SoS in the garden: 5/9
Spring has honestly sprung.
Which is always exciting in any garden, bringing with it promises of beauty and excellence. In our own green spaces it’s brought us work as well. Mind you, in the Matchbox, which is tiny, it doesn’t take long. We always ‘imagine’ garden work there will take an age, but it’s all done in the blink of an eye.
We needed to top dress front and back lawns, so I bagged up the moss OH scraped off in the first instance, and then he carted soil and raked and seeded whilst I watched. I did go and make him a hot chocolate as a thank you.
He also carted bucketloads of the wonderful soil that we buy in bulk and then I spread it very carefully by hand in the two most in-need box beds. The two beds are very bare currently. My white english lavender had turned up its toes after 5 years, and I’m waiting for new plants that are on order. I tried to take tip cuttings in autumn but they faded and died. Because I’m essentially an impatient person, I planted some lobelia, cosmos and petunias to fill in a few gaps (all white) and then had to cover everything in wire against the horrid blackbirds/starlings that rip all the seedlings up as they forage.
On the bottom terrace which is full shade in winter and HOT full sun in summer, you will see the tubs of tulips I planted. None in sync. All will flower at different times. VERY disappointing!
But I love that the weeping silver pear is bursting into leaf. We’re currently on the coast at our large garden and I know when we run back to the city, the pear will look wonderful. It was a tight topiary ball when we took over the property, sitting in no garden at all and I had experience with a former garden filled with weeping silver pears and so I’ve let it revert to nature and love it for its draping shady elegance.
We dug up a sad acer from the big garden and potted it in the Matchbox in the hope it will thrive in those conditions. If it doesn’t, it will have to go to the big forest in the sky.
And finally, arthritis is catching up with me at last. My mother succumbed much earlier and I consider myself lucky to have got this far. Sore neck, sore knee, sore shoulder and now, as you can see, sore knuckle which swells in the garden with trowel and secateur usage. I am debating taking shares in Voltaren gel.
That’s it from me. Check out The Propagator for this week’s international SoS.
Cheers.
Don’t you think you could have rheumatoid arthritis? It can be treated with what is called biotherapy. Check with your MP. Maybe I’m wrong.
Nice Six this week, looking like a spring air for your hemisphere.
I believe it’s osteo-arthritis, Fred. It’s familial, sadly. But funny you should suggest biotherapy. I am due to have N-stride injections into my knee in 6 weeks time. They take my blood, put it through a centrifuge to extract the proteins and then inject the protein back into the knee under ultrasound. It has spectacular results and I could be pain-free for anything up to 3 years. All good! Apparently they can do wrists, elbows, shoulders and hips as well but it’s terribly expensive here in Australia and we are unable to get a lot of it back through private health insurance to date.
It sounds like the kind of treatments that exist here. Very expensive too, but reimbursed by “Social Security” ; a French system for health that the world envies us. Take care…
You’ve been working so hard there and of course it’s easy to say the pain is worth it but I’m sure it’s debilitating. I have yet to experience such problems but was given some secateurs that rotate in the hand, easing the pressure as you cut. They really work!
Hi there, Katharine. Yes, I bought two pairs of nifty ratchet secateurs at the Melbourne International Garden Show a few years ago and they are fab. But I need a smaller pair. We were booked to return to the festival last March, but you guessed it, Covid-19 closed everything. My first stop was to have been the stand where the lovely secateurs were. Of course, I could buy them online…
Your arthritis does look painful, Prue, so take care! Hoping the beauty of those unfurled pear leaves balance things out and bring joy…
Haha! I think we gardeners are our own worst enemies. I smothered my hand in anti-inflammatory gel this morning and then built a wee frog pond with liner and stones in the big garden. Just waiting to find tadpole eggs now, some wire across the top as the taddies grow out, to protect. them from birds. At least that’s the plan. Blame it on Monty Don… 😉