Regarding Eyewear...

Calling all entrepreneurs out there - eyewear designed especially for gardeners is needed. Tired gardening eyes play the most callous tricks. Take, for example, a typical day-long clean-up session, where tiny, no-problem weeds are observed and dealt to in the morning.

Huge, Horrible, Hopeless...

By mid-afternoon they loom twice as large and three times as numerous. But by the end of the day, all the weeds spied are huge and horrible, and pulling them out seems to be a hopeless task.

 Aargh!
Dandelion Weed Seedhead

Special progressive gardening lenses, designed to diminish the problem according to the time of day, would ensure that those last undesirables look just as innocuous as the very first. One would certainly get a less gloomy sleep, that's for sure! It's a much better solution than banning any weeding activities after lunch. Naturally the lenses could be clipped onto the rose-tinted glasses that I wear anyway, at this rather rosy time of year!

The gardening eyes play tricks in other ways, too. I always see my garden with fresh eyes when I'm taking visitors around. I've trained myself to exclaim with wonder at the beautiful surprises, while keeping 'mum' about knee-high weeds, shrubs that need pruning, etc. Sometimes seeing the beauty within when under pressure can be difficult.

Garden Visitors

On Friday I enjoyed wandering around the garden with the nicest of visitors. I whipped out the odd knee-high weeds as we walked, but I'd fold them up casually without even looking, then throw them nonchalantly under the nearest hedge. I was a gardener at peace with herself, relaxed and confident...

 All sorts of colours!
The Pergola Roses, with Newly Mown Lawn

Non-Gardening Partner had dutifully mowed all my lawns in failing light the previous evening. There'd been one slight hiccup (actually a resounding clanger) as he mowed a steel warratah left lurking in the long grass of the Pond Paddock. It wasn't me - was it? With friendly, encouraging visitors it didn't even matter some of the lawn edges were untrimmed. And I really, really liked what I saw. Phew!

Semi-Secret Garden Areas

I particularly liked my enclosed, semi-secret areas of the garden - like the oval Driveway Lawn, complete with bright purple wooden seats, looking gorgeous ringed by shrubs and colourful trees (golden, wine-red, purple, and green). Here the last of the bright pink rhododendrons was still flowering, surrounded by blue lupins. Oh so pretty - pink and blue...

 A photograph of the Driveway Lawn, most of which cannot be seen!
Secluded Lawn

My visitors enjoyed sitting in the restful little lawn by the Willow tree stump, where the close-by running water could be heard but not seen. The picture would have been complete if the stump had had its tree house built thereon. But that's for the future...

 No trouble seeing these lovely flowers!
Pretty Perennials

Alice-in-Wonderland

Aha! Back to my tired gardening eyes. If my weeds are going to play their Alice-in-Wonderland upsizing tricks on me, then I've found a way to trick them back. A good gardener would normally clean up all the weed piles, their last activity, before trudging inside. So the last garden impression is of nothing - as if nothing has actually been done. Aargh!

This weekend I've chosen to leave spectacular weedy mounds of old forget-me-nots, cleaver, dandelions, etc. on the lawn. At the end of the day, while wandering past them to the house I've been able to marvel at their bulk. Wow! Look at all the cleaning up I've done today! What a huge number of weeds I've dealt to! I have achieved so much. Wow! I'm smiling...

I'd still like to order a pair of those progressive gardener's glasses, though. Could any potential manufacturers please get in touch...