Moosey News : December 2005

Dear Subscriber,

Welcome to the December newsletter. December in the Moosey Garden means summer - blue skies, barbecues, and getting the borders and lawns ready for Christmas. Where-ever you are I hope you are enjoying warm sunny feelings about your garden too.

This month's features

1. Pet Lamb
2. Still Too Many Roses
3. Lawn Mowing
4. Most Valuable Pet Competition - again!
5. Forget-Me-Nots

Regulars

6. Plant of the Month : Blue Lupins
7. Animals of the Month : The Sheep
8. Garden Quote : Weeds
9. Garden Gallery : New Image Library
10. Forum Focus : Organic Gardening
11. Gardening Advice : Self-Seeding Honesty
12. Searching for Moosey
13. Coming up this month : Christmas

This month's features

1. Pet Lamb

The most recent addition to Moosey Animal Farm has settled in - an orphaned pet Romney lamb called Fred. Fred's initiation was a rather wet one, but he didn't complain! He is so easy and such fun to look after, and already has his own web-page. That's quick work, for a lamb...

2. Still Too Many Roses

It's my yearly summer panic - though panic isn't quite the right word. There are so many roses flowering in so many beautiful colours that I get overwhelmed. I feel like a smorgasbord diner with a plate piled too full. But I love all my roses so much...

3. Lawn Mowing

I have had serious concerns about the quality of the recent Moosey lawn mowing. I've said so, politely, subtly, in my tiniest, sweetest voice. Gardeners are sometimes allowed to do a bit of gentle nagging...

4. Most Valuable Pet Competition - Again!

Some lovely person is voting every day for Lucky Puss - just when I'd despaired of any other animal getting near Rusty the red border collie. It's time to encourage all of you to vote again - I worry that family members may be the only ones clicking the buttons, thus skewing the results. If you're not sure - vote for the sheep!

5. Forget-Me-Nots

I want to thank the humble, weedy blue, pink and white forget-me-nots for flowering and filling in all the gaps in my late spring garden. Their sticky little seeds are another matter, though - creating that strange garden animal hybrid, the green spotted border collie dog. Poor Rusty the puppy - he so hates being brushed!

Regulars

6. Plant of the Month : Blue Lupins

Humbler than my delphiniums, higher than my salvias, these blue spires are a real treat in my early summer garden. I love, love, love blue flowers, and lupins are one of the best blues...

7. Animals of the Month : The Sheep

This month's animal award goes to the sheep, or more specifically three of the sheep - George the wether (an ex-pet lamb) and two scruffy ewes. This nonchalant trio have been drafted into keeping Fred the new pet lamb company, showing him how to eat grass, and so on. They are pretty undemonstrative, but I guess their company is better than none!

8. Garden Quote : Weeds

I can't believe I actually said this! Remind me to refer to these words when I tackle weeding the Island Bed, which is full of (among other nasties) creeping sorrel. In a certain journal page I said "Weeding is easy!"

9. Garden Gallery : New Image Library

Instead of choosing one photograph this month, I've decided to be greedy. Mooseys now has a brand new garden photographs section. My very favourite image is there - the striped paw of Sifter the big tabby cat, standing ominously on a downy grey bird's feather. See if you can find it!

10. Forum Focus : Organic Gardening

It makes so much sense to try to be as organic as possible in the garden. Some things may take a little longer, but the world benefits. And now there's a new Moosey forum section devoted to organic gardening...

11. Gardening Advice : Self-Seeding Honesty

I've been chopping up my favourite white variegated honesty (leaves and seed pods), using it as mulch. I'd like eventually to have this honesty growing everywhere, so I'm encouraging it to self seed...

12. Searching for Moosey

Burning garden waste

From the search engines this month, a question which country gardeners don't usually have a problem with - 'How to burn hedge trimmings?' But it's a very annoying job, as you'll read early in my November journal...

'New David Austin introductions'

Now there's a search I can identify with! David Austin's English roses continue to amaze and delight gardeners all around the world. They grow particularly well in certain New Zealand gardens...

Sexy Rexy rose

And finally a search which I am taking a risk in mentioning - 'garden sexy'. Perhaps this refers to my stylish gardening shirts? Hmm... Perhaps not. There's always the rose called 'Sexy Rexy' to fall safely back on - this is a family-friendly site, after all!

13. Coming up this month : Christmas

I will probably get very sentimental and start digging new, personal gardens in the mid-day sun for my lovely absent children. Holidays, daylilies, cricket, bicycle rides with Rusty the puppy, books, picking roses for the house. And later this month I will start dead-heading the roses. That's scary!

Happy gardening, and try not to mulch your favourite hand digger and secateurs like I have - they seem to take forever to decompose!

Cheers,