Spring Gardening

Today was such a glorious day! Of course, I mean the weather. (I'm English.)

My inner child loves to sit and eat lunch outside whenever she gets the chance. She didn't want to go in after lunch so I did a spot of gardening.

My garden is large and overgrown and very neglected. The house came available after the old lady, who lived here last, passed away and it was obvious that both inside and out had been neglected for a number of years.

I am a fair weather gardener so I had not tidied the garden in the autumn. The dead flower heads were still on the hydrangea bush and the buddleia branches. In fact there were a few years worth of dead heads on the hydrangea bush. It had also taken over the pathway so now it is a smaller and neater bush and we have a wider path. The pampas grass clumps are also neater with last summers stalks cut away.

Brambles and other prickly plants found their way onto the compost heap covering the rotted windfall apples that I threw there last autumn. I am so thankful for thick gardening gloves!

The grass needed cutting but that is another day's work. The grass has long ago given up the pretense of being a lawn. It is now tussocks of grass growing over a thick layer of moss. Walking on it is an amazing experience. Your feet sink down into the spongy green surface with each step you take. To cut it I have to either lift and hold the mower over grass whilst skimming it along or do the same thing with a strimmer. However both the strimmer and mower came from Freecycle and both need new blades. So I made a note of the blades needed just in case I happen to find myself near a shop that would sell such things. A garden center would have them but they are all out of town and need a car to access them.

In the meantime there are many other jobs that need doing - the leaves are still on the front lawn (which has the same spongy moon walk experience), and the patio needs weeding.

The joy of taking over another garden is the discovering the flowers as they blossom. We have quite a few daffodils which I absolutely love for their cheerful victorious yellow. I came across some lovely poems about spring the other day - a perk of teaching the poetry strand of the National Curriculum.

MARCH ingorders

by Roger McGough

Winter has been sacked

for negligence

It appears he left
the sun on all day


Spring

by Hugo Majer

Spring
slips
silent
snowdrops
past Winter's iron gate.

Then daffodils'
golden trumpets
sound:
Victory!