Chicken in the pot.

No worries, I haven't cooked one of our chickens. This was Sweetie attempting a short cut over the pots instead of around them.

I don't know how I did it but...,.

I've spent another day in the garden. I think I'm all gardened out now, you may never hear from me again!
I cleaned out the hen house, siliconed up the gaps that had appeared in the woodwork over winter, scrubbed the droppings board (I get all the good jobs), dusted the house with red spider mite prevention powder and put new sawdust down. Once the lawns were mown, the edges clipped, the new apple crate planted with a box ball and the chair outside given a scrub down and a new coat of paint it was time to put everything away again.
I did glance up at the little dead tree behind our garden and smiled when I saw a lone sparrow returning my gaze only to glance up again a fraction of a second later and found about fifteen pairs of beady eyes staring down at me! The tree was covered with sparrows, it was like a scene out of Hitchcock's 'The Birds'.
Scary.

Putting my back into it.

Well, have I paid for lugging those great rocks around yesterday?! Although I had long hot bath and slept on the waterbed last night I still feel like I've got a washboard attached to my back today.

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.

Snap happy

Me taking a photo of myself, taking a photo of myself.

Colours of the garden.

 

 Yellow

Blues and purples.

Peaches and pinks

Orange

and white.

April's fool.

I've done it. My arms ache, my back is complaining, my legs are wobbly (what's new?) and I am utterly spent BUT I've done what I set out to do. I'm a real believer in doing what I say I will and, much later than I had anticipated I had finished the last of the planting and came straight to the laptop because quite frankly, if I don't tell you about it straight away I think I may be fast asleep....., nope, I'm going to fall asleep.

Here are a few photos to tell the story for me.Give it three months and it will look more natural. I hope.

(Above and below: Before I started the work)

 Halfway through the work, the slate has been removed by hand, the ground dug over and two mahonias removed (and planted in the back garden.

Rockery stones moved and replaced before the plants are added and everything is given a good watering.

Lunch break for us all.

I've taken the risky step of sitting down for a break (I'm not sure I can get up again after a back breaking fight to the death with that blinking bamboo - I won!). The hens have had all morning to peck around the lawn and bath in the dry dust of the greenhouse floor. I'm pleased that Sweetie only picks on birds bigger than her. Last week she chased a rook away from 'her patch' under the seed feeder but today she is hanging about with a tiny chaffinch and dunnock, bless her. It's a risk business, letting our chickens scratch around under the feeder as wild birds and their droppings carry disease but as our girls are fit and healthy and only allowed out when we are at home then so far so good. Right now they are plonked down, having a rest (just like me) after a hard morning's work. Shakira is busy laying an egg and could be a long while.

I am feeling more fit to drop after that tussle with the bamboo. A friend of mine had to get  some muscle in to dig hers up before she made it into a bamboo hedge. I'd never risk it running free straight into the ground. For me, the only way to have bamboo in my garden would be to pot it up first. Much like mint, it is a bit of a thug and if you don't want it taking over the area you'll need to contain it. As my choice for the garden is the more cottage, herbaceous type I'll be removing all the bamboo.

Here it is, doesn't look much, does it but I had my work cut out trying to get it out. In the end I had to dig down about two feet and the same width to get it out.
I've got one of the leggy mahonias out (one more to go) which was balancing on the slope in a precarious fashion. They stems have been handy to hang onto (as long the holly-type leaves don't get me) as I've slithered down the bank. In fact at one point I slid all the way down the length of my prostrate spade after stepping back onto the handle. It has a plastic handle. so had no grip and I ended up, like a game of snakes and ladders, at the bottom of the slope withing seconds.
I've now shifted some of the large 'rocks' that have contained the embankment; I'll stack them back up, brush away the main bulk of the earth and then hose down the road to clean it up then I will need to plant up the new plants and water it all in well.I've got quite a way to go and all I want to do is catch up on my much needed sleep. As Eric says in Gardener's Questions Time, "Upwards and onwards"......., next time I write I hope I'll have prettied the area up but right now it's a real mess.
The birds are doing their best to attract a mate and it's lovely to see them dance through the air together. What a lovely time of the year.

Today's the day. I'm banking on it.

Oh dear, what a dreadful pun. The moment I started typing this post a ray of sunshine lit the room up and encouraged me to start the groundwork of changing the bank form a mish-mash of slate and weak plants. I'm hoping to level out the ground, add some of Luke's soil improver and then plant up my little pots of alpine. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the chatty neighbour doesn't collar me for another lengthy talk as I really want to blast through this, knowing full well how much longer things take. I'm calculating starting this at 10.30am and fiishing about 3.00 or 4.00 but it all depends if I get nabbed by said neighbour.
Wish me luck, please.

