I worked in the garden for a lot of today. Mirinda wanted a couple of watering pipes inserted in the ground aimed at the roots of two clematis plants. This is always very easy when the plants are being newly planted but these were two existing plants. This called for some special expertise.
Actually, it just means being really careful with the digging implements.
I have inserted quite a few of these watering tubes – they are very effective – and I have a few spare pieces of pipe lying around. One I cut in half. I then dug a downward sloping channel aimed at the roots. The pipe went in and I screwed it for the last little bit before burying the majority of the pipe.
Eventually it looked like this:
Also note that I managed to rearrange the stems of the plant into horizontals. Mirinda reliably informs me that this will mean more flowers. Silly me had them going straight up.
For the second clematis I decided to use an old Fortnum and Mason tubular biscuit tin (sans biscuits) we had left over from a Christmas hamper a few years back. It’s metal and had a base in it. The base was easily removed and, like the other pipe, it went in smoothly.
I always prefer it when I can use existing materials rather than going out and buying something new. In both cases, the pipes were from something else entirely. That made me very happy.
Having inserted them it was just a case of filling them with water. Job done.
I also spent a lot of time removing weeds, a perennial task, pun intended.
It was a good day to spend in the garden. Not too hot with occasional cloud to break up the monotonous sunshine.
Not that I spent all day digging. In the afternoon I decided to order another couple of Holiday Books from DoxZoo. These are printed versions of our holidays as copied from this blog. Mirinda likes reading them while I make dessert.
I have a system which is always sorely tested because I don’t work on them very often. It seems that I always have to go back and start again, re-inventing the wheel. It really drives me nuts.
In particular, today I was uploading two holidays I thought I’d finished working on only to discover, while checking each page before ordering, that the final third was unfinished. This just proves how important it is to check before committing.
So I went back and finished the book before uploading again and getting the order off. The thing is, what I’d assumed would be a 15 minute job turned into a good hour. The system needs a bit of fine tuning, obviously.
Clearly I need to do more of them.
