Christmas!

The garden preparations for Christmas Day are finally done, in a frenzy of weeding, dead-heading and clearing. Summer has returned. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve - Mid-Afternoon

Yippee! I've been gardening for all the morning, and my list is completed. My goodness, that didn't last long - see what happens when I show listing restraint. I'm glad to say goodbye to all the magenta foxgloves - their place in the air is taken up by the weedy Verbascums along the water race edge. Several clumps of big red daylilies are flowering now - and the Iceberg roses are almost ready for dead-heading (this happens every Christmas). Hurray for the Flower Carpet roses, and The Fairy rose, both of whom are joining the catmint in making my house patio garden look really pretty.

 Oops. Some days I love them, some days not.
Go You Weedy Verbascums!

I hope all my friends and relatives like their Moosey calendars. I've peeped at my main present and it's in a long envelope. Hmm - garden vouchers? Put it this way - it sure aint a shredder!

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas to gardeners, their families, their cats and dogs and other beloved animals, and all loving, living things everywhere! Yippee. It's Christmas morning, it isn't raining, it isn't cold, and we are off to the mountains with our Christmas picnic lunch and Rusty the Dog (special snacks for him included).

 He is waiting by the BBQ.
Rusty at Christmas

But before all that I have to quickly do some edges - and I have to apologise for being rude about my big present. Yesterday, underneath the Christmas tree, I found it in a long envelope, and in a cheerful, resigned sort of voice suggested that it was garden vouchers. Now there's absolutely nothing wrong with garden vouchers - they're brilliant! But not when one is rather hoping for the impossible - a large second pond - and if not this, then an industrial strength shredder.

A Christmas Shredder!

But - oops! Upon opening, I found it was a glossy pamphlet for a shredder - yes! Yippee! It is arriving in the New Year! No more piles of hopeless dusty compost that take ten years to do anything. No more guilty burning of vegetative rubbish which doesn't need to be burnt. My own shredder! Yippee!

'Be kind to the butterflies and bees above, and take good care of the soil below. That way everything in-between has a better chance of being happy!'
-Moosey Christmas Message.

Right. I have one hour to whip up an edge-trimming frenzy - the house lawns look beautiful, specially mowed for Christmas Day. And think - right now, in just a few select homes, 2007 Moosey calendars are being lovingly unwrapped! Since the making of them took me about three days (I kept finding mistakes) I now understand why busy people buy their Christmas gifts in shopping malls.

That's it. Best wishes to everyone. Christmas can be such a bitter sweet time - for anyone who is over ten years old. Gardeners - don't be surprised if a few weeds have grown under your very nose, or a few bugs have sneaked into your glasshouse to winter over in comfort.

 Flowerng late this year - pruned quite hard and shifted in wnter.
Kronenberg Rose

Wednesday 27th December

Good morning on the day after Boxing Day. I can see my odd sheep quartet grazing in the Pond Paddock. Dear uncomplicated sheep - the best of the season to you, especially little Haru the pet lamb (well, she's rather more the size of a sheeplet).

This morning I have gardening plans. I will need to find somehow, from somewhere, a truckload of gardening energy - a touch of Christmas laziness has been allowed to creep in. But today is the perfect day to do all or some of the following:

Paint the new garden chairs.
Blue is the colour of the sky-hy-hy...
Weed behind the pond.
There's heaps of that chook-weed called Fat Hen. I can make a nice connection with my lovely egg-layers.
Clean out the Hen House straw.
Thus my lovely egg-layers can return the connection.

But wait - aargh! It's started to rain! And wait - it's heavier! Oh dear... Stopped in mid-list, cut off at the listing knees... Right. I need to pull myself together - I have some rather uncomfortable choices.

 I must get more of these summer bloomers.
Summer Penstemons

Do I steam on and get unhappily wet? Do I give up and sulk? Or do I turn my industrious self to a couple of hours of piano playing and/or vacuuming the house? Aargh! It's like another list is forming, right under my nose.