At last it stopped raining, and I was able to spend a full day in the garden. Even when it was raining I should have been counting my blessings, given there are parts of the UK where it rained so much people have just been flooded, but it was still an enormous delight to be able to get outside. Friends who are not enthusiastic gardeners find this mania for winter gardening difficult to understand. But what is there for you to do, they enquire with wrinkled brows, and isn't it fearfully cold?
The answer to the first question is, loads. Weeding, planting, pruning, tidying, picking up leaves, lots of stuff. There is no way it would all get done between Easter and the middle of May. And today was not that cold. When I nipped down to the village after lunch to post the Christmas cards the car thermometer read 8.6 degrees, which is plenty if there's no wind chill to contend with. I wore thermals top and bottom, two shirts, a fleece jacket and fleece scarf and hat and thick socks and felt perfectly comfortable, and I wasn't even moving about that much. Bad cold is when you start losing sensation in your feet and your hands no longer work properly, and once the ground is frozen your gardening options are severely limited. Make hay while the sun shines, or at least weed the gravel while it's not raining.
I planted five hollyhocks by the blue summerhouse. They came from a free packet of seed, and I probably wouldn't have bought them left to my own devices, but actually I like hollyhocks. They seem to prefer their own space, or at least some of the best ones I've seen have been growing in the narrow strips of earth between the house front and pavement in a village street. I've raised hollyhocks before, some with sumptuous dark purple flowers and some of the yellow ones with fig shaped leaves that are supposed to be more resistant to rust, but none have liked life in the borders. Today's free plants were the variety 'Halo Red', which should have single, bright red flowers with yellow centres. Bright red would show off to advantage in front of the blue paintwork, and go with the cherry red flowers of the pots of Pelargonium 'Wilhelm Langath' that stand on the shed's miniature porch in summer. I gave each plant a generous sprinkle of bonemeal, they will get sun for most of the day and I'm not asking them to compete with the roots of other plants. Maybe this time they will be happy.
I spent the rest of the time fingertip weeding the gravel and putting down a shovel full of fresh gravel each time I found a spot where it was too thin. It's best to top up as you go along, otherwise it's hard to spot where it's needed, until the next crop of weeds germinate. The mild weather has thrown some things out of synch and I found two grape hyacinth flowers. Also evidence that the rabbits have been nibbling some of the alpines. If I don't catch anything soon in the back garden maybe I should try moving one of the traps round to the front. Or buy more traps, but it seems perverse to invest in more when we haven't caught a thing with the ones we've borrowed. I would like proof of concept first.
I let the chickens out in the afternoon, which seemed to make them very happy since they've spent the past three days locked in their run. Two of them initially disappeared into the back garden which was a nuisance as I wanted to work at the front. The third, torn, ran back and forth, unable to decide whether to flock with the other hens or stay with me, then the two stragglers returned and we all had a productive hour and a half until it got dark. The good news is that today sunset is as early as it's going to be. It will go on being at a quarter to four until Thursday, when it will creep later by a minute, and by Boxing Day it will be five minutes later.
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