Life's too short.

I had a very interesting afternoon beginning with tea in The Waterloo Tea Gardens alongside twelve members of my reading groups followed by a talk about Scott of the Antarctic (this year is the centenary of his ill fated attempt to be the first to reach the summit). There were copies of letters that he and some of his team had written to one of their benefactors in Cardiff. While in 2010 we were complaining of the temperature going as low as minus 12.5 degrees over Christmas Scott's team  had experienced temperatures in the minus mid thirties and as low as a bone chillingly minus 79. A report of one of the men taking off his gloves and getting inch long semi-frozen blisters in his fingers within one minute astounded me and one of the men wrote that all he wanted was ten minutes in hell to warm up! A letter explaining that three of the ponies drowned after falling through broken ice and that the others succumbed to the terrible conditions was heartbreaking. When I was a child I lived close to where Captain Scott's only child, Peter Scot,  by then an old man, had a wildfowl centre (Slimbridge) so we locals were always aware of the story of Scott but it was brought to life by the hand written correspondence of some of those brave men.

As Shakespeare wrote, "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them".

Then again, to flip the coin, there is also the saying, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." . When I first heard those words I was haunted by them before realising that we don't all have to do great things to make a difference, to validate our lives - all we need to do is be true to our beliefs, do the right thing and live harmoniously. 

A silly but relevant thing I discovered when I was off work for a couple of weeks when my father was dying was to take the time to smell the roses, to spend a few seconds more holding a door open for someone walking through because little things like that matter to me. Whilst great men make great discoveries and give us great quotes all I offer (which sounds ridiculous but in my own small way still matters) is that life is short but not too short to take your goods trolley back to it's bay! Laughably insignificant but for some reason it's my barometer of when life is getting too busy and my leveller when I'm rushing. I'll always still take my trolley back to where it's stored.

So, just before 5.00pm tonight, when all the traffic was about to hit the road home and I really wanted to make a quick exit to miss it all I unloaded my latest (don't say anything, I know I shouldn't) gardening purchase and walked the trolley back in the rain to it's collection point outside the centre. I'm not going to set the world alight or break records but I can clear up behind me at least.

Once I got home I unloaded my alpines in readiness for the bank I want to give a new look to. 

6 tiny plants for £10 and 3 larger plants for the same amount meant I could form the basis of my spring and summer bank. A few grape hyacinths (75% reduced because they have flopped over) and something that I've never seen before and can't quite remember what it's called were also added to my trolley as was a lovely ranuncula because they can sweet talk me into buying them anytime. "A fool and his money...," is the quote I'm going to end on.....; "are easily parted"

Say no more.

What's waiting for me?

Whilst I love the job I do and find it very worthwhile, I had an horrendous day today. I've go a backlog of work which always stresses me as I like to be on top of things and give good service. Still, I left work only quarter of an hour  later than I should have which is very good for me (it's the best time to work when we are closed - no interruptions, you see) and when I got home and extricated myself from the nice, chatty neighbour who seems to appear from thin air whatever time we drive up I discovered my recent purchase of an apple crate at the door. I'm not sure whether to plant it  up with a clipped box ball or to fill it with bedding plants for the summer and see how it goes. It's more casual and rustic than I expected so may not suit the front porch as much as I had hoped it would but I'm pleased nonetheless and it was nice to come home to a gift. Apart from half a day's work tomorrow with my reading group members I have days in which to contemplate what I am going to do with my front garden. What luxury.

I need a day in the garden.

A couple of long days at work and all I want to do is tidy that front garden. I'd be much better off waiting and deliberating, planning and getting inspired but quite simply I just want to get out there and buy some lovely plants. Thank goodness for work, it's saving me a fortune having to be working whilst the garden centres are open.

Everything's rosy in our garden.

Well, here we are at the end of the day. I would have done so much more had I not been nabbed by both sets of neighbours for a chat. The other day I lost two hours to the one neighbour but today he only took up ten minutes of my day whilst Jack (the other neighbour) and I had a forty minute sit down in the back garden with a cup of tea apiece. Whilst I would have loved to have got on with my chores (full time work always means that life feels rushed and that days off are precious) it's important to take time out to smell the roses. Not that there are any roses to smell just yet but the growth on them is promising a great show this year. I'm going to have to lay the climbing rose stems horizontally to ensure the flowers don't just appear on the tips. If you keep stems horizontal they will send out shoots along the stem and provide you with more buds than you would have got if you'd let the stem just go straight up

Whilst I was digging up stray clumps of grass and cutting back thorny stems a few walkers went past the front and we smiled at each other. I suddenly realised I was one of those ladies I used to envy, gardening in their lovely gardens (you see, I can imagine my garden being lovely even though it isn't yet) with a lovely house in a lovely place. I'm so thrilled with this house and our lifestyle. Sure, we could do with lots of other things but , boy, are we lucky.

