Curses!
Pretty Lamium
Time for a mild gardening curse : Out, out, damned Lamium. Vamoose like a goose! Begone, nuisance groundcover. OK, I know your spring flowers are pretty (see the photograph on the left), but you don't produce enough of them. Get lost!
I can do it...
Maybe a bit dramatic (thanks in part to Shakespeare). But it's taking a long time to get rid of it all. I can do it, however. I'm good at sticking to one task and working hard until it's completed, yes?
Confession time...
Confession time : I keep on thinking of other lovely garden things I'd much rather be doing. Like taking cuttings of the pink Pelargoniums in my patio pots. But yesterday afternoon I was good. I stayed on task and dug up Lamium for three hours. Knelt in the wet soil. Sat on the wet soil. Just me and my hand digger. Trimmed Caexes which had been totally covered up. Found a possibly dead wee Maple tree, am waiting for spring confirmation as to status. Made lots and lots of mess.
Constance Spry :- Constance is a very early David Austin rose, very pretty and very pink.
I also pruned the large once-flowering rose Constance Spry - rather robustly, now wondering how she'll respond. Oh well. I'm hoping she's a survivor - would love her to produce more flowers. Dumped five barrow loads of mess near the Pump House. Don't care if the Lamium regrows here (it will).
Bright Pink Camellia
Monday 4th August
This morning I'm waiting until it warms up a bit outside (there's been a pretty gnarly frost). OK. Eleven o'clock. Time to get out there.
Two hours later...
Had to stop - got too muddy and too cold. Winter mud is really cold. Removed and soaked all muddy clothing, washed my knees and feet, then had to clean the bathroom. Took a while!
Am enjoying a break inside with warm food and a hot chocolate. My hands are tingling.
Much later...
Went back and worked for another hour. Thought about nothing in particular, kept my head down (didn't want to see how far I had to go). Pretty repetitive work, this. I am looking forward to buying in some shrubs to fill up the spaces - maybe Camellias, with shapely green leaves.
Wednesday 6th August
Still not finished. I worked for two hours yesterday and seemed to get nowhere. But logical me knows that there should only be a finite number of plants. The worst case scenario is that they are countably infinite.
Today another two hours, with some success. Working along the front of the garden I reached the Gay Babies (two Camellias) at the edge of the Lamium spread. Yippee!
Little White Camellia
Was lured inside by a bagful of new library books, left-over pizza, and a warm house. Oh well. 'Tis winter, after all.