Right now it's raining (squally showers that seemed to come from nowhere) so I don't have to make excuses why I am not gardening. Instead I'll tell you what my day consisted of yesterday, if you'll allow.
First of all, about 10.15am, I had a cup of tea and five minutes of cogitation – or more likely procrastination before I set to work with a spade, a ladies' gardening fork which is smaller than the usual one. It makes it easier to manage as I'm not turning over huge amounts of soil so it's less arduous on the back. There are tools nowadays that somehow turn themselves so you don't have to put your back into it but thankfully I'm not at that stage yet. I also took a large box for the stones and the garden tidy for weeds. Along with these I took the extension cable and a radio. I was ready for the hard work ahead of me. The weather was mild and before long I had shrugged off my fleece and was down to a pair of trousers and a vest top.
So, first to go were the slate chippings. I tossed them under the hedge in case I need to use them at a later date. This will suppress the weeds and the hedge is established enough that it won't make any difference to that. First visit of the day from the neighbour who likes to chat.
The next job was to remove one of the mahonias which proved more difficult than I first imagined because it was buried very deeply. The roots hadn't been teased out when it was first planted though so once I had dug deeply enough it came up easily as the roots were still curled in a tight ball.
Now it was onto removing the bamboo after I'd warmed up but before I was tired out because I knew what a tussle it was be to remove it. I've mentioned this quite a bit in the last couple of posts so should give bamboo a fair press and have taken this from 'potandgrass' website (which is not a hashish site despite the name).
“In cultivation, care needs to be taken of their potential for invasive behaviour. They spread mainly through their roots and/or rhizomes, which can spread widely underground and send up new culms to break through the surface. There are two patterns for the growth of bamboo, "clumping" (sympodial) and "running" (monopodial). Clumping bamboo species tend to spread slowly as the growth pattern of the rhizomes is to simply expand the root mass gradually; they do not send out runners. Running bamboo species are highly variable in their tendency to spread; this is related to both the species and the soil and climate conditions. Some can send out runners several meters a year, while others can stay in the same general area for long periods. If neglected, they can be invasive over time and can cause problems by moving into adjacent areas. The reputation of bamboo as being highly invasive is often exaggerated, and situations where it has taken over large areas is often the result of years of untended or neglected plantings.”
Well, there we are, neglected planting was the reason mine was so difficult remove. It took over an hour of struggle to get the entire thing out and mine wasn't even that large. I'd taken a big clump out last week and passed it onto Jenny, my friend but this piece was buried right up against the wall which meant I had to insert the blade of the spade between it and the wall and then try to prise it away. You can't just pull it up so in the end as I've already mentioned in an earlier post, I had to dig right down to get underneath it. It wasn't easy to get to it because I was standing on the road at the bottom of the slope and the clump I was trying to extract was three feet above me. Anyway, even though several times I wanted to give up on it, I did get the entire thing out. It looks very puny for the amount of sweat I poured over it quite literally. At this point the neighbour was back with a cup of tea. Very timely.
Once that task was over I cut back the straggly thorny branches that draped down and threatened to lash out if I got in the way of them. Out came the other mahonia which I immediately planted alongside the one I had earlier removed. I'll have to see if they survive. One has already been offered to my Mum who lost hers due to the winter temperatures. We are about three degrees colder than just a mile away and as such lost a standard bay, our lovely olive that was a present only last summer, my tree fern and four cordylines along with euphorbias and other plants.
The neighbours were having a delivery and continually blocked the road which meant I had an audience of bored car drivers and their passengers. Occasionally the lorry would move after being beeped at by frustrated drivers who couldn't back up and use a different route and even more occasionally I got a wolf whistle or beep. I put this down to my Charlie Dimmock look. If you don't know Charlie she was the gardener who wore skimpy tops and no bra and got plenty of press coverage for being rather butch yet still feminine due to her obvious assets.
I think people were so bored just sitting and waiting for the lorry to move that they couldn't help but watch this messy, middle aged, sweaty woman in a vest scrabbling up and down the bank. hauling huge rocks around and bending over to scrape back the earth that had fallen onto the road. It was definitely the fact that I was lugging big rocks that appealed to them whilst almost exposing my own 'rocks', I'm sure.
How embarrassing.
Eventually the police turned up (not to charge me with indecent exposure I'm relieved to report) but to tell the lorry he'd have to move. Without an audience to make me self conscious I could crack on.
I pulled out a wheelbarrow load of stones, took out the sickly hebe, repositioned the last row of rocks, planted up one plant I'd taken out, a bunch of narcissi, a much reduced in price because it's almost over it's flowering muscari blue spike (grape hyacinth), two saxifrage aizoon minors, two unidentified blue flowered plants, a campanula, three primula denticulata (drumstick primulas), saxifrage white pixie, jasione leavis blue light and phlox cushion blue. A great list of names but it looks very sparse right now. The last thing to do once I didn't need it to pull myself up the bank on was to saw off the I'd like to add a few evergreens to give it interest in winter. Hopefully it will be carpeted in the plants in a year or two.sapling that was jutting out the ground at an awkward angle halfway up the slope and then rake the whole area to make it look more level.
I am mad at myself for not doing a proper preparation job before I planted the plants but having had two more visits from the neighbour one side and one nice chat with Jack from the other side it was way past four pm which is when I had hoped to have finished up.
I ended up by cleaning the driveway with a brush and a hosepipe, watered everything well (never overlook this bit, it's the best way to get your plants to settle in) and cleaned up the rocks with water and a hand brush. Then I planted the few plants at the base of the deck and tidied away the tools I had used. By this time I was basically dead on my feet so it was all an uphill struggle. I wound up the hose, put the stones into the bin, photographed the bamboo and the finished bank, put the weeds in the garden waste bin , put the chickens back in their run, checked the time (6.40pm), flopped on the sofa, started typing a post, gave up, had a bath and went to bed. Luke came home at 7.00pm with curries for us both and I came down to add some photos to my post. Then it was bed and ablissful sleep. The trouble was I dreamt about a plant show! Arghhh.
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