New Year's Resolution needed after all...

After a few directionless January days I've decided I need a New Year's Resolution after all. I thought that recycling the old ones was a brilliant idea, but no - some fresh focus is definitely needed. Otherwise I will float around more than ever and be even vaguer. So here it is :

I hereby resolve that in every single day of 2014 I will try my best and do a bit of everything.

 With Rosemary, Chary Sage, and assorted flowery things.
The Herb Spiral

A Clever Resolution

Ha! This is an extremely clever resolution. For what exactly is 'everything'? For the moment (summer, semi-lazy) it's playing the piano, weeding the garden, watering the pots, keeping the website up-to-date, and sewing for the Pond Cottage teddy bears.

And painting the new obelisk a light lime green colour, and talking out loud to NGP more, rather than inside my head. He claims this is the reason he doesn't know he's supposed to do certain things. Hmm...

Naturally 'everything' will change rather nicely according to the gardening season, and will happily accommodate my latest silly idea, whatever it is and whenever during the year it should occur. So it's a pretty versatile resolution, I reckon, and one I should be able to keep. Hee hee...

Friday 3rd January

Yesterday I weeded my friend's garden, and then for a special treat we went to the local beach for a sushi picnic. When she goes back to work, and all her colleagues are talking about Croatian cruises, shopping trips to Melbourne, or poolside relaxing on an island paradise, she can hold her head high. Yippee! She went to New Brighton beach!

 Photographed in the late afternoon sun.
Species Daylilies

And, naturally, her garden was much more interesting to weed than my own. I came home to the hot nor-west wind blustering around my weedy garden, with strips of gum tree bark strewn all over the lawns, draped over the shrubs, messing up the paths, and so on. My garden seemed to be alarmingly super-sized. But I love it, even if it is large and sprawling. I've collected two barrowfuls of rubbish. The Stumpy (AKA Willow Tree) Garden needs serious weeding - maybe that could be tomorrow's first (ahem, first) home weeding location?

 In the pergola garden.
Maroon Red Daylilies

Muted excitement - I have identified one of my unknown roses. I'm sure I have a Monsieur Tillier in the Hen House Garden. I'm oh so sure. He was mentioned in a very early journal, and he fits the rose in question. How exciting!

 In the garden by the pergola.
Beautiful Dahlia

Saturday 4th January

So far today I've gone swimming, plodded through a thumpy Beethoven fugue - one of the left-over movements from last month's 32 sonata marathon. I've done an hour's worth of rose dead-heading and gum tree bark clearing and started my new 3000 piece jigsaw. And I've been listening to the cricket - we are playing the West Indies.

Later...

My New Year's Resolution is working! Now I've practised a Schumann violin and piano sonata, done two more successful dead-heading and picking-up-bark garden sessions, encouraged NGP to clean up the driveway, listened to more cricket, prepared a lovely set of salads for the barbecue meal, and mended NGP's cycling jacket. What a legend!

Sunday 5th January

Aha! Chamber music later this morning, so first I'm going to vacuum the downstairs, water all the patio tomatoes and lettuces, and tidy up the Shrubbery courtyard. Some Angelica plants in here have now had the chance to self-seed, as have the foxgloves. It's time to tidy up after them, so to speak.

 A little honey bee.
Bee on Catmint

Later...

So far today I've played the piano, done some good weeding and clearing, planted out the remaining blue Larkspur, done some jig-sawing, watered the tomatoes (like I said I would) - now I'm listening to the Ashes (cricket) on TV and writing up my journal. My New Year's Resolution is a success, yet again.

Flower Report

Oops. A quick flowers report. So what's flowering in the Moosey Garden? The big pink Filipendula by the pond (which appears to be hopeless as a cut flower in a vase - pity). The Catmint (Six Hills Giant), surrounded by Queen Anne's Lace. Obviously, the dahlias, and the late roses like the Noack Flower Carpet ones and the cute little pink Fairy.

The daylilies - such beautiful plants, as long as they decide to bloom properly. The clumps I shifted into the sunny Glass-House Garden last winter are thriving. And mustn't forget the Hydrangeas, with their extraordinary mid-summer colour.

 Wonderul summer colour.
Hydrangeas

Now I'm going to do some more Schumann practice. I think it's under control, then I play it with the violin, I trip up, and scramble with panic. It's a horrible feeling, like a bad dream where you're running after a bus, never quite able to catch up. It's not as if the violinist (Non-Gardening Partner) is all that scary...

New Year's Success!

So far, so very good - my New Year's Resolution is a resounding success. Not that there's been so very much of the new year, and granted I haven't had a slow, moochy day - as yet! Cross my pianistically challenged fingers...