A dollop of self-discipline

 Viburnum tinus.
Winter Flowering Viburnum

My morning garden journal writing ranges from boasting overloads about yesterday's achievements to whimsical non-gardening trivia. And all the meaningful and/or meaningless things that I've done to pass the time in between, hee hee.

A dollop of self-discipline...

But mornings are a great time for a dollop of self-discipline. Today just a gentle nudge in the right direction (outside), suitably clad (slippers off, gardening shoes on) will probably do.

The Return of the Frog Suit!

First I'll wriggle slowly (it takes me about five minutes) into my frog suit (AKA neoprene waders). I've already had three sessions in the cold water race. It's the ferns, self-sown, which concern me the most. How tidy should they be? How much should I tidy them up? Half of their fronds are well dead.

 They should be trimmed, right?
Waterside Ferns

So I've dug out some, and trimmed others right down so they'll put out new shoots for spring. Lots of mess now needs stacking and/or burning. And there's plenty more to do.

Naughty!

I've smacked my own hand and dug out three cute wee Gunnera plants which had self-seeded and were growing in the wrong place. I thought we'd decided that they weren't allowed to do this. We, of course, is 'me, myself and I'.

 And the cold water of the water race in the background.
Pink and Green Phormium

By the way, the winter garden is rather lovely. It's easy to miss summer colour, but winter colour is more subtle and just as exciting. My Phormium hybrids look wonderful. The New Zealand myrtles look wonderful. There's always a Hebe in flower, and the early Camellias are blooming. I love the evergreens too.

Right. Enough gushing. Perhaps another cup of tea? And some more winter garden photographs, before I suit up?

Late lunchtime...

Oh yes. I was doing so well. And then the rain started. I was warm inside my neoprene suit, so I kept on going, working my way down the water race. Coarse green Carexes were the self-seeded nuisance of the day, and I sliced out many of them. I also found (oops) three more rogue Gunnera crowns, each about three years' old, in totally inappropriate places. They'd obviously managed to hide when I was last in the water dispensing tough love with the spade and a kitchen steak knife..

But rain does as rain does, and eventually I had too many lines of water dripping down my neck. So I am inside. which is probably just as well, since I have a singing concert to conduct in about three hours, and I need clean fingernails for that.