Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

25 March 2022

It's been four weeks at my new jobs and the weekday routine is settling. Seemingly, I spend Saturday mornings doing my weekly blog post and ignoring my garden.

As I water in the afternoon I apologise to the general area, and make plans for the coming weekend that inevitably get side-lined in favour of coffee in bed with the day's Wordle puzzle, followed by other inside jobs as I justify it to myself that it's too hot for garden work outside until later in the day... when I find some other flimsy excuse, and it's too late to start any projects then anyway...

Gardens being gardens, and not people, they don't hold you to the ambitious promises you made them while watering. No. They continue to do what they do best - over-grow and/or perish (whichever is the least favourable outcome from your point of view), with wild and reckless abandon.

This weekend I'm going to keep my watering hour promises, and have managed my time a bit better to get the writing done before Saturday morning. (I'm so tired by Friday evening that I've convinced myself I need Saturday to recharge my mental and physical batteries.) Also, I've just written this down, so it's not longer an optimistic and somewhat vague watering hour promise - it's a plan. Saturday morning is for the garden.

I completed Certificate II in Horticulture last year after enjoying the indoor plants unit we did in Certificate III in Floristry so much that I wanted to learn more. It was a little surprising actually, since I had always loved the idea of having a garden but had lacked all practical application to actually achieve anything even remotely garden-related. I lost count of the number of plants that I bought to come home and die at my place.

Both of my grandmothers had lovely gardens. Each quite different, due to the different climates I suspect, and I wanted to grow beautiful plants and trees as well. I attempted a vegetable garden as a child (aged about 7, I think), and surprise, surprise, not a lot grows in Normanton. I was fooled by the wonderful garden down the road that produced more than seasonal watermelons, pumpkins and the good old Normanton staples; mangoes and lemonades. Those gardeners had far more horticultural skill than seven year old me. My veggie garden came to nothing, and I was so disheartened I didn't try again for many years. Don't even get me started on my flower failures.

With my day care kids I managed to grow quite a few things successfully, including the most prolific feral cherry tomato line. I bought one punnet of seedlings about 7 years ago, and each year a plant (or five) sprouts in the most random places (hence, the term feral) and produces incredible fruit. The rosellas do the same thing, and every snake bean that hits the ground sprouts. I coined the term "Free Range Gardening" to describe the method - no plan, just embrace what grows (even if it is in the middle of the gateway).
I feel like I should get back to that idea, because almost everything I have planned has had limited success.

"You can't have stock and not expect losses" (another Dad-ism), so I suppose I'll just keep trying until I manage to produce more that I'm proud of than disappointed by. I did manage to bring a croton back from the brink of death, however all of the new leaves are completely green, instead of the formerly gorgeous variegated foliage... I'm only calling that half a win.

Tomorrow morning's plan is to tidy the greenhouse (which is my mini rainforest, complete with soaker hose across the ceiling), prepare the garden bed for another crop of flowering natives, restart the compost, rescue the front garden bed from siratro, start some little succulent garden bowls, create a couple of new garden beds in which to plant cut flowers, and attempt to bonsai a jacaranda. Can bonsai be a verb? In this instance it is. I may have been a tad ambitious in my planning...

Let's hope I have a productive morning. I find that I stay on task when I have a book to listen to, and as luck would have it I still have a few hours to go with my current loan. I have found myself narrating my daily activities in my head in an Irish accent - thanks for that Marian Keyes. It makes the mundane seem less so. Seriously, I'm not crazy. Truly. I just have a busy and creative mind. That's what I tell myself at least.

This year I have many of the same gardening goals I have had for some time...

To grow a Gerbera that isn't pink - every other colour that I have ever had has died, and I'm not a pink girl, oh the irony.

To grow more Strawflowers that aren't yellow.

To grow Kangaroo Paw that don't die.

To grow Leucadenron that don't die.

To grow some interesting foliage plants that I can use in floristry.

Wish me luck!

At some stage tomorrow I have to buy some steel wool and LED lights to use on a little photography expedition tomorrow night for this week's 52Frames theme. I haven't played around with long exposure and light painting in a while, and I'm looking forward to trying an idea tomorrow night. I hope it works out.

Last week's topic was An Activity. There's no story here, just that Cody and I enjoy games, and it's a fun activity to do together. I'm roping him in to help me again tomorrow, and there was no complaining when he heard that there would be fire.

It's been quite a party, ain't it

Purple Fairy