The garden is filled with golds and reds...
Gunnera Seed-Head Close-Up
The garden is filled with golds and reds, as autumn leaves colour on the trees, and carpet the ground below. And still I can't burn any of my rubbish - so naturally, it's the very thing I really, really feel like doing! Typical...
Tuesday 27th April
Today I'm digging out the very last offending Gunnera plant from the water race. The water is cold, and so is the air - it's a drizzly autumn morning. But such is the fortitude of this old-chook gardener that she is undaunted. Clad in merino from top to toe, with the help of faithful sidekick (Rusty the dog) she'll have that Gunnera sliced out before 9am.
Brr... I really want to do this now? The water will be really cold...
Later...
Ha! I did it. However, I haven't replanted any Gunnera pieces - I'll need something to hold them in position by Car Bridge, and this calls for the expertise of the resident engineer. I also now have clumps of Agapanthus (sorted into blues and whites) all over the Driveway Lawn. Because of drizzle and poor visibility, my hiking friend and I chose the easy option - a country lunch cafe near the foothills, with a book of weekend hikes to ogle at. We are thinking of upsizing, hee hee...
Down the Driveway in Autumn
+10I'd like to give a special mention to Tiger the cat who purred and posed beautifully for my visitor. All my other cats were hopeless - an alarmed peep around the corner and then a dash for cover, belly scraping the floor. Reverting to that which their wild-cat mothers taught them, I guess. Still, that makes their friendship even more valuable... Cats! Get over it!
Thursday 29th April
Hee hee. I am home, after swimming and a ridiculously quick (and jolly sensible) shopping spree. I've bought a tough light-woman tramping pack and a new pair of light-woman boots, as rewards for me having 'Shaped Up for Life' pretty well over the last seven months.
Yippee for PInk Chrysanthemums!
I went hiking yesterday, so my Gunnera and Agapanthus clumps are waiting. That's this afternoon's job. Little Minimus needs to come gardening, too. She's turning into a sleepy furry little cat-barrel - a pint-sized cat who eats ten-gallon snacks...
Later...
Oops. I've just been for a huge test walk around the block in my new light-woman's hiking boots. My dog loves a long walk, with time to sniff the smells on all the fence-lines, and leave a few of his own. I'm afraid the Agapanthus and the Gunnera are still waiting - it's gone all dark outside. Must be late...
Variegated Euphorbia :- Here is my original variegated Euphorbia - what a pretty shrub! I'm so sorry...
I also have some Euphorbia cuttings to organise - they're from the variegated 'Silver Burrows' variety of Euphorbia characias wulfenii (my learned friend has given me clear instructions as to what to do and what to expect). I used to have this Euphorbia, and I lost it - that makes me sound careless. More exactly, I shifted it and it died. Oh dear! That sounds much worse.
Yippee for Yellow Chrysanthemums!
Friday 30th April
Eek! The last gardening morning in April, and I am playing Bach and Prokovief with my flute playing friend. But I have dressed ready for the garden, so there can no lame excuses not to go outside immediately the music has finished. I need potting mix and some bags of horse manure, but most of all I need to get planting.
Later...
I've planted the tricky Agapanthus (I take them partially to pieces and cover each planting carefully with compost and water). And I've planted six easy clumps (I just pull off old leaves, slice off the bottom roots, and dig a deep hole) in the Wattle Woods. They are all blue flowering.
Lucky Charles the merino ram - five frisky (in his dreams, anyway) young ewes are arriving in the next hour to give him even more company. Sheep life is quite simple, really. Charles has to 'gather rosebuds while he may' - it's back to the boring paddock with George and Fred, two exceedingly boring wethers, in a couple of months.
Goodbye Autumn
April has been a strange month - a month of waiting for change, raking up rubbish that can't yet be burnt, and trying to catch the first autumn leaves - figuratively speaking! The garden hasn't really been properly 'autumnised' yet. And here, there, and everywhere there are blooming roses - some seem happier than in summer when they were squashed by competing greenery. I do love roses - they are the most generous of flowering shrubs.
Meanwhile, a forum friend who lives in the 'great white north' is still waiting for spring - how puzzling, yet extremely logical, that gardeners in other hemispheres are out of sync with me. Have faith, I say! Things always change in the garden - sooner or later.