Goodbye to 2025
Golden Smiles Roses
So 2025 is over - what a gardening year it's been. I've made twice as much mess as last year - funny that! I've planted new Camellias and rugosa roses. I've tried to keep the paths weed free (have not succeeded, even after mulching them).
Tuesday 30th December.
Today I have to finish weeding the main path through the Hump Garden. I just shuffle along it on my bottom with my hand digger, secateurs, and the kitchen scissors.
Easy as...
I fill the wheelbarrow. I dump the mess. I sit back down. Easy as.
Right. Gardening shorts on, plus sunscreen and cap. Out in the garden I go, before 9am.
Two hours later...
Brilliant. Gardened for two hours. Made good progress. Even dead-headed the daylilies. Dumped all my mess (three barrow loads). Came inside for coffee. Looked through the window at my beautiful garden - rain. So glad I started early.
Not so brilliant - the Christmas jigsaw (1000 pieces). Worked at it for ten minutes, only put two pieces in. Not particularly efficient, or rewarding - yet.
Red Daylilies
Brilliant Brahms?
Potentially brilliant if my fingers were faster and stronger : Brahms. This afternoon I thundered through his first sonata, and his second rhapsody. Slow thunder with lots of thumpy octaves, then heart-wrenching single note melodies. Phrases with some sneaky syncopation. Pauses in silly places. Amazing music, very emotional, arthritically challenging...
Wednesday 31st December
We went to the nursery in the drizzle to buy roses - two of The Active, a seedling of Mutabilis. I planted them below the glass-house and spread five more bags of my Christmas compost. Had imagined Non-Gardening Partner doing all the heavy lifting, wheeling them to me in the barrow, then me gently pushing the compost around with the gardening fork. Alas, this lovely vision did not become a reality! Finished the day by collecting a barrowful of serious mess from the garden underneath the variegated Elm tree. As usual, Camion and Alkanet, plus flowering Phormium stalks (which are so heavy they break the Phormiums up).
Thanks 2025
Said goodbye to 2025. I think I've worked hard enough in my garden to look back with some pride.