A trim strim

Noise on the mountain top today.   We have strimmed.   It was a sunny and mild yet again today, so out came the big guns. Well, gun.   I love our strimmer. It starts first go, and makes mincemeat of long grass and weeds.

I wanted to cut all the grass in the quince garden as there are good bulbs at the base of the bank.   Camassias.   So that was where I started. But the curse of the strimmer is you get such great results. And then notice just how much you really need to do.

I finished the quince bank (never easy on a steep slope) and wanted to head up to the top of the bank and work my way along and down. But was wisely hauled inside for a cup of tea and a sit down.   I’m not strong enough yet for a full on strimming session.

So it was raking and weeding for the rest of the day.   And moving some euphorbias about in the shade garden.   And playing with Artur.

Oh yes, and entertaining the horse. I was weeding and feeding the hedge which borders our property from Jean Daniel’s.

So Ulysse came trotting over for an apple and then spent a good half hour standing right above me as I worked.

He must have been confused by my behaviour, but was mightily entertained.   And I weeded the hedge.   And then grabbed my exceptionally smelly organic garden food pellets and scattered a handful over each perfectly weeded hedging plant

And then as is the way with chores, I put off raking all the wonderful dead thatch that came out of the lower terrace below the pool strimming job.   Here is a distant view of the worker doing a wonderful job.

It’s a huge long bank and requires a lot of patience.

I had planned to rake up the detritus straight away, but became distracted by chestnuts.

A sea of chestnuts.

There is a huge pile of them lapping the shores of the duck pond garden.

I started raking and collecting and ended up just piling them into enormous heaps for Dealing With Later.

And as I was picking them up from the base of the stone wall that sits at the top of the Duck Pond garden I had an idea.

Out came the chestnut burrs, the weeds and the recalcitrant brambles that always seem to clump near stone walls.

And with a quick rake over of the lovely rich soil I have decided to sow some seeds.

Not the wildflower mix which will be nearby all along the edge of the swimming pool garden, but verbena bonariensis seeds.   If it all works I will be able to link the parts of the garden along this huge long line: potager, lawn garden, wildflower garden and duck pond.

But it’s very possible that the seeds won’t germinate (I’ll sow more in spring) and the weeds will invade.   But it was a fun distraction from picking up strimmings.

But pick up I did. And had Artur to entertain me. He was playing some very complicated game with me while I worked.   He neglected to tell me the rules but it seemed to involve ambushing me while I had a teetering pile of strimmings in the wheelbarrow and then leaping at me from the safety of the wall.

It was most diverting, if a bit alarming. Nothing like a flying rocket of fluff to make you drop your load.

By sunset the work was done and I repaired to a painkiller and a glass of bubbly. It’s only Christmas once a year.