Gardens are so peaceful....

We are still catching up in the garden and because the plot is large, we divide the work up so that it is manageable and achievable in the time we have available.  We both like to start and finish a task and have found that if we wander from job to job, here and there, we never feel in control and can't tell what we have accomplished.  

Doc has been pruning and tieing in our new cherry tree called Stella which is in its second season and growing very well.  With patience and care, we hope to harvest some fruit in the next couple of years.  It has a warm south facing aspect in Mr Macgregor's Garden and Doc is training it into a compact fan shape against the trellis.  This will make it easier to net the tree when protecting the crop from the birds.  Doc has also thinned the fruits on the long row of cordon apples.  This feels like we are breaking the rules of the larder but it has to be done to enourage larger fruits. 

Last Wednesday, I allocated the whole day to the garden which is unusual for me as I am usually fitting my garden tasks in between rushing around in the car, eating a sandwich and hanging out the washing.  However, an appointment was cancelled and the weather forecast was good so I decided to give the borders a thorough tidy up and treat the chickens to a spring clean.  I was full of energy and motivated.

They say a garden is a wonderful place of solitude, where you can lose yourself in therapeutic labours and gentle birdsong.  I have indeed experienced this many times but not last Wednesday because last Wednesday was black Wednesday. 

Our neighbours were away and they left had their builders behind to get on with laying a new, rather large patio. With an angle grinder and a cement mixer for company they diligently set to work and declined my offer mugs of tea (for my benefit, not theirs), telling me they preferred to crack on and get the job done.  On top of that, our neighbour
next door-but-one to us decided to cut his lawn with a ride-on lawn mower and the neighbours the other side of us had two gardeners hard at work, one strimming the edges and under the trees and the other mowing the lawns with his ride-on mower.  It was noiser than Heathrow airport.

I am proud that I struggled on for 6 hours but when my head started to thump I had to admit defeat.  I came back into the house, grabbed some paracetamol tablets and flopped in a chair for some peace and quiet.  The silence was truly golden.

There are some noises in the garden which are loud but not invasive.  Children playing outside does not bother me because they are having fun. We have a restored railway line a couple of fields away and yesterday there was a steam train pootling up and down, just like a Thomas the Tank Engine and I swear it was pooping its whistle at me.  I wanted to put on a white pinny and stand on our steps, waving a white hankerchief but Doc says I am no replacement for Jenny Agutter. 

Anyway, we all appreciate labour saving equipment and thankfully, black Wednesdays do not come round very often.  Our neighbours are lovely and we are generous to one another.  What is one headache between friends? 

Since builders dust and bedding plants do not mix, my neighbour (the one with the dedicated builders) gave me her hanging basket to watch over.  It is overflowing with yellow and red begonias and purple trailing petunias.  The perfume from the petunias is sweet and exotic so when the builders went home and the gardeners retired to their compost heaps, I dared to venture out of our back door. I stood underneath the hanging basket and inhaled, very deeply.  Suddenly, the world was a better place.