Yesterday morning, I considered myself a lucky man. The Priory garden looked perfect; touched with a fine frost, under blue skies and a warming sun.
 The west pond. One of two in the grounds |
Well no; it didn’t actually. It never looks perfect. Not to my eye anyway. There are always leaves that need raking up, a clutch of weeds slyly emerging in a border, the mulch from a neat bed manically cast out onto the lawn by a blackbird or the realisation that a cherished plant is mush.
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| Dogwood stems in the morning sunlight |
Still. Some things looked damn fine and I did enjoy the overall effect. Generally however, the beauty was in the detail and as I looked at things close up, through my camera lens, I began to feel rather more pleased with myself.
Agapanthus flower heads
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| Young Betula jacquemontii (gleaming because I wiped them clean with a damp cloth a couple of months ago) |
I noticed the first crocuses in flower and the perfection of a winter jasmine flower
and how even unprepossessing hardy geranium leaves were transformed by that frost.
Since I have been working at the Priory (almost three years), I have planted thousands upon thousands of daffodil bulbs into the lawns, wildflower meadow and along the driveway leading to the house.
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| Daffs (February Gold) slowly, oh so slowly emerging. |
And hey, today, after officially the longest January on record (?), they are beginning to emerge. I even found myself greeting them. Well – there’s no one else to speak to.
That slight whiff of hubris from my morning inspection must have lingered about me into the afternoon, as I pruned the enormous, top-heavy growth on the rose tunnel. As I snipped through a long, whippy shoot it purposefully (and with malice aforethought) lashed out and sliced open the skin below my nose. Flippin’ painful and with a very, very impressive amount of blood. Pints of the stuff. Amazed I didn’t resemble a wizened prune by the time it stopped. I strode manfully to the greenhouse for an Earl Grey and Starbar solace. As I daubed my wound with a non too clean hanky, I happened to glance at the growing list of “things to do” list. So many jobs. So little time. Where to start? Where to finish? Good grief.
The Anxious Gardener 
Ha! Hello Janet. Imagine finding you here – in the dark, dusty recesses of the Anxious Gardener. This page didn’t transfer very well to WP, did it? Lots of weird gaps, tiny photos and strange spacings. I’m trying not to think that maybe I ought to check every old post to see how they handled the transfer. (And thanks – my nose recovered nicely).
Dave
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It’s an interesting exercise to travel back to the beginning of your blog journey and see how it’s changed and grown. Not to mention movinto WordPress. I hope you didn’t do permanent damage to your poor nose. At least your secateurs were sharp….
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