Common sense...
Biddi-Bids
Common sense : in the sticky forget-me-not seed season (i.e. now), do not wear expensive wool-blend socks in the garden. The seeds loooove to stick fast to wool-blend socks. And spending half an hour per sock painstakingly removing the biddi-bids is a waste of precious gardening time.
No babies allowed...
More common sense : do not lunge into a forget-me-not seed infested garden wearing fancy-pants singing performance clothes. Oops. Definitely never take a baby in there, either (oops again) - after all, one cannot briskly brush biddi-bids off a baby. Hairy dogs are also a problem - scissors for them, unfortunately. Cats (like Buster) are self-cleaning - much better!
And what to wear...
When dealing with armfuls of old seedy forget-me-mots, wear a cotton shirt and shorts. Do not expect the washing machine to magically remove seeds off clothing or loosen them to float harmlessly away. Aha! They just get spread around to stick onto everything else.
And so I have been spending hours cleaning up the forget-me-nots. Days! Weeks! But the garden is looking rather gorgeous, and I get to spread my love around it. Some of my roses have finished flowering for now, and need dead-heading, while others are in full beautiful bloom - see the row below.
Aha! It is common sense to put extra water on roses which were recently transplanted. It is, after all, summer. So that's what I've been doing today, as well as clearing the garden borders and trimming the edges. The new rose garden in The Hump is full of small flowered but tall-shrubbed varieties. I don't know anything about this variety of rose. I suspect it was a rose fashion statement in the 80s or 90s, perhaps offering an alternative to the big blousy hybrid teas growing on stiff stalks.
The Top Patio
Something is not so good, though, but I think it's a result of good things - namely the extra rain and the extra light and sunshine on the house gardens (the Hump trees were felled six months ago now). Cleavers is popping up in more garden borders than I'd have expected. The Hump has always has this annoying weed, but when it was a pine and gum tree forest I didn't worry about gardening underneath. Now Cleavers likes my new sunny, light and bright garden very much. New gardens to colonise! Yeay! Blast!
Buster the Cat
Another tick goes on the Christmas choral commitments list - I went Carol singing last night. Only two to go for meeeeeeee! Tra-la-la! Almost time for Rudolph to go into hibernation somewhere on the northern tundra. Today I have a general things-to-do list, which I will now present :
- Fold, stash, and hang up clothes.
- Practice my Bach and Brahms.
- Get out my Christmas jigsaw.
- Do something to clear kitchen.
- Maybe vacuum downstairs carpets.
As you can see, this list is not a gardening one. Sorry about that. And it has petered out somewhat. My flute playing friend is coming this afternoon for a music and garden visit with her dogs, so there will be much 'barking' and 'Baching', hee hee (we are going to try and play Bach's Sonata in B Minor).
By the way, Cleavers and Forget-Me-Not seeds aside, I think my garden is absolutely gorgeous - especially all the Lycnhis. Yeay for these pretty self-seeders, I say, which are robust, generous, and easily pulled out from the wrong place.