I lay awake at night, struggling to sleep. My mind is spinning at 100 miles an hour (or 160 kmph if you want metric). Garden jobs just keep going round and around in my head, like a never-ending news reel.

The headlines, for the umpteenth time: it’s mid-April and there are roses that still need pruning. The wire run needs to be extended for the Banksiae and Madame Alfred Carriére roses, it was needed last year. The calla lilies need to be divided – they’ve been waiting so long some are already flowering.

It goes on.

A seemingly infinite list of jobs.

I don’t recall any other year when I’ve been quite so obsessed with trying to catch up on all the garden jobs that need doing as part of the “winter clean-up”. I know a few posts ago I was writing about how I might be ahead and might actually not have such a full blown Spring Gardening panic. I shall read that post again when I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

I do have a very strong suspicion as to why I’m so fixated on the garden and ensuring I catch-up with all that needs doing. It’s because there’s about 13 months before the anticipated NGS opening. It feels like the countdown has begun and at the moment – should people inexplicably turn up – they’ll note that it’s mid-April and there are roses that still need pruning. There would be shocked expressions and demands for refunds. I can see it now. This is honestly what would happen. No question.

I am genuinely worried. There are large sections of border that we don’t have planting for yet. I cleared most of Fruit Avenue last year for trying vegetables, the final border in the garden is only half-planted because the Spring last year was so terrible for seed germination. The bark-chip paths need to be topped-up the compost heap needs reconstructing after most of the posts have rotten, I need to figure out what to do with the tree rounds, then there’s the front verge…oh here I go again.

Having large gaps in the borders is the stuff of nightmares, for me anyway. Plants take time to grow, establish, fill out and flower. I need to be sowing and growing now for getting those gaps filled by next year. It can’t wait another season unless I want people looking over my seedlings.

I’m chipping away at the problem. I did a few emergency jobs yesterday, I did some more just this afternoon and later this evening, I’ll plan for what jobs I want to get done tomorrow. I know there’s going to be an end in sight at some point but I just can’t see it yet.

So until then, it’s back to the planning, thinking, deciding, arranging, organising and “doing”.

Someday I might be ready.