Pruning, clearing, planting and Death Cleaning!
Hello friends!
It's definitely Autumn - the light having morphed into this twinkly golden thing, and the temperature having decided that we need a nip to get us going in the morning.
Here are my five minute forays for this week:
Monday:
I'm having some physical problems which are beyond my control but which nevertheless make me want to curl up and cry all day long. Instead, I go outside for five minutes and clear a small patch of earth. It's a satisfying, relatively easy job, as it's just a few of my eleven squillion forgetmenot seedlings, which simply require gentle scraping to remove. I clear judiciously, in a sort of 'rivulet' pattern, just so that there is enough space to plunge a drift of bulbs in. Forgetmenots are so valuable to me. They fill my garden with fresh blueness whilst everything else is just getting going. I feel better, of course, and begin to 'Death Clean' my basement, not because I am being morbid in any way, but because I am suddenly mindful of how lucky I am to be mobile, and happy, and ALIVE, and I don't want to feel bogged down by years of amassed junk.
Tuesday:
The children are still not back at school (that happens tomorrow). My wonderful, brilliant au-pair takes them to Westminster on the Riverboat, and I rush out into the garden. I weed away furiously but meditatively (yes, that's possible). Lots of bindweed, which, naughtily, I pull, rather than carefully dig out, and dandelions, and chickweed and couch grass. I am slowly coming to the realisation that my vision of the aster/echinacea/rudbeckia garden which was so easily achieved last year has NOT materialised this year. For whatever reason (perhaps the freezing spring, perhaps the scorching summer, perhaps bad luck) the asters and echinaceas have not enjoyed themselves and are putting on a pathetic show this time around. I really love the green and whiteness of everything right now though - helped in no small part by the addition of my hydrangea paniculata standards into the flower beds, so I resolve to cut my losses. When the children return I entertain them by getting out the mower and trying to mow them down (which is pretty much what I sometimes DO ACTUALLY WANT TO DO (shhhh!)). They are none the wiser, and absolutely love it, so #zeroguilt.
Wednesday:
The children went off to school this morning! I celebrate by planting all of the remaining small plants (mostly alpine strawberries for edging) in what has become known in my brain as 'the tray of shame'.
This tray is the one that's always filled with plants that need planting. I have learned over the years that if I don't empty it TOTALLY and put the tray away, then, just like an empty table in my house, it will fill up again and will continue to plague me forever. I plan to have strawberry edging all around the garden, I grow the alpine strawberries from seed but I don't have a huge amount of 'nursery' space, so I still don't have enough to do all the edging. I decide that rather than sow more next spring, I'm going to divide some of my alchemilla mollis and use that as well.
Thursday:
I go to visit my unwell dad and accidentally buy some viola on the way back.
One of the first rules of The Five Minute Garden is to limit the number of containers I have,
so I decide to put these at the base of my standard lilac trees, and then feed the living daylights out of them so they get all bodacious and hummocky.
I have enough time to do one pot and will have to return to the same shop and get some more so I can do the other.
Friday:
I get scissor happy and start lopping off bits of my pittosporum tobira. I've been tentatively, slowly, gently lifting the crowns of these shrubs for a few years now, inspired by the wonderful shapes they make out of them in warmer climes, and with a vague idea that one day I will put a seat beneath these two specimens. This is a really rather gorgeous plant, if you don't know it, with super-smart shiny evergreen leaves and creamy white flowers in spring which smell like gardenias (yes, really). They are absolutely brilliant as evergreen shrubbery or hedging, but I love them made into small trees - mushroom-like. Mine will be multi-stemmed but you can have them with a single stem if you like. There is also a miniature variety called 'Nanum' which works very well in place of box (although watch out because neither is fully hardy). I bring in several branches and put them in a vase in the kitchen which gives it instant jungle vibes. Sorry I don't have a 'before' but here is the 'after':
More generally, the resolutions I made last week have revolutionised my experience of my garden, even after a very short time of putting them into practice. I do struggle rather, with relaying this information as I feel like it's a bit boring and trifling, but the fact is that behind every gorgeous space (indoors or out) is a few minutes every day of general, boring, trifling, 'maintenance tidying'. I'm rather late to this party, as I've always been a bit slapdash, but the improvement to my general sense of wellbeing that comes from a tidy, ordered space, with most things put away in a logical place is un-ignorable. And that is why I am sharing it with you. You can find my list of September resolutions in my previous letter here. This is a habit I'm planning to hang on to.
All the good things, always
x Laetitia
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