Planting the new roses...
White Fungus
Yeay for me and yeay for another Thursday, my stay-at-home in the garden day, the day when I should have loads of gardening energy, plans, ideas, and so on.
So what to do first? No need to ask - I have new roses to plant. But where to plant them? Somewhere sunny, open, full of fresh air. I know the perfect place - in the front of the Hump Garden.
Three hours later...
Hmm... Nothing has worked out yet. Full of fizz, I went over to the Hump Garden to find spaces for the new roses. Oh really? There was not really any room, so I decided to weed and trim all the dahlias first and then have another look. Aargh! Not my finest garden, this, with many parts covered in Campion and Lamium (which is not welcome). Some of the existing roses must have been rocking and rolling in the wind and need replanting deeper. There are a lot of self-seeded dahlias, green Carex grasses which take up far too much space, and quite a few prunus suckers to trim.
Room for Roses?
Thought about completely re-digging the front half of the garden and replanting absolutely everything properly and sensibly. But a major reshuffle was not what I had in mind for today. So I came inside to eat, drink coffee, and shrug my shoulders. Oh crikey!
The Pilgrim Roses
Three hours later...
The worm has turned! What seemed an unsurmountable problem has fizzled into nothing. I finished trimming the dahlias, then shifted out a huge clump of tubers, replanted them further down by the Michelia trees.
Then I cleared enough ground to plant four of the new roses - Archduc Joseph, Windrush, The Pilgrim, and Imogen (who is also pale lemon). And now, after a refreshing cup of tea, I will light the bonfire and that will be that.
Actually, that makes more than six hours work! Yeay for me indeed.
Friday 8th May
Am back from my wonderful chamber music group. This morning we plated Haydn, Schumann, and a French composer called Mel (Melanie) Bonis. Now I have maybe two hours to plant the two remaining roses (both Blushing Pink Icebergs) and (possibly) to remove the very, very last of the Iris Who Shall Not Be Named.
Ten minutes later...
Nope. It's raining, don't feel like wet weather gardening. Instead I wandered around taking pictures of autumn trees and shrubs.
Maple and Green Phormium
I remind myself how much I love all my deciduous trees. Then I remind myself that pretty soon I will have to start raking up the leaves. Eek!
Then, in the middle of the night...
Crash! Roar! The wind crashed and roared through the trees, and woke me up. It was too big and too noisy, so I grabbed my torch and my favourite pillow and scuttled over to the house. Got blown into the garden at one stage. Scary stuff! Ten minutes later, safe and snug in my house bed, no wind at all. Silly!