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 foundations 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Weeding after rain

 It has been a wet winter - one that reminds me of childhood.  Rain has lashed the windows for  days on end.  There have been big puddles to splash in, the odd rumble of thunder and cold winds.  It has felt like a proper Cape Town winter.  This past weekend the sun smiled weakly on us, so once the washing was hung, I decided to do my Sunday meditation by gardening.  Weeding, mostly.  The ground is wonderfully soft from all that rain and that makes it easy to de -root the pesky onion grass. It was satisfying work and at the same time I could admire all the bulbs that are shooting up after the rains, and imagine the riot of colour that will hopefully fill the garden in a couple of months.

 The only thing about weeding in wet soil, is that a lot of the ground tends to come out with the pulling.  A dilemma!  I didn't want to knock the roots - the onion grass seedlings  fall off and reroot themselves and multiply the problem.  But neither did I want to throw away the excess soil  - what a waste that would be.  The obvious answer was to get the inherited garden sieve out of the wendy house, but I didn't fancy that time consuming and laborious task one little bit.  Plan B:  allow the sun to dry the weed pile and then it would be easy to separate soil from spoil. 

Sometimes when I am working through the weed -thoughts of my life,  the task is easier to do if there is some moisture around (so to speak.)  Weed thoughts are those things that choke out the happier memories - we all have them - the regrets, the if-only's, the painful bits of relationships, health wobbles...  And the moisture is a good old fashioned cry.  I remember when I was younger and could snot my way through a box of tissues. Crying was a relief, and I recall sleeping deeply after a good howl. These days, I can (and do) tear up  quite frequently and easily, but I seem to have lost the ability to commit fully and do those embarrassing sobs.  So working through whatever is bothering me seems like hard work at the moment.  I have to dig deep to get to the root of what is going on, and sometimes the thought breaks before I can pull it out because the mind soil is arid.

Of course there is always the danger of pulling too much out when I am weeding, and getting a little too enthusiastic about trimming, so careful, mindful work is required if I am not to destroy the roots of the wanted plants.

I am quite proud of my system of letting the sun dry out the weedpile before separating the weed from the chaf .  It is energy efficient and effective.  I can return the soil to the flowerbeds and encourage new growth.  Airing our sadnesses for a while is a good idea; allowing happy memories to dry out the other ones will allow us to reuse the good, and compost or destroy the unwanted.   The patch I weeded last weekend is looking better - the ground looks richer and neater and less cluttered.

And it very much looks like it is going to be a beautiful Spring.

 

 

The bougainvillea in a pot

 It's over! As of a couple of hours ago, school days are a thing of the past for this family.  It feels like a major achievement to have weathered the school leaving exams in a pandemic with a child who has type 1 diabetes. (If you are wondering why that makes a difference, there is a whole blog about my experiences mothering diabetes: time4t1.blogspot.com).  Freedom beckons!  The future is a gold-paved path stretching out in front of Daughter!  Celebrations and relaxation are the order of the day!

Except, that is not really true.....

Celebrations are muted.  The future is a little uncertain.  Freedom wears a mask these days.  Covid round 4 for us in South Africa. (Please do not get me started on the UK's response to SA identifying the Omicron variant - my anger will ruin your day.) We  South Africans are resilient people, but we are also tired.

I find nature restores my soul, or at least stops me from wanting to kick a proverbial cat.  So the bougainvillea in the pot in the corner of my garden was an excellent focus point when stress levels were rising last week.  The burst of colour was just so lovely.  But being busy, I  enjoyed it from afar, admiring it every time I went to my car or looked out the upstairs window. 

And, I told myself, how marvellous that it was putting on such a gorgeous show after I had (to be honest) neglected it spectacularly these past few months.  So good that it could flourish without being nurtured.  Or even watered.

Bougainvilleas are strange plants.  They flower best when not watered much.  It seems counterintuitive, but I checked on a gardening site.   A few days ago, I finally made it to the corner of the garden.  And guess what?  The bougainvillea is not flourishing at all.  There are a few dried leaves hanging on for dear life, a touch of green on otherwise woody, droopy stems.  The flowers are beautiful, but the plant is putting all it's energy into the blooms, and the roots and branches are not thriving.  All of a sudden the blooms seemed more of a cry for help than a gift of gardening.  

It felt familiar.  Our outward appearances, smiley and dressed up, may not be so much a sign that we are flourishing, but rather a Look At Me in the corner - I could do with some support and soul -watering. We need to take care of ourselves during this exhausting pandemic.  We need to put our energy in maintaining good roots, supporting our selfs (not a typo!), and nurturing our relationships with the people who matter to us.  If we manage to bloom that will be a bonus, but it should not be at the expense of deep grounding and keeping strong.

You will be pleased to know I did water the bougainvillea, and all the other pot plants.  I am planning on taking some time off from being stressed too - I may as well listen to my own inner ramblings.  Be kind to yourself too.  It's been a long year.