Too small...

 Early?
Daffodil

Too naughty. For two days I've been poking and scraping with little commitment at the weeds in my garden. I've done small scale tidying - ineffectual and far too small, for my large garden. I've been using the kneeler, and let me tell you - it's hardly moved.

Today, two hours before dusk, I strayed into the shrubby boundary garden which runs down to the road. Aargh! It was a large scale mess, and needed my fully committed, large scale attention. Help! Escape!

Inside I scuttled like a scared rabbit, made a cup of coffee, and decided I really, really, really needed to do some singing practice. Singing practice! That which I usually do inside my head, or out loud hurtling along the main road in my car (I am singing alto in Haydn's Creation Mass and Mozart's Credo Mass - but these concerts are weeks away). So here's the plan. I go back outside with the big shovel and the big loppers. I think big. Gloria in magnus gardenus...

 I really liked the spring photographs.
Garden book

Next Day...

It's 10am, warming up outside after the tiniest of frosts, and I'm ready to hit that garden again. Ha! Yesterday I made a great start. I dug out dahlias (from a hopelessly non-sunny place) and started trimming 'things' - Phormiums, assorted shrubs, overgrown Anamenthele grasses, over-robust Cotoneasters (a bit of a pest, but they have been providing a jolly good shrub-screen).

And now, dressed in blue gardening clothes, I am off to continue the good work. The plan - I will trim and clear an access route through the greenery, and repair my rickety 'dog-proof' boundary fence.

Lunchtime...

Had lunch (minimal) on the patio in the sun, slurped coffee, and flicked through a garden book - A Year in the Life of a Garden, that sort of thing. Hmm. Visually stunning photographs of well balanced plantings - perfectly controlled swathes, shapes, colours, trees just the right size, and so on. I got a little peeved. Where were the things that didn't fit their garden space any more? Like shrubs that the gardener forgot to trim three years ago? OK. I know. Glossy garden books don't publish such photographs. And maybe these owners employ weeders and trimmers.

 For roses, dahlias, and perennials.
New Garden

Now I'm off to prune yet more Cotoneasters, which I should have trimmed three years ago. Oh well. Plan for this afternoon : Enjoy lots of good intentions, do my best, and don't be afraid to compromise.

Much later...

A six hour day, finishing with all my rubbish burnt on the bonfire. The fence fixed (good), my expensive secateurs lost (bad), lots more Cotoneaster chopped down. I also started building up another new garden area in the Hump with oak leaves and horse manure. The rescued dahlias are in here, too, Sunny and open. Perfect. Mulch to come.

 Flowering early this year.
Cornubia Rhododendron

I raked piles of rose prunings and dry perennial stalks out from underneath the hedge and added them to the bonfire. Then I said hello and goodbye to the very first blooming rhododendron (a big red, possibly Cornubia, in the Driveway Garden). A big six hours of energetic gardening. Good for me.