A garden right now is speeding into growth and doesn’t wait for anyone. Nature will grow with or without us. Every magazine and TV programme is crammed with jobs to do – things to be done – busy busy bees in the garden.
Tulips open up in the sunshine on March 30th
And closed early on the 31st
We all know how impossible it is to sit with a cup of tea for five minutes without leaping up to do a job we see needs doing.
I don’t think it’s an urge for perfection. For me it has come with age. Recently if I think of something that needs doing I feel compelled to get up and do it right now in case I forget to do it.
I’ve decided to minimise pressure if I am to enjoy having a lovely garden without having too much work to do.
So here is my list of things I won’t be doing in the garden:
seed sowing, pricking out, potting on, thinning out, pinching out, transplanting, protecting, hardening off, tying in, taking cuttings, digging, weedkilling, slug repelling, lawn mowing, staking, strimming, clipping, harvesting or leaf blowing.
I’ve lost the battle with rampant celandine
Here are some activities I will be doing:-
mail order plant buying, visiting nurseries, bird feeding, container feeding and watering, deadheading, planting, lifting and dividing, cutting back, pruning, weeding, sweeping, NGS garden visiting, sitting, looking, enjoying, reading, smelling scent and photographing.
Waiting to be planted
I know that by not sowing seeds I am missing out on one of the major joys of gardening, nurturing seedlings and watching them grow, but I know I am too lazy to get started on that. I will however be scattering packets of annual seeds around in the borders. They don’t always come up and it’s known in our house as tohoe – triumph of hope over experience, which applies to quite a lot of things in gardening I’d say.
Happy Spring to us all.
