A coat of many colours...
These garden days are getting more and more colourful, with new flowers appearing, and rhododendrons in bloom. My garden has suddenly put on its coat of many colours. Wind - buzz off! Kindly blow somewhere else!
Sunday 22nd October
Haru, this year's pet lamb, escorted (loosely) by Fred, last year's pet lamb, is waiting by the fence for her bottle. Fred is a filthy grey colour - only last week he was beautifully creamy white, newly shorn. Cat breakfast (first sitting) is over - patronised by the grey sisters (Stumpy and Jerome) and the gardening boys Beige Puss and Fluff-Fluff. FF's tummy is disgracefully knotty - but even he, so laid back, will not allow it to be brushed.
Kitten Painting of B-Puss and Fluff-Fluff
Brewster the rooster is crowing 'Good morning'. More precisely he's crowing 'Salad greens! Grain! Breakfast!'... As soon as I've finished my first cup of tea I'll do the outdoors food circuit.
Moaning About Mowing
I have a lot of cosmetic gardening to do - namely the trimming of all the lawn edges. Having made a huge fuss yesterday about their mowing, I feel I should. The nice thing about doing edges is that one notices new things. One can check on the peony buds, see if anything needs staking, do an aphid check on the roses, and so on. And those pesky lawns - I have stared sternly at the old suburban mower in the garage, wondering if I could get it started. Five hours later...
The Old Mower
Daisy Daisy...
And, depending on the weather, a serious session in the glass-house is needed. Suddenly I require daisies, so I'll take heaps of cuttings. I can see mass plantings, with lovely little white and lemon flowers filling up several gardens. These plants are not hardy enough to live outside in the frosty winters. What a pity I'm not visualising masses of cherry red flowering variegated pelargoniums - now these I do have in bulk, growing on nicely. I might visit the nursery and get in new daisy breeding stock (except they're not called daisies any more).
Monday 24th October
Aargh! My animals! Jerome the Grey is in molto smoocho mode, and Haru the lamb is patiently grazing by the fence with noisy, nosy Fred - he's doing all the baa-ing. I know that my pecky rooster started crowing early (I faintly heard him). A little bit of corrective chook training is required - I will have to wear gloves next visit and hang him from his - ankles? He pecked me!
Portrait of Fred the Pet Sheep
I'm sitting in the Moosey office trying to keep Jerome from causing a serious computer crash. It's a holiday day. Hmm... Garden help? Yesterday the Garden Helper finished cleaning the pond edge and then loaded three trailer loads of firewood - without being asked! But then he made the fatal mistake of saying 'This must just about be it'. Ha! I pounced! What about all the wood in the Wattle Woods and behind the pond? I had been struggling for many months to get on top of this, blah blah blah. Some gardeners are just never satisfied!
Yesterday I got more mulching newspaper from a friend, paid for my Garden Club trip to Akaroa (yippee!), then ducked into the nursery and bought some daisies. I also bought two yellow flower carpet roses (slightly on sale). Then I did more edges and finished a super-gardening day by burning the rubbish.
My Newest Pelargonium
Now, today looks promising - blue sky, sun, and no wind forecast. First I will write up a list for the Garden Helper. Then I will plant the vege garden - my first lettuce and spinach seedlings are hardened and ready, there are more spuds to put in, and rows of carrots need to be sown. A little light weeding is required first. If I still have energy left before lunch I'll sort out my squillions of pelargoniums - I have two planter boxes, plus many suitable places in the real garden. I'll just have to repress these floaty fluffy daisy images.
Garden Helper's List for Holiday Monday
- Get trailer load of rotting hay for mulch.
- Clear firewood from Wattle Woods.
- Drag remaining flaxes from pond lawn.
- Organise rose spray.
Hee hee - that should fill up the morning nicely! Do I need a list? Probably not. I know what I'm doing...
My New Viburnum
Eight Hours Later...
I have just stopped work. Eight hours! I have showered all the vegetation out of my hair, and I smell quite nice again. What a day! Hmm... Well, the list worked - except I ended up doing most of it myself. Humph! This was NOT how things were supposed to work!
Then there are the unlisted things I did. I bucketed water on all my rhododendrons (such beautiful colours) and all my roses over the water race (one bucketful each). I planted my vege garden - spinach, lettuce, carrots, onions and spuds (jersey bennes) - trying to discourage my two cat-helpers from any digging.
Busy, Busy...
I shifted lots of purple pansies across the path in front of the blue asters. I chopped some Gunnera slices and planted them over the water from the glass-house. I weeded near the Pump House and laid two trailerfuls of rotting lucerne hay in the Wattle Woods as mulch. I laid my two bags of newspaper and finished mulching the Pond Garden. And I cleared up the remaining mess from the pond edge clean-up.
Love You More Than B-Puss
+5
And finally, at five o'clock, I burnt my rubbish, picked up my scattered tools, called the gardening boys, and wandered slowly inside. What a day! B-Puss is sitting with me - after rolling and scratching and digging in the dirt, somehow he manages to be pristine, super-clean, snowy white. He is, to me, one of the most beautiful cats I've ever shared my home with. Commonly used phrase to web-master - If you do my photos, I promise I'll love you even more than I love B-Puss.
Tuesday 24th October
Well, I might just have the day off - considering it's raining. I love this rain! Please, please, rain respectably and give my plants a good natural soaking. I thought perhaps of getting a bus from the edge of town and taking self off to a movie? Goodness me - what excitement! Or is this the perfect day to clean the inside of my house? It's like this - one either has goals, or one drifts. Hmm...