Re-potting, chopping, planting and GUILT.
Hello friends! It's your broken woman here, reporting for duty after two weeks of Easter holidays with rain.
If you're new here I'm waving massive wobbly, slightly crazed hellos while I rush around with Calpol and my phone, trying to do ALL THE THINGS. This newsletter usually has a nice little project or how-to in it - something useful and fun that you can do or think about for the weekend. Unfortunately this one doesn't - it's just my five minute gardening forays, plain and simple, because that's all I could manage this week. You can find some of these by searching the archives.
Monday: It raineth. Oh goodness how it raineth. It gets to the point where I put on my yellow mac and just walk out there and start removing one of my potted lilac trees from the pots in which they have been languishing for the past - oh I dunno - I wanna say five, six, seven years? I've been meaning to repot these for the last three years or so. Some gardening is a bit like exercise; the less you do, the harder it is to begin. But at my age I'm an old hand at rubbishing that sort of silliness, so away I yank. easing the thing out of its terracotta - it's a bit like getting an over-cooked spanish omelette out of an enamel pan. It sticks fast to the edges and you have to deploy certain implements to dislodge the thing. I go in and get a long carving knife, which I slip around the edge of the pot, like a cake tin. It makes very little difference until I start levering as well as slicing. Eventually it comes out and I want to cry because it's in such a sorry state. It reminds me of when the iron mask was removed from Leonardo di Caprio's face and all his hair was everywhere. I feel guilt for a second, but realise that this too is futile, and I quickly mix up some compost for this plant's new home. A bit of multi-purpose, a bit of John Innes and a bit of manure. I put lots in the bottom of the new container, muss up the pot-bound roots a bit, chopping a few off from the bottom end, and spend rather too much time tucking the rootball into its new bed.
Tuesday: Last week we took the children on 'holiday' to East Wittering. It had its ups and downs and I'm not going to go into the downs, but the biggest up was stopping off at West Dean Gardens on the way home. If you're in the UK you'll be aware that we're having a very late Spring. Everything was marvellously bare which I love, because I get to nose around in the garden's undergarments without being distracted by froth. You really notice the underpinnings and the structure. One of these things was the sarcococca (christmas box) which had been clipped into perfect balls (along with everything else). I don't know why I haven't clipped my sarcococca before; I think it's because there's so much else going on in Spring. But this is the perfect time, after flowering to do the job, and I went in with my shears and made a frightful mess (see below), and it definitely looked better before but GUYS! WE ARE PLAYING THE LONG GAME ARE WE NOT?!!!
Wednesday: I don't do well with rainy holidays. I keep thinking that if only i actually ENJOYED playing scrabble, or cards, or hide and seek, things would be different, but of course I know they wouldn't be. The problem I have with rainy holidays stems from having three children with very different likes and needs. There is only so much junk modelling and painting and getting dressed up and going outside and splashing in muddy puddles and telly watching and baking and playdates and (insert all the rest here) that I can take. However much I long to be a mother who enjoys the chaos of all of this stuff, I can't change who I am. As someone else, known for her crabbiness once said; "I just want to be alone". This is a very long-winded way of imparting the rather un-shocking news that I'm doing my best, but struggling, mostly with guilt and the rest is made up of fatigue, illness, and not enough time to myself. So there we are. I take some veg peelings to the compost and contemplate opening it up to see if it's actually creating anything. But I have a sick child inside, and I'm not in the mood for disappointment, so I don't. No gardening.
Thursday: Sometimes you think you're really clever - you've discovered something really easy and can't understand why everyone else isn't doing it. This happened to me when I grew cobaea scandens up my house last year. It was a bloody triumph, and, had it not been for the atrocious winter we've experienced, it would have remained so. As it is, I have been firmly put in my place, with a vine that is brown, crispy and wilted. It's still alive, and will probably cover its dead bits up if I left it, but I'm not wiling to have it looking like it does for a moment longer, so I grab the step-ladder and pull it down. It WAS a good idea, but not a great one. A great one would be to learn from other, more experienced people and grow what they grow. Sometimes you just have to admit defeat.
Friday: Middle child has scarlet fever, and youngest one has chicken pox. There are more antibiotics in my house than I am comfortable with. I leave them both to drop oldest child in Richmond Park and sneakily detour to Petersham Nurseries on the way home. I buy pea sticks, a honeysuckle and some unbelievably expensive compost. It's okay. I feel a whole lot better. I get home and dig a nice deep hole, shove some horse poo in the bottom and plant the honeysuckle. Then I separate the stems, fan them out and tie them gently to the bottom of the trellis. This honeysuckle is for a south-easterly facing wall and I'm hoping that if it is happy it'll cover part of my shed too. The honeysuckle is called 'Halliana' It is evergreen and fragrant, and most importantly, a bee magnet.
All the good things, as usual
x Laetitia
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