I woke up during the night inspired with the first couple of lines of my Ode to the Garden Fork, perhaps you recall I promised it some months ago? Naturally on awaking this morning I can only remember a few words; something about its regal bearing and heart of gold? As you can see, I have lost the trail of it completely. In the cold early morning gloom, it reads more like a Labrador than a garden fork. Maybe it was all a dream? I am still finding it hard to find inspiring rhyming words for fork, so I shall leave it this morning and perhaps some good old fashioned digging later in the day might bring some renewed inspiration.
We have been busy (no busier than anyone else) with our first guests this last week, people are on the move again and enjoying the beautiful weather and landscape. We are so thrilled that we can share the season with them, not that it has been wasted on us. The twitchers are spotting lots of beautiful birds in abundance, every evening we listen to their reports and pour over Simpson & Day, in the hope of spotting even a few of their finds next time we are out and about.
I have peat moss soaking in a bucket to be made into my potting mixture today, readying for my winter cuttings. I will mix it with sand and have the pots filled and ready, so when I can get around to my pruning, I can pop the cuttings in as I go along. I have found over the years a little preparation means I do not find my little piles of saved cuttings a week later, a shrivelled testament to I must go and get some…
The vestiges of Autumn are clinging on, I think the Chinese Tallow tree, Triadica sebifera will be almost the last hurrah, we have been enjoying it through the kitchen windows, glowing in its warm autumn colours (thank you Ali Lamond for the wonderful gift after the drought). All it will take is a soft breeze now and it will shrug all that colour onto the waterhole, which is a floating bowl of leaves at present. Autumn leaves just keep on giving.
The first jonquils are well on their way, even the Impatient Gardener is thrilled with their sudden progress. She has planted most of her allocation in large pots, which the naughty Mr. Biggles sunbathes on. The blue lobelia is suffering from his considerable weight but somehow the bulbs keep powering on. I have suggested barb wire sprinklings, one of my many armament ideas calculated but not used against the Campbell Clan. The duck fencing consisting of knee- high rabbit netting and steel pickets has been highly- successful by the way. Hardly an oil painting but most effective and after years of battling, the plants are thriving. We are now considering small plots all over, I expect the garden will look like a series of rabbit clutches sans lapin.
In between visitors we have been rolling swags, preparing for our Intrepid Camping packages booked for July and August. We are so looking forward to sharing these with guests, a taste of Rutledge camping after a walk in them far hills. The camp is looking splendid, the waterhole full and seemingly full of yabbies, the trees a haze of budgies. They bring old dead trunks to life again. The Impatient Gardener and I are off tomorrow for a stretch out and to try out another track I have I mind, with a picnic planned at the collection point. A day well spent indeed,
Fork, pork, talk, stork, York, cork, walk. No, still not there. Maybe spade would be easier?
The Moble Gardener
Ali Lamond’s Chinese Tallow Tree in the garden bed now fenced off from the Campbell Clan.
A few photos of Bannerman’s Camp
… and three photos taken today of Biggles being where he shouldn’t be
