Things keep growing here at Struan Farm. Fruit, veggies, flowers, but also weeds. A few weeks ago before the tsunami of farmstay guests hit I had a window of time to crack into weeding down at the Homestead gardens. I guess I should say "the much neglected Homestead gardens." The good news is that they tidy up relatively quickly, or perhaps I just work fast, especially when under the pump.
I'd been doing some watering, deadheading of roses, and trimming of edges down there but have been looking the other way in terms of the weeds to avoid hyperventilating.
Same for the newer flower gardens at our new(ish) house, which involve far more work because they are less established. Even if they look pretty established now. This weekend I was able to make some progress there, although I need about a week of solid "head down bum up" work to get those up to snuff.
In many respects it's about managing transitions at this time of the year. Pulling out (and saving) seed heads of flowers that have done their dash, like nigella and Star-ball and Black Knight scabiosas, also dead heading roses and dahlias. The daisies and penstemmon also get deadheaded and then come again. (With many flowers if they don't get deadheaded they don't have a second or third bloom, and it's good to keep the flowers going for as long as possible.) It's also time to pop in seedling zinnias and snapdragons, although those will need watering to survive the lack of rain until they get established.
I tend to get anxious and grumpy when faced with an overwhelming amount of work that needs to be done. I know, I should know by now that one needs to take these things one step at a time and do what one can. And I do try to tell myself that.
But sometimes when one finds thistles and seedling oak trees growing in the gardens anxiety wins. I hear my mother's voice "Karen Anne, this is simply not good enough." And she would be right. So I'm onto it.
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