Gardening Articles 2004

In 2004 I become a semi-retired gardener, and a garden writer in full glorious flight. Not content with faithfully reporting every gardening moment in my journals, I launch into writing articles nearly every week. There is so much to say...

Obviously inspired by my productivity, the Moosey London team starts writing articles too - their topics will soon include famous English gardens and English gardening events.

Garden SizeGarden Size...
Is the Moosey Garden too big? Or too small? How does an obsessive gardener know if her garden is really too big? How does a Goldilocks (aka Greylocks) Gardener know when it's 'just right'?
Big Bearded IrisesBig Bearded Irises...
This November the big bearded irises could rightly be subtitled 'The Bold and the Beautiful'. And I, knowing nothing about irises, could equally be considered bold for attempting to write about them.
The New Rhdodendron GardenThe New Rhdodendron Garden...
For many years I have bought bargain bin rhododendrons (without labels) and planted them in the wrong places. Then some were shifted into a new, sensible garden. What colours would they be? All is about to be revealed this spring...
Pink in the GardenPink in the Garden...
The yellows of the spring daffodil displays in my garden are warm and beautiful (even if the spring weather isn't). But in mid-spring a new colour transforms the garden borders. The colour pink has arrived!
Water Race Gardens - Ten Years OnWater Race Gardens - Ten Years On...
How the Moosey Garden has grown! We arrived in 1994 to see small garden beds around the house. Beyond were the sheep paddocks, and the water race. The area over the water race was a wilderness - an old gorse hedge, broom, and a double row of gum trees. There wasn't even a sniff of a garden in those early days...
GardenGarden's Tenth Anniversary...
October 2004 was the Tenth Anniversary of the Moosey Garden - we moved into our house in the country on October 1st, 1994. The garden we inherited was small and functional. Tough country-style shrubs like Photinia, Forsythia, and Viburnum Tinus were planted in the grass, and Iceberg and Dublin Bay roses covered one fence...
Spring BlossomSpring Blossom...
In Japan there's a spring cherry blossom wave. People have parties underneath the trees, and the wave of blossom rolls slowly up the country from south to north. Now I'm learning to appreciate the blossom trees in my own garden.
Stars of Spring 2004Stars of Spring 2004...
Spring 2004 has finally spring into action! In other words, the Moosey Two Thousand Daffodils and Two Blue Hyacinths Flower Festival is underway. It's a shining time in my gardening year, where the borders glitter with the Stars of Spring.
The Moosey Plant NurseryThe Moosey Plant Nursery...
The Moosey Garden is at the horticultural crossroads. My nursery systems are seriously flawed, and far too random. I am fast turning into a re-active rather than a pro-active glass-house potterer. It's time to wake up - and smell the roses?
But Is It Garden Art?But Is It Garden Art?...
This isn't really an article about Garden Art - you see, the Moosey garden doesn't really have any. Statuary? - Zero. Large, groovy, stylish empty pots? - No way. Plinths? - None. Gargoyles? - Sorry, not one.
Arabesque in GumbootsArabesque in Gumboots...
I'm an older lady gardener - not quite as well-balanced of leg and flexible of hip as I used to be. I can't lunge into the garden undergrowth anymore (like my younger horticultural colleagues).
Garden CamerasGarden Cameras...
We get a lot of questions about the thousands of photos on the site. What cameras have we used over the years? While the film, aperture and shutter speeds are forgotten, the cameras that took the photos aren't.
Winter ColourWinter Colour...
What word best describes the winter colour in the Moosey garden? Wonderful? Subtle? Or just plain drab? Over the past winter weeks I've swung wildly - one minute I'm seeing rich warmth and colour everywhere...
Mid-Winter GardeningMid-Winter Gardening...
It's mid-winter's day at Mooseys Southern Hemisphere Country Garden - the winter gardening solstice - the shortest day of the Moosey gardening year. Obviously in the depths of winter there can't be much to take pictures of, can there?
Gardening VerbsGardening Verbs...
I've been writing a gardening journal for nearly eight years now. I'm always doing things in the garden - the same garden, the same things, the same month. My gardening journals are action packed with wheel-barrowfuls of the same garden rubbish! All those verbs!
Rugosa RosesRugosa Roses...
Moosey the Hopeless has been hunting through rose books, searching on the internet, and scouring all the old hand-written journals. The names of the many rugosa roses in the garden - what are they?
Maths in the GardenMaths in the Garden...
Mathematics, Music and Gardening - these are my three great passions. There's a well known link between the first two disciplines, but what about Mathematics and Gardening? Where's the connection?
Praising PittosporumsPraising Pittosporums...
I'm sorry, Pittosporums, for continually being so rude to you in the Moosey garden. For the last five years at least I've been ruthlessly using you to fill up my garden.
Autumn Leaf PhotosAutumn Leaf Photos...
There must be a limit to the number of Autumn-Leaf photographs that one gardener can take - in her own garden - with less than twenty Autumn-Leaf producing trees - mustn't there?
CompostCompost...
My web-master has asked me to write an article about compost. Safe in his drizzly London suburb he assumes that I, Moosey, have trailer-loads of gardening experience and barrowfuls of gardening wisdom.
Gardening EnergyGardening Energy...
Gardening energy is so annoyingly finite - at least it is for me. My gardening plans stretch on for ever and ever. I start a gardening day with plans for full scale developments, and nearly always end up getting nowhere.
Last of the Golden HopLast of the Golden Hop...
I'm about to do serious battle with the Golden Hop. For over five years I have indulged this marauding teenager, allowing him (yes, the Golden Hop is male) free licence to roam and cover things in Middle Border.