Time for a clean-up...
The Jelly Bean Border needs a big clean-up. Hmm... Three years of this and that dropping down (mainly gum tree debris and cordyline leaves), plus this spring's bumper crop of annual Forget-Me-Nots, Alkanet, and Cleavers. Aargh! The terrible trio!
The Jelly Bean Border
OK. Here's the plan. Every barrow load of mess I wheel out is to be replaced by two bags of horse manure. I will need a rake, gloves, pruning nippers, a shovel, and six hours of super-duper energy and commitment. I can do this. And so far so good. I've wobbled over to the dumping place by the far fence with four barrowfuls of mess. I've found a wee patch of oxalis (oops) and hopefully it all out. No time to rest and reflect. I need to finish the mess collection and start the manure spreading. Humph.
A few days later...
Garden clean-ups are allowed take more than a day. Well, if done properly they might take weeks, months, or more. And I (Poor me! Poor me!) don't have a legion of helpers to trundle in the horse manure, or trundle out the rubbish. But after three days The Jelly-Bean Garden has definitely got a tidier interior, though its backside could do with a trim. Ouch. Sounds like a sheep.
This is a garden I walk past every day, but rarely venture into. I love checking out the shrubs - in early spring there's the arching rose Canary Bird, and white Clematis covers the archway.
Recycled Pink Rhododendron
Recycled rhododendrons
Then the recycled rhododendrons flower - first the red, then the cool lilacs and the pink. A clump of Symphytum 'Hidcote pink' (which is cream) looks so pretty in flower. Summer will be yellow, with Hypericum and Senecios along the fence-line.
And regarding that fence...
An old sheep fence (originally with three rails) zig-zags through the Jelly Bean Border, and it is a mess. So I want to recycle (i.e. knock off with a hammer, without breaking anything) all the lower, non-rotting rails, and nail them along the top. For consistency. An old fence looks fine, rustic even, as long as it is consistent. One rail only, at the top, will do very nicely.
I mentioned this to Non-Gardening Partner, and he gave that incredulous, infuriating chuckle that NGPs give when they think a garden beautification idea is totally unnecessary and bordering on the completely barmy. 'Best of luck'. Well, tomorrow I'm going to try.
And I need to trim that backside - mainly the Berberis, Corokias, and the Viburnum tinus shrub-trees which border the Ram Paddock. Several self-sown Pittosporums need re-evaluating, and seedling Pseudopanax are popping up everywhere. They obviously like it here, so I need to decide if I like them back.
Exponential growth?
And all these tasks make a delightful change from pulling out armfuls (and legfuls) of old annual forget-me-nots. I reckon I'm filling ten times as many barrow loads as last year, and its taking me ten times as long. Exponential growth, maybe?
This Fence Needs Mending
This is another 'garden beautification' task that puzzles NGP. 'Why do you need to pull them out?' Hmm.