Moosey News : September 2007

Dear Subscriber,

Great Excitements - the first yellow daffodil, the first pink Camellia. Great Expectations - the newly planted roses, the beautiful new paths. Great Efforts - newly dug gardens, new pots. And Great Anticipations - what will Non-Gardening Partner get me for my gardening birthday?

This month's features :

1. DIY for Older-Lady Gardeners
2. World's Top Garden Seats
3. Nine Cats
4. Glacier Country
5. New Lawn, New Garden

Regulars :

6. Plant of the Month : Miniature Yellow Daffodils
7. Animal of the Month : Not the Cat who Broke the New TV
8. Garden Quote : Vision
9. Garden Gallery : The Head Gardener
10. Forum Focus : An Irish Garden
11. Gardening Advice : Have You Finished Yet?
12. Searching for Moosey : Scarecrow
13. Coming up this month : Birthday Presents for the Garden

This month's features

1. DIY for Older-Lady Gardeners

This is the first in a series of DIY articles, and concerns garden paths. DIY Moosey-style has two important ingredients - a sense of humour, and a Non-Gardening Partner who is easily conned...

2. World's Top Garden Seats

Garden seats and benches continue to be madly searched by internet gardeners. My web-master requires a minimum of four articles per year on this fascinating topic - not that he is manipulating the search engines! Here's my latest effort...

3. Nine Cats

Nine cats are not too many. The Moosey house is huge, the Moosey garden is huge, and the Moosey farm reaches well beyond the gardens. There is definitely enough room for nine cats...

4. Glacier Country

A quick road trip to see two famous New Zealand glaciers on the West Coast is this month's journey highlight, with lots of car driving, short walks to tourist view points, and much amazement at nature.

5. New Lawn, New Garden

August has been a real hands-on month - that means my hands on the good earth, on diggers and secateurs, and on my favourite shovel. My latest projects, a new lawn and a new garden, have had a satisfying physical connection - the August journal is full of all the details.

Regulars

6. Plant of the Month : Miniature Yellow Daffodils

The first real colour bursts of spring come from my little yellow trumpet daffodils. They are the perfect miniatures - I think this scale suits them better than the larger floppy ones!

7. Animal of the Month : Not the Cat who Broke the New TV

This month's award is suspended, due to a disgraceful in-house incident involving an unknown cat and the brand new flat-screen Moosey TV. The Head Gardener cannot be sure who it wasn't, and did consider banning all three boy cat-contestants forever, but the dog and the rooster considered this to be sexist, and unfair on the innocent...

8. Garden Quote : Vision

This quote is plagiarised, and I'm sorry I don't know where it originated. Probably from some wise older-lady gardener...

9. Garden Gallery : The Head Gardener

August has been a slow garden month for photographs, with just the beginnings of garden growth and colour. So it's a great month for the journal to feature pictures of the Head Gardener (me). I think I look interesting, intelligent and completely normal. So why do I so often get introduced thus: 'Meet my mad mother'?

10. Forum Focus : An Irish Garden

Times are forever changing, and gardens cannot stay the same for ever. There's a sad note of reality to this gardening story, posted by friend Jack, when recently in Ireland.

11. Gardening Advice : Have You Finished Yet?

Gardens can never be finished - can they? Yet we spend hours and hours trying to finish everything - don't we?

12. Searching for Moosey : scarecrow

scarecrow

Hmm... Scarecrows are serious garden objects, and the one I made recently is still stuck in the back of the garage, faceless. In lieu of the Moosey scarecrow, you might enjoy this line-up, photographed at a local Garden Club day.

13. Coming up this month : Birthday Presents for the Garden

That actually means for the gardener (me) - the following gift selection may be useful: a waterwheel, a Monet bridge, several loads of compost, more mulch for the paths, and vouchers so I can buy more roses and not feel guilty.

Cheers,