Stepping stones

Today I had a long list of gardening tasks to complete so, after an excellent gymtastic start to the day, I headed out for the assault. Well, actually, I put a load of washing out first THEN I headed out for the assault.

First up I had to move a small path of stepping stones in the Wildflower Patch about three inches to the left. The original location was a little too far from the banana tree. We also needed an extra step at the start.

The path before

The work was helped along by the addition of my bluetooth speaker (the red thing on the obelisk) and phone. Today I listened to the much more soothing commentary of a county cricket game between Lancashire and Worcester coming from Old Trafford. It was just about as perfect as perfect can be.

The lack of loud, obnoxious music was only one improvement over the ODI coverage I’ve been listening to lately. I’ve noticed that jargon from other sports has been sneaking in to the International cricket commentary. This is completely unnecessary and totally annoying. Since when has the break between innings been called half time? When will the start of play begin to be called the kick off, I wonder.

And so, the time almost flew by as I moved the steps then went on to the second job on the metaphorical list. Actually a real list would have been handy because I kept forgetting what had to go where because there were more than two things. I can remember two things but beyond that, it’s a bit of lottery.

On the weekend, Mirinda removed a whole load of bulbs from the big pots on the terrace and these had to be planted in a ‘swathe’ through the Wildflower Patch. The idea is that the bulbs come up and are then replaced with the wildflowers as the seasons proceed. I think Mirinda would have preferred straight lines of bulbs. If so, she should have asked someone else. Straight lines were never going to happen.

Bulbs planted, it was time to add the remaining sweet peas to the obelisk in the Crazy Bed. This was nice and easy now that the space between the two beds is easy to access. The boundary used to be all weeds and nettles but since the gardeners have been weeding, it is delightfully open and ready for the kneeling stool.

This job then gave way to tying up the rose to the other side of the obelisk. Apparently a rose bush will produce more flowers if the branches are horizontal to the ground rather than vertical. I managed to tie as many branches as I could but suffered quite a few scratches, gloves proving a bit of a hindrance to making knots in string.

Scratched beyond recognition, I then headed to the Day-z Bed to plant up a load of homeless cowslips which, incidentally, is the county flower of Norhamptonshire, Surrey and Worcestershire. The reasons for sharing is unknown as is the need for such a thing as a county flower. It probably dates back to jousting…or something similarly obscure.

The common name ‘cowslip’ possibly comes from cow dung because of the habit the flower has of suddenly growing through the wonderfully fertile cow pats dotted around the country.

And that was it for my gardening today. The path now looks a lot better in it’s new position as the photo below clearly shows.

The path after

There was also a walk in the park for the girls. Then a chap called Gus came and collected the old TV which I’d put on Freecycle – it’s for his kids, one of whom helped him carry it to the car and was so excited he could hardly contain himself. I also finally called Mike to organise our next wine order. (There were eleven messages on our phone, seven of them were from him.) And then, Mirinda came home from Chertsey just as Richard arrived with the eggs for the week.

A pretty busy day all round, completed with lamb chops and an episode on the new TV.

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One Response to Stepping stones

  1. Mirinda says:

    The garden is looking pretty great! That’s cos I have about 5 gardeners.

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