffodils in bloom, while I've got 650 recycled bulbs still to plant. My garden will be springing some surprises in seven months time!

2012 February Week 1 - Yet More...
Tue 7th Feb 2012

Ha! I am the Queen of Soil Restoration and Enrichment. Compost, rotting leaves, bags of horse manure, ash, mulch... You name it, I've got it and I'm applying it to my garden. It's time I did something nice for the soil.

2012 February Week 2...
Sat 11th Feb 2012

Oh dear - how the mighty have fallen. I've had a hemi-demi-semi-crisis of confidence regarding the size of my one-woman country garden. Hmm... Could it be - perhaps, possibly, maybe - a little too big for me? Aargh!

2012 February Week 2 - More...
Tue 14th Feb 2012

Bach chamber music... Ooh, goody! What a groovy way to start the day. And my lovely flautist has presented me with a huge bag of daffodil bulbs, too. Yippee - fat bulbs! And a bag of freshly picked plums. This buay late-summer life is good.

2012 February Week 3...
Sat 18th Feb 2012

Seven little middle-aged concrete garden gnomes are coming to live underneath one of the weeping cherry trees in my Driveway Garden, in place of the rampant ivy. What a choice - ivy or gnomes. Gnomes are much more welcoming, actually...

2012 February Week 3 - More...
Sun 19th Feb 2012

Here's something else that I've almost finished - the newly expanding Frisbee Border. My garden life is full of things that I've almost finished - but at least that means I start things, I guess. And tomorrow I will be even more 'almost finished', hee hee...

2012 February Week 4...
Thu 23rd Feb 2012

Oh my - this is an exciting day. I can't stop to write. Escher the big brown puppy has arrived to stay for three days, and I have promised him (and Rusty the Moosey dog) exciting days of dogs-doing-things (in other words, gardening).

2012 February Week 4 - More...
Sun 26th Feb 2012

Aargh! The Moosey social calendar flexes its tough, older-retired-lady muscles. Book group, some lovely garden visitors, two daytime parties... There's been no time for garden dreaming these last few days.

2012 End of February...
Wed 29th Feb 2012

Do I miss Escher the bouncing brown puppy, forever ferreting out the gross and the rotten from my garden borders? Gardening has become very genteel and fragrance-free, and nobody is eating the horse manure.

2012 March Week 1...
Sun 4th Mar 2012

I need to reboot my March gardening plans. For example, what did I do in the garden yesterday? Oops. I wonder if I should break with tradition and get some goals for March?

2012 March Week 1 - More...
Wed 7th Mar 2012

Aargh! What am I doing, claiming to keep a gardening journal? A non-gardening journal, more like. And my first midnight March mouse in the cottage - thank you so much, young Minimus, supreme hunting cat.

2012 March Week 2...
Fri 9th Mar 2012

Aha! The power (as advised) is off again. I'm off-line, staying home with my thermos of hot coffee and my dog. I have cricket to listen to, piano pieces to play, and ten huge clumps of miniature Agapanthus to plant. I don't need power of the electrical kind to do any of the above!

2012 March Week 2 - More...
Mon 12th Mar 2012

We called in at the first of the autumn nursery plant sales, and I didn't buy anything! In the 'old days' I would have insisted we arrived with the trailer, and my wallet would have been twitching, hee hee...

2012 March Week 2 - Yet More...
Thu 15th Mar 2012

Just as my gardening settles into autumn slow-down reflective mode, my couch-activities are getting wondrously exciting. Fresh from couch-hiking with Daughter of Moosey in New Zealand's mountains, I'm now couch-cycling from Paris to Nice. Early this morning, on the way to Sisteron, I saw my first spring blossom...

2012 March Week 3...
Sun 18th Mar 2012

Today has started oddly, reading a well-written article in Fine Gardening (the only gardening magazine I subscribe to), and feeling a bit sheepish about my gardening abilities with regards to colour. Self-doubt first thing in the morning will not do! So I am off outside to shift some dahlias...

2012 March Week 3 - More...
Wed 21st Mar 2012

Good morning, wet morning, cold morning, with more than a few coloured leaves fluttering down and the yellow perennial Heleniums (or are they Helianthuses?) about to flower. Eek - this is 'it'! I think proper autumn has begun.

2012 March Week 4...
Sun 25th Mar 2012

I've now definitely adopted the equinox as my personal date for the official start to autumn. The garden feels autumnal, all peaceful and serene, and red and golden leaves are starting to flutter down from the trees in the Pond Paddock.

