Stones and roses

Not the band misremembered.

Today, still on sick child duty, I realised around 4pm that I was in danger of being home for the entire day and not spending any time in the garden. I buckled Brighid in the pushchair and pulled stones out of the roses garden and thought a little more about whether I would pull the roses out. Because of the narrowness of the bed (bordered by concrete on one side and our brick house on the other), digging the roses out would very likely mean killing them rather than transplanting. I'm a little unsure about killing a perfectly nice rose plant (or four). I am going to keep the small one which does not ramble and which produces rose hips. Not that I've done anything culinary or medicinal with them, but I like looking at them and someday I'll play apothecary with them.

I only got to pull stones out for four minutes, maybe less. But I was in the garden, and my life wasn't all kitchen and mothering.

Precious.

refashioning and roses

I wish this post was announcing that I have chooks. I don't have chooks, but I want some. I've been making noises about this yet again. I think they could go well in the grassy spot outside the garage which is otherwise going to produce potatoes next summer. Sometime I will get results.

I pulled more stones out of the garden in front of the lounge this afternoon and then piled horse poo thickly on top. Then I took to the roses with secateurs. Brutally. I haven't seriously considered digging them out before because I didn't think I could within such a narrow strip but now I'm rethinking that assumption. They really are in the wrong place. They should be rambling up a tree or over a fence, not sprawling unattractively out of the narrow garden bed and over the driveway.

Tonight I have started to unpick the waist seam of my purple frock. I bought this long purple velveteen dress in an op shop in Ilford, Essex in 2001 or 2002. It wasn't as long as I wanted so I bought some deep red material and paid the mend it man at the dry cleaners in Goodmayes, one station east of Ilford to add it to the bottom and to edge a scarf to wear around my neck with the dress. It is a roomy and comfortable dress, so much so that I wore it to a christmas work do in 2002 when I was eight and a half months pregnant.

I wear it a lot these days and today as I took it off the washing line it occured to me that I could alter it and extend it's life and give my wardrobe a little new energy. It is an empire line dress and I'm unpicking the skirt from the bodice. I have some elastic to turn the bottom into a stand alone skirt. I'll see about the bodice later. I have a purple organic long sleeved t-shirt, also from my London days. They could be an 'outfit'. A girl has to have a few things to complement her gumboots.

Down with gravel beds

When we moved into our current home in October 2006, there was almost no garden. Lots and lots of lawn, but nearly nil garden. There were four strips whichhad once been garden. Across the back of the garage was all gravelled in to prevent weeds growing or the need to mow lawn. Our winter wood supply is now stacked on top of that. Down one side of the house, the side leading to the back door and thus towards the kitchen, was similarly gravelled. My first gardening project here was that strip, which I cleared of stones on my hands and knees while pregnant. As a method to get my baby daughter to move into optimal foetal position, it was much better than scrubbing floors. That strip has now fed us with swiss chard, broccolli, garlic and now is home to parsley, chives, winter hardy lettuces, freesias and feverfew. It will eventually be all perennial herbs.

This leaves the two strips in front of the house, on either side of the front door. The one in front of our bedroom is the only one which had soil. Not much in the way of plants though. One dahlia and some shrubby thing which I removed. It now has comfrey, the dahlia and some parsley. And the odd wayward bulb, although there isn't really enough sun there for spring bulbs to do well. The last strip is in front of the lounge. It has three roses which are durable, pretty and unruly. This strip is very narrow, probably only coming out from the wall about 20cm. It had agapanthus which I pulled out - they are a noxious plant here on the coast. There are some very beautiful creamy freesias there also. Around all this is stones, several layers thick. I removed one lot of stones last year when I removed the agapanthus and yesterday I started to remove the stones on the far side of the roses. Once I've got the bulk of them removed, then I'll dump some of the horse poo I got the other day on there and top with peas straw. It's a crude form of building up a garden, but better than leaving it full of stones. I'll have to leave it at least six months to rot down, but that's not a problem. Plenty of other garden projects to keep me occupied.