Daffodils, dock and other musings

May 17th 2010 by maggi

Well folks, I'm back. I think I have been in hibernation but a few days of sunshine and I am back on track - probably, possibly, maybe.

We have both spent the last 3 days working solidly in the garden so it is now beginning to look beautiful again. We have had the odd casualty of the cold winter but nothing too serious thank goodness.

On Friday I managed to catch up some overdue sowings in the geenhouse. Boy was it hot in there! I told myself it was good practice for Uganda in July (more of that another day). Everything has been put back so much. Seeds planned for sowing in January weren't done till the end of February and even that was, in retrospect, a bit too soon, and so on. I think I am now just about up to date. Plants are clever things and they will catch up I am sure. The strange weather has resulted in the most spectacular display of blossom with both apple and pear out at the same time and our big old apple tree  is the best I have ever seen it.

Saturday I started at the side gate and worked my way round the borders until I reached the solid rock like stuff that pretends to be soil in most of the garden. Very kindly I left Perry to tackle that. By Sunday even he had moved on to other things. My reasoning was that I would either bend or break my tools, or break myself so I went on to weed in what is variously known as 'Mum's Vision' or 'The Secret Garden' (because you can't see it from the house).

Yesterday we decided to grasp the nettle, sometimes literally, and attack the dock farm aka the orchard. For various reasons this has got a bit neglected for the past couple of years and the dock had gone to seed leaving us with potentially and enormous problem. So, something had to be done. One of the difficulties is the amazing array of daffodils naturalised  in there, their dying leaves hiding the emerging dock. There are some areas where the dock doesn't grow. We realised that this is where the geese like to lie and their favorite pathways. You would have thought they would wander all over, but no, they have their preferred spots. We decided therefore, that if we cit the dock off at the ground we would then have a fighting chance of being able to mow more frequently and at least the dock would go to seed, again.

This decision having been made we set to work. Perry dug out the beasties from under the hedge and along the trellis while I made my way with the snips from the gate, round the bottle garden to the shed and then through the daffodils. Some people may tiptoe through the tulips, I crawl through the daffodils, but it doesn't have the same musical appeal. We worked for 3 hours, until beer o'clock, had a short sit down then carried on for a bit before lunch. After lunch we both agreed that we were fed up with dock and moved on to gentler things.

We have cleared just under half the area and while there are still some dock there they are small and not about to flower. Also the daffodil leaves should be left for another 2 or 3 weeks. That is according the the book but I may not be able to hold out that long. I did cut down some that we were trampling on to get to the compost heap but felt very bad. But I must remember that my daffs haven't read the book. They are blissfully unaware that is unorthodox to leave them in baked concrete all summer and allow them to sit in water all winter. Every spring I fear that they will have drowned or frozen, but every year they struggle through, being trampled by geese as they first emerge, to enthrall us with the most spectacular display that improves with every passing year. Who needs the book?