Friday, June 06, 2014

Blossom and flourish etc


It's a busy time for those of us who insist on making their gardens as labour-intensive as possible. Mine is small but still takes a lot of fiddling with. If I could wave a magic wand, I'd supernaturally empty all the flower beds and plant them up again, but lacking the wand (and being nearly 64 with a dodgy back) I have to keep hacking at the thug plants individually in a pathetic and ineffectual manner to stop them spilling out into the street and taking over the neighbours' gardens. I've just come in, at half past ten at night - at this time of year it's easily light enough outside at that hour to see what one's doing. It's also light enough to see the snails and slugs as, licking their lips in anticipation, they happily make their way towards my favourite plants - which are also their favourites but for different reasons. I lack the resolution to jump up and down on them, which would be a good way of stopping them BUT HORRIBLY SQUIDGY - UGH.

I find it hard to throw bits of plants away, so there are lots of pots sitting outside with flourishing little plants in them and I really don't know where I think I'm going to put them in my full garden.

Why do I make life so difficult for myself? I should be a cat. They don't bother with horticulture. Or piano lessons. Or patchwork.

Dr Son has just been made a partner in the GP practice where he's been working as a locum, which is - well, it's very good, of course. It seems no time since he was learning to crawl. I look at the grandchildren and think - it'll seem even less time till they're up and off. Life is brief. We watched various D Day programmes today and I thought about my parents: Dad who was in the war in the Middle East and Europe and Mum who was in London during the Blitz. They would have been so interested to see the commemorative programmes.

6 comments:

  1. That's a very pretty plant - what is it? How does that expression go....."A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!"

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  2. There are far too many gaps in the borders here, thanks to the resident snail population. I keep buying plants; they keep eating them. We watched the coverage of the D-Day commemoration, too. I was in bits and yes, it had me thinking about my dad who served in the RAMC.

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  3. We also watched the D Day coverage last night on Foxtel. It was very moving, and felt weird (to those of us who remember) to see the German head of state sitting with and chatting to the heads of state of the countries that almost wiped out Germany back in WW2. From my point of view down under, I think the European Union is a wonderful achievement - all those countries with different languages and cultures now under one banner. Sort of, but you know what I mean, I hope.

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  4. Congratulations to your son! And best of luck with your garden. Don't you have friends who would like presents of plants?

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  5. I envy you even your meager ability to garden this year. I am still too unstable on my healing foot and leg to even get into my garden! I WAS able to rip out some invasive plants in my front border. That felt satisfying!
    I also watched several programs about D-Day. So inspiring!

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  6. Anonymous11:50 pm

    Oh, do tell, is that Allium Christophii? I have three of them, very reliable but, the seeds never set new plants.

    I have been in Italy so missed a lot of the remeberances, forgive me.

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