Feeling grounded

 

Ozymandius, that poem by Shelley, has been sneaking into my thoughts lately and taking up space in my head without paying rent.  There is something about the idea of power and corruption  crumbling into the desert sands that I find comforting at the moment. Nature will win. Arrogance and authoritarianism will decay to dust eventually.  I was tossing weeds and sods of grass into a pile while I thinking about this poem. Actually I was more considering the concept of ground: Soil, stones, sand, that sort of thing, as I was sifting out the unwanted bits in order to create new flower beds.  Shelley kept me company while I was  doing this  repetitive, mundane task.  

 We are in the process of removing any remaining grass from our garden, and replacing it with water-wise indigenous plants.  My days of pushing a lawnmower around are over, and that cheers me up no end.  Our garden has undergone a metamorphosis over the last six years, and there is more change afoot. Take the driveway for example.  For years, guests have had to wrestle with tall Canna plants, Gaura, Pelargoniums and Climbling Aloes when they parked in the driveway, because we hadn't allowed enough space for passengers to get out the car, just space for a car to park.  So widening the driveway was put near the top of the To-do list.  And this past weekend was just the right time to do it.  Andrew slogged away at digging up concrete retaining slabs, and we had to uproot a community of different plants.  That's why I was tossing grass and onion weeds into a pile, silently reciting poetry: we needed new beds to re-home the flowers.

Unlike the desert sands of Ozymandius' world, our soil is pleasingly rich and dark brown.  Despite this, we decided we needed to give the displaced plants the best possible opportunity to thrive in their new homes, and therefore we should probably add compost to the soil.   We needed to pop to the local nursery. With remarkable and commendable self restraint, we headed straight to the bags of compost piled in the corner, ignoring all the beautiful, bright flowering plants swaying in the gentle breeze that were urging us to come look, admire, buy.  No no.  We were here for groundwork only.  Some lovely people had gifted us vouchers for this particular shop, and I hope they will be pleased we were so sensible and bought stuff to future proof the garden.  Oh ok, we also bought three punnets of groundcover  to fill up a few gaps.  They spoke to us.

work in progress...

Preparing the soil is perhaps the hardest (and the most boring) part of gardening.  And almost certainly, it is the most important part.  As with most things in life, if the foundation to our endeavours are well prepared and fit for purpose, the results will be more effusive and positive.  Also, the more thorough the preparation, the less work will be needed in the future.  I am hoping I got out most of the grass runners and the onion weeds, otherwise there will be plenty of time for poetry recitals in the future.

After a long afternoon of garden work, it was most delightful to pop into our brand new, rather small, farm style pool.  That was the impetus for all this rearrangement of plants in the first place.  The water was bliss.

 There are more beds to be prepared, paths to be constructed and flowers to be planted.  (And here is this blog's aside.....  I have discovered that some plants can be "Plonked."  Geraniums, aloes, those yellow thingies, all have survived my cutting off a stem and plonking it in soil that has been well prepared.  The stems, over time, root themselves and the plants spread.  This has been very good for my budget, and I have loved hosting a "plonking tea" with friends the last couple of years.   End of this month's aside.) 

I hope you will join me in creating suitable environments for beautiful things to grow.  Until  nature creates dust from arrogance we are going to need as many patches of  happiness as we can get.  And shout if you want any Plonkers for your garden.