Sunday, 1 March 2020
Allan went off shopping across the river, partly for a new string trimmer and partly for pandemic supplies—in other words, enough canned goods, rice and beans and other staples to enable us to avoid shopping for a month if, heavens forfend, there is a coronavirus pandemic here. We should be able to go to work since our work can be pretty much non-peopling. I’m not scared, exactly, but I am depressed to have to think about all this, and worried for friends who are in fragile health, and sad because Seattle Carol (a Seattle metro bus driver) will probably cancel an early April visit during this uncertain time. Of course, I am made for being a recluse but would rather not have such a potentially dire reason.
Today I did a bit of propagating for my plant sale, wondering if fate will even allow The World’s Longest Garage Sale to take place as usual on Memorial Day weekend in late May.
The big plan was to prune all my roses that are not the old fashioned kind. The ramblers and shrubs I just let do what they will except for removing dead wood.
After the front garden roses, I got distracted with other projects….
Weeding a small front garden bed…
Yesterday ….
Today….
I removed yet another Ilex ‘Sky Pencil’ that had suddenly died, as they seem wont to do…
In the background, behind the Melianthus, said ilex had been fine till it turned up its toes just last week. I probably won’t replace it with another shrub since the Melianthus would shade it out unless I put in something quite tall to begin with. My budget doesn’t run to that.
I decided I must get the celandine out from the two beds by the front gate. Its pretty bright yellow daisy flowers set a bad example, making passersby think that it is a lovely winter bloomer that they should have.
It has smothered out some choice small flowering bulbs that I used to have in that area. Because its root clumps leave tiny earth colored nodules behind, it will be back next year no matter how much sifting I do, thus the removal is not impressive as it might look.
In the far back garden where I dug and sifted and fretted over every nodule last spring, the celandine now looks like this, stronger than ever.
Utterly maddening.
In Modern Nature, Derek Jarman says this about a childhood memory of celandine.
Instead of pruning all of the back garden roses as planned, I allowed myself to be distracted by the second pile of compost and leaves, this pile actually on the back corner of the Nora House driveway, which is a rather rude encroachment even though I know that her granddaughter, Alicia, does not mind.
Yesterday, before and after Allan dealt with the bamboo:
My leaf bin contents had sunk during the winter and so, after moving the compost debris to the big bins, I was able to fill the leaf bins to the top with the tarped leaves. The rest were strewn onto the driveway garden bed and the final amount filled two oyster baskets.
My audience:
I had found it all so exhausting and so very cold that I almost quit several times. To finish the pile was revitalizing enough that I found the oomph to prune my mother’s two tea roses, but no more.
There is still much cutting back to do, including six Stipa giganteas….
….and two more large roses. I would have done them a disservice to prune them at the end of the day when so very tired and cold.
The last thing I managed was a brief back garden appreciation walkabout.
Oh no, some stray celandine. Was too tired to get shovel…must remember before this makes a new big patch.
We did not get cold enough weather to kill the Azolla that covers the ponds.
In better news, I found….
Pulmonaria
Physocarpus ‘Dart’s Gold’
Corylopsis pauciflora
Crocuses
Thick new shoots of Dranunculus vulgaris
Yellow hellebore
Narcissi in the Bogsy Wood
…and in the greenhouse…
Echeverias flowering
Salvia Africana-lutea
…and in Allan’s garden at dusk some crocuses toning well with a hebe.
Tomorrow just had better be an all day Jarman reading day. I’m tired of waiting!
