Wednesday 16 April 2008

Gardener's Question Time..........

Preparations continue apace for my birthday party next week.

Today we made a start on the garden, which has been looking very sorry for itself after the long, wet winter.

I am not gifted with green fingers.

Yes, I can appreciate a garden with well-manicured, lush, green lawn, perfect shrubberies and colourful flower borders.
Unfortunately I can neither create or maintain one.

However, needs must, and with the recent flush of warmer weather, the grass had gone into overdrive and grown 6 inches in the past week, complete with thistles almost a foot tall and dozens of dandelions and other assorted pernicious weeds.
To make matters worse, our garden slopes up towards the back hedge, and pushing a heavy petrol driven (but not, unfortunately, self propelled) is beyond me. So Perfectionist Partner drew the short straw with the lawn mowing, while small dog and I busied ourselves with some basic weeding.

I say 'basic' because my grasp of what actually constitutes a weed is a little vague. I can recognise thistles and dandelions, but some of the stuff growing in the shingle looked quite pretty so I wasn't completely sure if it should be hauled out or not. After a long ponder, I decided that as it was growing in the shingle, it was where it shouldn't be, so I had it out. Or most of it. Some of the growth must have tap roots a mile long.

Meanwhile small dog was 'helping' by carrying old leaves and prunings carefully down the steps and into the house, where she dropped them randomly on the kitchen floor. Her grasp of 'helpful' is about as good as mine is of weeds. In between bouts of this arduous activity she stretched herself out on top of the brick wall, the better to soak up the warm sunshine and indulge in a few naps.

Still, unlike housework, with lawn mowing and weeding you can actually see where you've been so although we're tired out and aching all over, the garden does at least look a lot tidier.

Anyway, here's one of small dog getting into the birthday spirit..............

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