But a lawn with straight edges? Could
I have one of them?
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| This is what the olive tree looked like when I first planted it. |
But . . . I was thinking of digging
up the garden anyway . . .
So, yesterday, knowing people might
find it funny that I find it funny (and hoping no-one will be offended if I
expect them to find it funny - after
all, lots of people (you for instance) might have straight edged lawns and keep
a perfectly straight face about it) - I began.
The box hedge is dug out.
The olive tree is gone.
The gravel path is stuck over with
mud because I didn't cover it before starting.
Bulbs with shoots have been turned
out of their hiding places . . .
* * *
Autumn, I find, is the perfect time
for digging.
The earth smells good.
A fine rain comes in.
Digging, when you can do it, is good
for its own sake.
If I had a big and beautiful garden,
I wouldn't be able to do such things.
Mind, if I had a bigger garden, there
wouldn't have been an olive tree in the way of the only place a lawn could be -
and digging out the olive wasn't entirely straight-forward.
With a small and muddled garden, I
can do some digging, make a lawn with esoteric humour and chat with the 'weeds'
I've planted in pots, rearranging them from time to time and apologising
because I sometimes forget to water them and even 'weeds' like a drink in dry
weather.
(Don't tell 'House and Garden' Magazine.
It's not their kind of photo shoot.)
Autumn!
P.S. If it weren't that hydrangea bushes are bulky, I'd be tempted to take out the espaliered apple and plant a row in front of a wall - give the garden a completely new and different atmosphere . . . sedate, peaceful . . .
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19 comments:
I suppose autumn is a really good time to do lots of digging in the garden, with the earth supple and air not too cold yet to be uncomfortable.
Goodluck with the changes :) And no we don't have a lawn anymore!
Hi, Mark and Gaz - bet you don't have hydrangeas either!
The next thing I'll need to do will be to work out which grass seed to use. I want to find one with clover in so I can let it flower. I mind about grass colour too. I bought some once which turned out to be almost blue, rather than green, with very thin blades. It looked very cold and dull. I want bright green - and tough!
Confession: I have hydrangeas. But no lawn anymore – and, even when I did, it wasn't straight-edged.
Also: I have a joke for you.
Q: What did Greta Garbo say as she sprinkled grass seed in her hair?
A: I vant to be a lawn.
I've got a lawn *blush* but I let the grass grow in the summer and pretend it's a meadow.
But being serious - long grass holds a lot of insects and protects baby frogs.
And then when autumn comes I cut the grass and get that lovely 'been to the hairdressers' feeling when it is all neat and tidy again.
Are you really going to have a lawn?
Helen - that is a joke I find funny!I've already started telling people. Hydrangeas - they can be brilliant in the right context but (to my mind) the context has to be big. One of the troubles with the way we use hydrangeas here is that they get planted in such very small gardens there's room for nothing but that one bush, a path, a patch of grass . . . and that's it. So such a garden is sparse and the bush is merely a blob by the wall. Climbing hydrangeas . . . hardly anyone has them but they have a more delicate air. We tried to grow one but it didn't work. That may have been just as well for I suspect they are on a par with ivy for pulling buildings down. (?)
Hello Janet. I have some grass (as distinct from a lawn) at the front of the house. This year, much of it was wall barley and it looked fantastic when the wind blew. And, yes. I am planning to have a lawn. It won't be a big one - and I've got a problem with a standard cotoneaster - do I want to dig that up too? Not at the moment because it's covered in berries and blackbirds like them in the winter. Short term - it's not quite the moment to sow grass so I'm wondering whether to put in loads of bulbs and sow the lawn after they've flowered in the spring. Rather ridiculously, I gave away our lawnmower the day before yesterday. It's so many years since we've needed it (because we've not had a lawn) and I was clearing out the shed so . . . I think I do things in the wrong order! (It will, therefore, have to be a lawn small enough to cut with shears.)
Hi Esther,
Thank you for visiting me and introducing me to your blog too. I was out digging last weekend in our garden. I prefer doing it at this time of year rather than in the spring when it's so much colder. The smell of freshly dug soil takes so beating.
We have walked North of Church Ope Cove, we love the rugged peaceful location.
