It’s 8:30am and I’m already on the Sauternes (a sweet dessert wine). It’s grey outside and it rained almost 2cm yesterday. At least I had the good fortune to get a fair bit of gardening done during the day before the rain started in the evening.
Today the garden is – yet again – too wet to work in. Water has collected in the border edges and the seedlings are drowning quicker than they can dry out. I wouldn’t mind too much but I do have an NGS Open Day this weekend and there are still parts of the garden that have not had their Winter clean-up. Those parts are thankfully hidden under shrubbery and dense planting that has long since leafed-out. The bonanza rain has sent the ferns bananas and that has also helped to screen a multitude of horticultural sins.
I shouldn’t get complacent though, as there is always a risk that a garden visitor might get down on their hands and knees, lift up the mass of plants – shrubs, ferns, or otherwise – crawl forward and see that the border edge has not been clipped with grass shears as per that which remains in view.
And so it’s an enforced “rest” day and to be honest it feels….odd. You see, I’m solar powered, meaning when the sun is shining in the summer months, I can’t sit still for two minutes (unless it’s really, really hot). Conversely the winter, with its cold, dull days and long dark nights is when I “hibernate”. Right now, it’s mid-July and so my head is telling me to “get out and do something”, but with a sopping-wet garden, I’m not effectively able to.
Instead, I might take the time to look over the cake recipes in preparation for the weekend, I might write up some funny plant labels or look through the Autumn gardening catalogues that have started to come through the door. None of that is really on par with clearing large areas of the garden, putting up urns weighing three times I do or mixing in bulk bags of compost and manure into newly created borders. It’s like I’m still not used to the fact that the heavy work of previous summers is – for the most part – over; which is good as I’m really getting too old for it.
It is a good time – however – to go out with a pad and paper and jot down jobs for Autumn, like:
- Lifting and splitting a whole load of congested perennials – iris in particular.
- Washing seedling pots, ready for next year’s annuals.
- Seeing what to buy or propagate to fill in gaps
- Deciding where to plant the clematis that’s been in their pots for two years
- Separating out, potting up and labelling plants for next year’s Plant Sale
That way – if we do inexplicably get some late summer sunshine – I’m not sat wandering what I’m supposed to be doing, or racking my brains trying to remember.
Unfortunately, it’s just gone heavily overcast and dark, and suddenly going outside to make lists sounds like far too much hard work. I might just pour myself a drop more wine instead and have a day of “Add to Basket” on the online nurseries as I wait for more rain showers to arrive.
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