Clashing colours.

I always hated pink and peach or orange together when I was a young girl. I just felt they clashed too much and I liked harmonious tones back then. Now however I seem to have thrown conventional thoughts away, so much so that one of my octogenarian friends yesterday asked me disdainfully if I was colour blind. I was wearing an orange cardigan with a multi-coloured dress of cream, pink, turquoise, purple and orange. Yes, it does sound hideous, I admit but it was more subtle than I have described - honestly!

Anyhow, having laughed off that comment (last week she asked if I was suing my hairdresser) I realised that I have got bolder in my colour choices. Here is my little wooden wheelbarrow, planted up with pink and white bellis and orange primulas. Loud but I still think I could have added a little light purple lobelia to the mix.

I also have a little strip at the front of the house with blue/ purple and orange. What's got into me???

Orange and purple bedding underplanting the blue clematis and orange roses.

The much reduced (just over £1.00) Fritallaria, still waiting to be planted but enjoying the afternoon sun.

My wisteria which I'll use to frame the french window.

Putting up a front.

This is the work I have ahead of me, the view of the front garden and as you can see it is a sloping garden, both across the width and along the length of the lawn. My aim is to eventually dig up all this lawn, level it slightly and put a winding path throughout it with masses of cottage garden plants and roses eithe side. A long way off just yet!

I didn't get to plant up the new purchases from earlier this week but I did get to find out what Jack is up to this week which was nice. I also got to dig over the front garden slope onto the road. You can see what a mess it is. I've removed most of the bamboo but it proves very difficult to get it all up. It's not going to defeat me though - I will win this one.

I'm going to pull up the slate chippings, the polythene covering and tidy up some of those leggy shrubs that have exposed roots. The ground is atrocious, no nutrients in it and no stability so I'm going to have to pull it all apart and put it back together properly. It's a challenge I am very much looking forward to because I know it's going to be hard work and yet will improve dramatically with some love and attention. Bring it on.

Have I told you before...?

..., that I love those cheeky chickens. I came in from attempting to dig up the bamboo in the front garden and found Luke letting them have a sneaky teaspoon sized blob of frosting from the end of his finger! Once they had had stabbed at it with their beaks they had to wipe the excess off by dragging their beaks across the ground. They have now been let into the greenhouse to have a dust bath and when I look out all I can see is an occasional tail poking up followed by a cloud of dust.

I've abandoned the back garden today to get the front tidied up. There are so many weedy, tiny trees and shrubs which are planted in the wrong place and all within two feet of one another. I have managed to pull up a large part of the bamboo which I'll give to Jenny for her garden but there is another bit which is planted slap bang along the wall and is proving resistant to my digging.

I'm thinking of putting in a bank of alpines on the slope but for now I just want to clean it up and get out the grass and weeds. You might be impressed with the pernacious weed I managed to remove in one piece. There's not much point breaking roots off on weeds as they will just come up again. Much better to put the work in and dig down as far as you need to before carefully removing the root system. The root here stretches all the way down to my left hand.

I've just heard on Radio 4's Gardeners Question Time that rain is indeed on it's way so the April showers promised in the old rhyme will be with us by mid week. Good for the garden, bad for my gardening because I can't get out and into the borders.
Never mind, nature does her thing and I try to work around her. Shame I forgot to bring the washing in though.

Thoughts.

Waiting around for Luke to finish what he's up to has given me a few minutes to write a post. We are off to B & Q to get some sand, compost and drain cleaner - the first two items are for improving fecundity and drainage in the veg patch that Luke wants to dig whilst the last is obviously to clear out the drain after finding out how blocked it was with fallen leaves and some sand.

I've been reading up about sewing seeds this morning which reminded me of one of Luke's first planting experiences. Having been impressed by a small monkey puzzle tree (before he saw the huge specimens they grow into) he sent off for some seeds and plonked them into little pots of compost. Being new to gardening he reverted back to childhood and checked on it everyday before, about two weeks after planting them, he could stand the inactivity no longer and pulled them up to check if they were taking root. Only one was showing any sign of life so Luke contritely pushed it back in again to lessen the shock of being uprooted only to see it snap off in his fingers. He's never grown another one since.

Last week I told the toddlers at story time a story about sunflowers and got them to make a Mothering Sunday card with a paper sunflower on a long stem on the front. Sunflowers are a great way of introducing children to gardening because the growth is so spectacular from that one jet black seed and if you grow a few you can chart how quickly they shoot up.