Best of 2010 Garden Awards
Best Garden Feature 2010
Gardeners are always looking backwards and forwards at the same time. We can easily visualise having even more beautiful daylilies flowering, while remembering how poorly they bloomed last year. So it's easy in the New Year to wistfully evaluate the old.
The Best Of 2010
I usually do a 'Best Of...' article, but the results are rather predictable. Naturally I choose the same categories, and then I end up with the same winners. The best rose is always a pink one, the best garden feature is always a seat, and Fluff-Fluff is always the best gardening cat. So this time I thought I'd get a wider perspective, one which involves my family.
Non-Gardening Partner was the first Moosey relative I asked - he was driving the car, thus he was a delightfully captive interviewee. What was his best garden feature of 2010? Aargh! Silence. Then a spluttering, apologetic 'Don't know. I'm a bit hopeless at this'. Pond Cottage? I suggested. He was still non-committal.
Best Garden Animals 2010
So I tried again with the Best Flower. Nothing doing. We moved on to Non-Gardening Partner's Best Animal of 2010. Success! It was, of course, Rusty the dog - none of the cats came within a whisker. I rephrased the question - who was the Best Cat of 2010? NGP thought it could be Lilli-Puss, because she was so unusual. Fair enough!
Best Garden Cats 2010
Ha! Younger Son of Moosey (and friend) had much more to contribute. They both chose Pond Cottage for the Best Garden Feature (without being prompted) and their Best Animal was the harrier hawk I'd rescued from starvation, back in April. Their Best Cat was (naturally) black beauty Kaya, because she is their cat.
Best Garden Flowers 2010
Best Plant of 2010 could be the Gunnera - Son of Moosey named this giant perennial immediately, but then confessed it was the only plant whose name he knew. Hmm... Best Flower of 2010 went jointly to the foxgloves and the lupins, the 'slightly wild things'. Nice!
Stu the Pet Lamb - Best Garden Diversion of 2010
Then we all remembered Stu our post-earthquake pet lamb. He was such fun, and he took our minds off the scary earth-things happening in September. Stu definitely deserves a special 2010 Award for being such a simple lamb at a relatively complicated time of our year.
Best Garden Rose 2010
And the Winners Are...
Of course I'm allowed to list my winners too, but I agree with all the family's choices. So let's hear it for Pond Cottage, the harrier hawk, cats Lilli-Puss and Kaya, and Rusty the dog. I'll allow myself to choose another winner in the Best Flower Award. Yippee for the new Moosey daffodils (planted in the autumn), which popped up in new places and offered such lovely new spring surprises.
And the Best Rose of 2010? This award goes to the rescued apricot-toned rose which I think is Just Joey. It looks like Just Joey. The flowers open from the buds like Just Joey. Its pictures look just like the Google images of Just Joey. Several gardening friends think it's Just Joey (you can see I'm talking myself into this). If I've got this rose correctly named my credibility will be restored and I will be so relieved. Hope it's Just Joey!
Thanks, 2010
Thanks, 2010, and rest well in the calendar of time. And warm congratulations to all the award winners. May your petals never shrivel and your paws never soften. May you happily survive 2011 and bring joy to all who behold you. And please, please - don't let 'Just Joey' be the rose called 'Whisky Mac'. That would be soooooooooo embarrassing.