Fortnightly drenching

It felt odd to be watering just after two days of rain (well, drizzle).   But to keep to my routine of the fortnightly drenching of the shrubs, I hauled out the hose and started the process.   The plants in the courtyard get it all first, and then I snake the hose through the barn (calabert) and out to the plants on the other side.

You can never see the detail easily in these pictures, but I am pleased with the growth. The cistus is flowering, the lavender flowers are mostly out, and even the aggies are putting on leaf.   I lost a few agapanthus to the winter weather, but there aren’t many gaps.

And if you can’t get down low to see the growth, you can admire the monster growth of the eragrostis grasses I placed here as a nursery bed last year.   I wish now that I hadn’t planted them in such a boringly linear fashion.   But it was supposed to be a temporary placement.   Their real home is the bank above the pool. But the area is so bone dry I dreaded growing plants just to lose them to drought. I’ll uproot them in October and see if they get any benefits from our predicted autumn rains.

The gaura here are fine and never watered.   They give good height and something fun to look at and brush past on the plod to the potting shed.   It’s getting there.

I weed while I water and manage to multi task quite easily.   Each plant gets a huge volume of water via a watering can or a bucket, and I can usually time it so that the bucket doesn’t overflow by the time I get all the weeds out near the shrubs.   I’m leaving the poppies in situ – they need to be rewarded for blowing on the wind and settling anywhere they like.   At least it gives you something to look for when you try to discern which is shrub and which is weed.