My Birthday Week
It's my birthday week. I am full of spring strength - I have lots of ideas for the slowly awakening Moosey Spring Garden. The daffodils are certainly waking up - everywhere there are new types flowering. I love spring!
Monday 6th September
I forget how much I like daffodils. I now can have them in every room of the house, and not tell where in the garden they came from. The row (well - half-row!) on the fence-line welcomes me home whenever I have to go out. I don't want to go anywhere!
More Daffodils
And I have a sneaky scheme for the Moosey Nursery Strategic Plan. I have started leaving all my tools in the glass-house. This way I am forced into remembrance of my Nursery chores! It's working so far - today, for example, I carefully potted up seedlings of red tussock, lime Lambs' Ears, and unknown foxgloves (all taken from paths and extreme edges of the gardens). I watered my sown seeds, cuttings and the half-hardies in their pots, and promised out loud to check them every day. Perhaps my impending birthday (which is a rather mature one) has finally given me a real adult sense of responsibility, hee hee...
Jerome - 'Purr-fect' Cat Company
Today has been amazingly wonderful weather, with garden plants (like the flaxes) shining brilliantly in the sun. I've been weeding and doing edges around the Apple Tree Garden - and have cut back the dry stalks from the Miscanthus Zebrinus. This is the first time this large grass has ever been tidied up - gosh there was a mess! All the time Jerome the cat stretched out under the large flax purring loudly - 'purr-fect' cat company!
Tuesday 7th September - My Birthday Eve
Eek! The large pink azalea is flowering in the back of the Island Bed - and there is a new clump of white crocuses in there too! The garden is on the move!
Pink Azalea Flowers
Spring Has Started!
I should be on the move - it's just past 8:30 am, the sun is shining, rooster is crowing - everything is ready for another full day of gardening glory. I am glad I declared spring officially started - since I did this my own gardening attitude has definitely improved! I will be back later, with riveting tales of horticultural success that will leave you breathless...
Nearly Lunchtime...
I love September. The sun feels warmer, and everything seems nicer. There's lots more daylight, and now that I am a semi-retired gardener I can make the most of every spring day. That's the theory anyway. The cats are sunbathing their tummies and the silly rooster thinks I'm a big chook - in his eyes I have been digging up grubs just for him for the last hour. Actually I have been weeding and manuring the little garden to the side of the house!
Much Later...
Hmm... I am apres-gardening in white linen (a sure sign of spring)... I have been a super-weeder, and my thumbs and index fingers are very sore. Such is the price that super-gardeners have to pay...
Cream and Lemon Daffodils
Wednesday 8th September
Yippee! It's my birthday - finally - the London Moosey Team has sent me a card crawling with cats and a book entitled 'One Thousand Years of Gardening'... I guess that puts me in my place! Will there be any shining flaxes at Mooseys one thousand years from now?
Happy Birthday to Me! :- I love my birthday week!
I am off outside to celebrate breakfast with cats, chooks, and deaf old dog. I fancy a steaming hot coffee sitting on the Dog-Path seat - the water burbling past, the Moosey flaxes waving in the gentle spring breeze, the fresh air and the peaceful silence of a well-nurtured country garden.
And in this romantic and idyllic garden setting, I can thank my old gardening knees for being one year older and still working pretty well...
Flaxes by the Water Race
Friday 10th September - Late Afternoon
I've been at work for some of these last two days, and suddenly there are lots of new spring flowers everywhere. The daffodils on the road-side fence are in full cry, the blue muscari flowers are stretching taller, and some of the unusual coloured daffodils (salmon, pink, and cream) are starting. Of course all my daffodils are nameless - some bag lots purchased early on from a local daffodil farm never had names anyway (they were numbered with letters and digits and dashes - like some weird code).
Weeding, like exercise, now needs to be done daily. Today I worked in the Pond Paddock (scaring the pair of ducks who are trying to live quietly on the pond) - I scraped, cleared, and dug out dandelions. Plants in the Moosey Nursery were watered sensibly, and now I am watering the Camellias near the glass-house. I am very lucky to be semi-retired!
Daffodil Group
Saturday 11th September
Suddenly, in the course of two or three warm days, the Moosey Garden seems to be hosting a Daffodil Festival! The Moosey Camera with its recently discovered close-up button (embarrassing) has already been outside three times today. Is there a limit to the number of daffodil pictures one can take? Hmm...
I can't write today's date without some sad and silent thoughts - the rose I planted three years ago for world peace is pruned and already in bud - if more people gardened there would surely be less evil in the world. Hmm... Sorry to get gloomy.
I have been planting new foxgloves and Stachys Limelight plants in the Pond Paddock side garden, after digging out weeds. Since I pulled out all the Salvia uliginosa and the dreadful invasive Lamium out of this garden bed there is room - for what, I wonder? Some new hostas? Some new perennials? Roses? Or maybe one 'nice' flowering shrub? Or a wee maple tree? Decisions, decisions...
Later...
Humph. I am tired. I've spent another two hours weeding, raking and burning. I cut back my other huge Miscanthus Zebrinus. My chook company is delighted with the resultant uncovering of bugs and grubs. I have burnt everything, and am feeling very grumpy. Food and water is the answer!