Somehow July got away on me , not sure how that happened…I started a late
June blog as follows…
“I must write a shortest day blog, the Winter Solstice is such a milestone in the year. As far as I can see it heralds the true start of Winter, but also the start of better things to come ie every day from here will be a little bit longer.
I’m a pretty close to nature sort of girl and like to work with the daylight hours available to me, so with my aging body, 9 hours of daylight doesn’t offer much scope for bursts of energy interspersed by rests…therefore its gotta be go hard out for as long as you can, then collapse with wine and a fire.
It’s a very physical time of year too, rose planting and moving, we’ve also moved some large shrubs and even a small but very old Maple…the tractor did that one! All these moves are made harder by the fact that I hate to waste a good bit of blood and bone, and as I have a pretty much continuous supply of dead possums, I feel the need to plant one in the bottom of every hole I dig for a new rose. This greatly increases the hole size necessary!!! Too shallow and its a fun game for the dogs to dig them up again which doesn’t bode well for the newly planted rose! ”
but that’s as far as I got, and now it’s 6 weeks later! I will continue…
July
It’s certainly a busy time of year in the garden, trying to get things sorted for the big Spring Season ahead. Currently the end of the first week of August, Spring is just around the corner. It would be easy to believe it was here already, the last 3 days have been glorious weather and the garden certainly feels springlike. Many of the roses are breaking leaf bud, as I don’t prune much, many are still hanging onto their last winter blooms (they were meant to be autumn ones I think) The Spring bulbs are in full song, the early King Alfreds already giving way to the next swathes of daffs and Irises coming out everywhere. Not joking when I say everywhere either, lots in places I swear I never put them….
We’re certainly experiencing one of the most pleasant Winters I can remember. Easy to enjoy, but can’t help but feel a lot more rain wouldn’t go amiss…seems wrong to be able to walk around the farm in sneakers in August. Hopefully it will rain a lot in late August and September. We are making dates for our Spring Open Days, the first will be September 13th.
Rose sales have continued at a strong rate and numbers are rather low until some of our newly potted babies grow on a bit. Our orders have all arrived and been planted so Spring/Summer will bring the excitement of 20 or more new faces and hopefully some of them will be available for sale next year.
We also have a lovely lot of perennials getting potted up daily, so should have a good offering of small plants for the first open day and bigger ones for the next one in October.
In the meantime I’m enjoying the rain we are getting today, very well timed between a big cow day yesterday and a big rose day planned for tomorrow
