I think it’s been another week or two and the garden jobs continue apace. I’ve moved on from the, “deal with this now or it’s gonna die”, through the, “shouldn’t you have done this weeks/months ago?” jobs and am now on the, “well, it’s better late than never”. This is an improvement; honestly.

I even got chance to the cut the grass the other day, the first cut of the year. I think it is earlier than normal, but there are parts where the grass has grown very thickly at the border edge because of the nutrient run-off from the soil. Plus, it always does look so neat and pristine – for a short while – and really sets the borders off. I’ll go around the border edges with the grass shears when I feel I can justify the time that will take.

Meanwhile, I still have borders to tidy, the Willow border being the main one, though to be fair, the plants have grown up to the point where they’re hiding the mess. I do need to pull up much of the rescued, variegated Vinca or I will end up having to rename to, “the Vinca border” as it will have subsumed everything else, including the goat willow tree – the rate it’s going.

The tropical plants are out again by the front door, these are the cannas and Crinum x Powellii lilies. The cannas have been divided and re-potted with the extras going to a plant sale for the local gardening club, which is being hosted on our front drive again in late May. The plant sale we did last year was such a success we’re doing it all over again. New for this year is tea and home made cake. I’m now trying to source a suitable celebrity guest speaker.

Gardening Club members will be bringing their contributions too, so we don’t have to supply all the plant stock – which isn’t a sustainable thing to do on an annual basis. I thought we wouldn’t have much to contribute this year but after the hostas, cannas, ginger lily, thyme from the drive, other random, smaller plants, we already have several trays with more being grown this year, ready for next year’s sale.

Switching tack; what I don’t lack in jobs, I lack in rain. We’re supposed to be in “April Showers”, but they’re currently AWOL. It’s been so dry that I’ve actually have to put on the watering system for the border to help the young plants – planted at the end of last year – get better established for the season this year. Oddly, the exact same thing happened last year and much of May ended up cool, wet and miserable. It made seed sowing and germination a nightmare – something that we are having déjà vû over this year.

As Spring progresses rather faster than I would like, the garden is rapidly covering up much of my deficiencies. I like to think it’s helping me out for being rather disorganised and late with things. It just goes to show that at the end of the day, instead of trying to race around and do everything and on time, perhaps it’s worth considering just letting the plants grow over the top of the problems. In a few more weeks, all evidence will be smothered with a thick, dense, impenetrable layer of fresh leaves. The proverbial “rug” under-which my good intentions are swept.