2012 March Week 4 - More...
Tue 27th Mar 2012

It's Daughter of Moosey's birthday today, and she's thousands of miles away in Nepal. I'm getting her two fat rhododendron shrubs for a present - I have the perfect semi-shaded spot on the edge of the Pond Paddock. And a second, really exciting present - six retro concrete garden gnomes!

2012 End of March - 1...
Thu 29th Mar 2012

I was on the verandah of Pond Cottage with my early morning cuppa, looking around at the garden and thinking. A week spent just sitting in my garden reading books would be an amazing sort of holiday. When I got bored I could go for a garden walk...

2012 End of March - 2...
Sat 31st Mar 2012

My goodness the garden's mood is changing, becoming very transitional and autumnal. I'm going to finish my March by doing some good, solid, thoughtful gardening, going where-ever the mood takes me.

2012 April Week 1...
Tue 3rd Apr 2012

I love my garden. It's the simplest feeling, yet delightfully complicated to explain without resorting to a huge list. Try taking a swirling mixture of the following...

2012 April Week 1 - More...
Fri 6th Apr 2012

Today I'm off hiking in the mountains, as part of my 'Need To Get Out More' Policy. My golden garden will still be there when I get back home. The things which looked beautiful first thing in the morning will still look beautiful. And then there's tomorrow...

2012 April Easter Weekend...
Mon 9th Apr 2012

Easter's full moon is just splendid, spreading silver pools of night-light all over the autumn leaves on the lawns. But what about the drool-and-salivate Easter Nursery plant sales? For the first time in years I have been conspicuously absent...

2012 April Week 2...
Fri 13th Apr 2012

Fiery autumn leaves and late flowering golden and red roses - together they form the most perfectly timed colour echoes in my autumn garden. Naturally I planned this to happen...

2012 April Week 3...
Tue 17th Apr 2012

Location, location, location... Lots of plants are moving around the garden, playing that fun autumn garden-party game of musical chairs (with the help of the scoopy shovel and the green wheelbarrow). This is the serious shifting season!

2012 April Week 3 - More...
Thu 19th Apr 2012

I am up very, very early. So what should I do first, on this grand and long gardening day? Rake up the autumn leaves and put them into bags? Take some more photographs of autumn leaves and autumn roses?

2012 April Week 3 - Yet More...
Sun 22nd Apr 2012

I love being a busy autumn gardener, surrounded by wonderful red and gold leaf colours. The days are peaceful, the nights are cosy - such a well-balanced time of the year...

2012 April Week 4...
Mon 30th Apr 2012

I'm back from my big hiking trip on the Awatere Tussock Track. My garden is small, mellow, and welcoming. Non-Gardening Partner is already glazing over, hearing how wonderful, amazing, grand, etc. it all was. And I haven't shown him my photographs yet...

2012 May Week 1...
Thu 3rd May 2012

May, a somewhat mature autumn month, should be my busiest garden make-over time. It's still warm enough to thoughtfully sort out all my garden messes and mistakes. Wait a minute. Where are these messes? What mistakes? Oops. Inappropriate plantings, for one.

2012 May Week 1 - More...
Sat 5th May 2012

Good morning to my garden, my cats, and my dog, happily chewing on the remains of last night's meal. It was memorial (if industrial strength) roast lamb, in honour (dubious) of Stu Lamb, the thickest pet lamb I have ever raised. No, no! It wasn't roast Stu...

2012 May Week 1 - Yet More...
Mon 7th May 2012

One really nice thing about autumn - I can see what needs doing in the garden, without feeling panicky or overwhelmed. There's not a hint of desperation, as autumn shows me its kindest, calmest face...

2012 May Week 2...
Fri 11th May 2012

I have a rose crisis. I keep discovering roses in online catalogues that I simply must have. I haven't been this rose-giddy for years. First it was David Austin's English roses, then I turned my attention to striped floribundas. I want them all...

2012 May Week 2 - More...
Mon 14th May 2012

Yippee! Non-Gardening Partner and I are off to visit a rural rose nursery, on instructions from lovely world-wandering Daughter of Moosey. I am getting a somewhat rosy Mothers' Day present. Yippee for Mothers' Day, I say...

2012 May Week 3...
Tue 15th May 2012

Playing chamber music (particularly Bach and Vivaldi) with my flautist-friend is one of my greatest loves at the moment. It's almost as inspiring as gardening. If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose both. Oh, and reading in bed...