Random acts of gardening

Last year, when I had no energy to be interested in my beautiful garden, I hit upon the idea of 'lucky dipping' an area to work on in the garden. The garden has thoughfully divided itself into about 8 different areas and I would choose one at random to concentrate on each day. Needless to say Lindsay developed a spreadsheet for me to do the random choosing and my random routine was born.

Last week it was the turn of the fernery and rhodo garden. The beauty of our overgrown garden and my penchant for rustic means each area is needing less and less attention. There are the usual weeds and dropped twigs and branches to pick up but random garden usually means enjoying pottering and admiring the plants growing beautifully.

The fernery needed a bit of a sweep so I played with our new battery powered leaf blower - good fun. The ferns needed inspection to make sure they were growing properly (tick) and the windbreak of bluebell creepers needed some encouragement to continue their great job of growing. All 6 creepers were transplanted from various spot in the garden where they were very pretty but unwelcome.

The fernery was a dead space under some trees and the rhodo garden was an old woodpile when we first moved in - a delightful view from the then main bedroom. One day, hopefully during our time here, the rhodos will fill up the space. Right now they are little but give magnificent blooms.

Other jobs in the garden this week have included seriously depleting garden centres of stock and doing lots of planting. The grasslands are all planted out and we are transferring mulch from some chopped down trees up there. We have found yet another spot to just sit and enjoy the garden.

The silver birches have that delightful tinge of green as their delicate leaves slowly grow. We have many, many more daffodils than we had when we started and the new plants (planned and unplanned) are popping up everywhere.

We have turned our attention to the veggie garden and I can see some busy weeks ahead of us. We have new strawberries, a self seeded, self important snow pea that is very prolific and the raspberries are looking good. Granddaughter #2 will be happy. I have a bed full of self seeded tomatoes so I'll have a good supply of plants soon.

The garden is so full of birds at the moment, its never a dull moment for the eyes or the ears. Their antics are are a delight and the fact that they ignore our presence is even more deligthful.

Off now to enjoy a drink down at Maru, and watch the antics of the fish, birds, frogs and who knows what else.