Sarah x
perhaps you could ask the errant lawnmower to return to mother? Broad green determined lawn - that would be buffalo grass in South Africa. But there are neither hydrangeas nor lawn on my patch. What about the sedge 'lawn' they grow at the Olympic Park?
You have been busy. Too little lawn here to even notice its shape, but I do have a small herd of hydrangea.
I was thinking of you the other day - there's a woman who is looking at which seeds fly into and successfully grow in her garden as a scientific experiment. If only I could remember where I found it!
You having a lawn's come as a bit of surprise. Don't worry about the covers, you can keep the pots on them or put stepping stones on them like we have ;)
You keep reading about gardeners digging up their lawns for flowers and vegetables, so maybe it's time for someone to start a counter-trend. For myself, the only lawn left in the front are some grassy paths between flower beds. Lawn takes up more space in the back, along with a lot of hydrangeas (white, not pink or blue), but it is very curvy and irregular.
I do love gardening so much and I do like doing it on autumn season.
Regards,
Garden Supplies Melbourne
Hello Down by the Sea - I'm not as struck on spring as I often think I'm meant to be.
EVERYONE!
. . . Do you know Sarah's Down by the Sea Blog? For a peek at the area I(we!)live in - go and visit . . .
http://downbytheseadorset.blogspot.co.uk/
And the post about Church Ope Cove is at
http://downbytheseadorset.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-cup-of-tea-by-shore.html
- where a garden is a pile of rocks!
Hello Diana. What I want for this lawn is a place to lie down on and read a book. Maybe space for two or three people with teacups and sandwiches. So it will have to be short grass and comfortable.
Hello Garden Walk, Garden Talk. I like the idea of a herd of hydrangeas! That's exactly the right word to use for them in number.
Hello VP. I see my seeing what arrives of its own accord as science too. I think it's important that we ordinary bods can be consciously scientific. It's about love too - not a sloppy kind but love of what 'is'. As for the covers - they really are a problem. There are pots on them at present but once there is a grass . . . pots would be so thoroughly in the way the effect would so ludicrous it would probably go beyond what even I can tolerate. We'll see. I'm making it up as I go along.
Hello Garden in a City. The street where I live was built on a marsh. Hardly anyone managed to have a lawn when the houses were new because there were so many leather jackets. Some solved this with hard paving. Others have tried over and over with seeds and with turfs. I'll be interested to find out whether time has moved on enough for a lawn to work. To some degree, it's in tune with my general experimenting. In small gardens, where the issue of watering is minor, I suspect a little lawn is better for the environment than a lot of concrete.
Hello Jack.
I'm going to let your comment stand because I'm glad you like gardening and I'm glad you too like the autumn but . . . next time you visit, would it be ok if you didn't leave a link to your company? You might like to know I usually delete commercial comments - and your definition of garden supplies is a little loose. Concrete mixers don't usually count.
Best wishes
Esther
Hi Esther, I've been digging this week too. And weeding - so much weeding. There's a sort of deadnettle with pretty purple flowers that the bees seem to like, plus I let the columbine have its head the last three years, so my garden was very green (all the unexpected rain here in London - we're not used to it you know:-) and full of weeds all summer. It's taken me all week to get them out, put some new bulbs in and have some clear space ready for thinking about next year... lovely time of year for it. My climbing hydrangea has taken over most of a bed on the shady side of the garden, and almost overwhelmed its neighbour, Camellia. Ah well, back to it...
Esther, for goodness sake what's wrong with all you people. In our garden we have three lawns, one in the front with two straight lines and two higgledy piggledy ones. In the back garden is the largest lawn which is of an indescribable composition, and then we have the round garden where the lawn is well --- you know. Hydrangeas! I thought folks had gotten over all that rubbish which they say about them. Just off to dead head a rose which my granny also had in her garden, (Peace)
Esther,your suggestion about opening the links on my blog in another window, thanks for this, just found out how to do it.Is there a benefit to this as previously I was taken back to my blog by pressing the back button?
Apologies if this comment is a bit inappropriate!
I don't suppose that I could convince you to perhaps consider giving us a Shout Up!
As you know Readership is the life blood of any Garden Blog!
New aspiring Garden Bloggers need Readers especially!
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Cheap grass seed used by farmers often has clover seed in abundance I seem to recall. In my experience it tends to be mainly men that like a straight edged lawn!
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