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Wednesday, 13 March 2019
Allan continued to languish from the Shingrix jab. I was worried. I felt considerably better so did some gardening at home while I fretted both about his health and about falling behind at work. I pondered on the idea that retirement would eliminate a lot of work stress, a conundrum because I feel that our work is valuable to the local world.
My friends next door got their midmorning biscuits.
Frosty loves dogs and very much wants to be friends.
Cota and Bentley are good with the neighbor cat, Onyx. I don’t want to risk an introduction to Frosty. He might eventually decided to introduce himself.
Skooter helped me way too much, keeping right underfoot…until I got out The Toy. Then the buzzing noise kept him at a distance but always in view.
I trimmed many the plant with The Toy. It is great for the Chop and Drop gardening method beloved of garden writers Ann Lovejoy and Anne Wareham. I have noticed that when I chop and drop at work, Allan comes behind and rakes the clipped material up. At home, I can get away with it.
It is also wonderful for chopping plant material into the compost bins. I had the opportunity not long ago to ask my neighbours if the sound of the Toy annoys them. I am relieved to know that it does not.
I found a round garden thingie so hidden by a shrub and some Stipa gigantea that I had completely forgotten about it. Now it is out in the open.
While potting up some Siberian iris and Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ for my plant sale, I pondered that I’m beginning to have anxiety that it will be so very people-y. I wondered about where I am going to actually HAVE it. Should I let strangers into my yard? Will it turn out to be a waste of time? Maybe when I figure out the time I’ve spent and the cost of potting soil, I’ll have made negative dollars per hour. Fortunately, Pam and Prissy are coming (with plants) which will make it much more fun.
When Allan finally stopped sleeping languishing, I stopped worrying about him and enjoyed my garden much more. Still feeling the Shingrix effects myself a bit, I had gotten mighty tired. And yet there were two more things I longed to get done, and so I did them while Allan drilled some holes into a plastic drawer or bin that will make a good shallow pond planter.
The big Melianthus major in the front garden had been hard hit by frost and needed cutting back.
A few pieces have layered themselves so that I think I can get new plants. I’ll try them out when I am less tired…and can figure out where to put them.
With my last bit of fast vanishing oomph, I cut eight willow branches, took them to the back corner of the Bogsy Wood, and stuck them in the ground along the fence in a sort of arc. If they root and grow, I can train them into a cave or grotto kind of thingie. I would rather they were the nice long narrow leaf kind that Ann Amato (the third Ann today) uses for her willow arbor. I am using the local willow with bigger leaves because it’s here and easy to get.
Above, eight branches stuck in. Fingers crossed. It would make a good feature and a reward for anyone who walks that far back. I am impatient and hope it grows quickly. At my former garden, I stuck in year-old pruned willow trunks to make a simple arbor and they rooted despite having been out of the ground for so long.
I saw two more ornamental grasses that I just had to trim and then collapsed in my comfy chair by five thirty to have a nice cuppa Builders, write this and now to watch some more episodes of A to Z of TV Gardening and some Fork to Fork, an early kitchen garden series by Monty and Sarah Don which actually shows them gardening together. Sarah never appears on Gardeners’ World, not even in the background. The early series also features their old black dog, Beaufort.
The shows have inspired me, between watching Monty Don and Carol Klein, to make cutting when I trim up a desirable plant. Today, I made some from dianthus and from penstemon.
I do hope we can go back to work tomorrow.
Later: I found an old Christmas special from Gardeners’ World…
…and here is good old Beaufort from Fork to Fork.
I hope that your willows work. They are pretty good at growing.
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Your plant sale sounds like it will be fun! When you retire, will you keep a part-time job tending the Ilwaco gardens?
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I hope to keep the Ilwaco gardens, yes.
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I love that you used those willows. They’re local ones, right? I need to get some of them. My trees will eventually die and are really trash trees. I should have used something nicer.
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I have loads you can get cutting from.
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