Armchair Gardening...
What am I waiting for? I'm sitting in my armchair in Pond Cottage 'ooohing' and 'aaahing' over garden photographs, while the summer morning sun is shining outside. The pond Phormiums are gently waving their spiky leaves at me. Oy! You! Get real! Come on out here!
Summer Hydrangeas
Thursday 7th February
OK, OK, I get the message. I've got miniature blue Agapanthus and new Hydrangeas to pop into the garden somewhere, and rocket seedlings to pop into the vegetable garden. And I need to do the last item on Monday's list (tidy the little Wattle Woods stream) - it was my very first list for the year 2013 and thus is to be taken terribly seriously.
Reading Gnome
Later...
Yes! Me and Rachmaninoff, we have been clearing along the wriggling stream (item four on the list) in the shade of the Wattle Woods. I've trimmed lots of Phormium leaves (with the kitchen scissors, hee hee) and dug out old grasses, creating a groovy little space by the tiny stony stream for some Agapanthus.
I have lushly and rhapsodically raked up rubbish with gorgeous piano concerti themes in octaves swirling around in the greenery. My clothes and face are now wet and grubby, though it doesn't seem to matter how muddy one gets while listening to Rachmaninoff.
Anyway, it's time to go apres-gardening, and play the piano (more carefully than usual, since a thorn has pushed its way up my index fingernail). Ouch! The silliest little things hurt, sometimes. Schumann, I think, to complete the intense gardening mood of the day. And to celebrate that my first 2013 list has been finished. Good old me. Steady on - not so old...
Friday 8th February
What am I doing again? Sitting in my cottage armchair, a re-run of yesterday. Oh, this time I've taken some photographs - of cats, and the Shasta daisies - though one white daisy flower tends to look just the same as another. Fair enough, I guess! But there's work to be done, and I am the designated gardener. So enough daydreaming, shifting my gaze between photographs (Aaaaw! Look at those ginger cats) and the pond outside (Hellooooooo, you gnomes).
Two Ginger Gardening Cats
In case I need the discipline of a list, here is one such:
List
- Pot up Filipendula pieces.
- Plant half the Agapanthus in the Shrubbery.
- Plant half the Agapanthus in Wattle Woods.
- Tidy up the Wattle Woods gardens and paths.
Right. My photographs can be admired any old time, but my best gardening work is done in the mornings.
Rusty the Swimming Dog
Later...
Poor old Rusty the dog - he has gone all limpy again, and something is wrong with his front left shoulder and/or the attached leg. We went for a very slow bicycle ride up the road to check out a plant stall, though he was happy to leap at full speed into the pond to chase his tennis ball. Hmm... Anyway, he is off to the vet early next week for a check-up. As is Fluff-Fluff, my well-recovered big fluffy cat, whom I hope has lost weight, or the vet will be mad at me!
Confessions of a Mature Bather
Hee hee. After five hours of bending, planting, raking, and weeding in the wattle Woods, I decided to have a good soak in a hot bath. This is what the older, more mature gardener does, to soothe the dodgy knees and aching hip.
Getting quite excited, I filled the bath (an old-school shape - long and thin) with hot water. You see, I never have baths. Ooh, goodie! Such anticipation... Oops. I couldn't work out how to actually get all of me into the bath properly. I tried a kneel-and wriggle manoeuvre and got stuck halfway. Oh boy! Finally, after much giggling and slithering, I actually managed to lie down and get the Moosey legs straightened out without hurting anything.
Mid-Summer Shasta Daisies
- ‘Stick with apres-gardening showers.’
- -Moosey Advice to the Inflexible, More Mature Gardener.
Time to accept that I am seriously non-agile, inflexible, and semi-aged, I reckon! Then I started worrying that I'd get stuck in the jolly thing... With the smallest of regrets I am moving back to apres-gardening showers. And sticking with them!
Relaxing with Fine Gardening...
But now super-clean me is relaxing with my latest Fine Gardening magazine, in which I spy several luscious looking New Zealand flaxes. Ho hum, in my garden they grow everywhere. Of course I also see an unbelievably original daylily (deep cherry and cream, called Border Heritage).
Daylilies :- I've popped some new photographs up on my Daylilies page. Have a peep!
I'm reminded of the wonderful Hemoracillis breeders in the USA, and how I never, ever see such beauties in my own country. But do I look hard enough? Aha! That is the question...
Today in the garden I have achieved much (mainly with the kitchen scissors and my little hand digger). All the paths through the Wattle woods are cleared, and most of the green Phormiums are trimmed. Older variegated mallows have been pulled out, and I've divided and replanted some Renga Renga (Rock lilies) by one path's edge. The Agapanthus is in, surrounded by blobs (?) of leaf mould.
The Wattle Woods
There is definitely space for something big in the middle of the woods by the little stream. Hmm... Perhaps another of the small-leafed Pittosporums that do so well in the dry conditions and look so beautifully delicate and intricate? There - that's settled. What a groovy couple of days I've had, gently wrapped up in the foliage of the Wattle Woods.
Must pop outside before the light fades and take some photographs of the shining greenery...