In the Garden #4

Well, when the weather permits I have spent at least 30 mins in the garden each day. It has been quite interesting psychologically! I have realised how normally when I work in the garden I am task orientated. I go to do a specific task and I allocate sufficient time to complete it and normally carry on until it is finished or rain or darkness stops play. On the days when I had a short amount of time to spend in the garden I found myself looking for jobs that fitted in the time available. Obviously that's not going to work out very often! I have found it quite difficult to start something that I won't be able to complete and then when I have started it's quite difficult to stop when the time is up! It's going to be interesting to work with this one.

A few years ago I planted a Wintersweet near the back door. I thought that it would be nice to have something fragrant in the garden in the winter. And so it is and I love the witch hazel like flowers. But it is a very vigorous plant. Every year I cut it back strongly but finally have to admit that it's just not in the right place and will have to go. So today I cut it down to the ground. It was growing between the patio and the back wall and there is no way that we will be able to dig it out. Plus there is a huge bole at the base with young stems already growing from it. So I have had to treat it with stump killer. Next year I will grow something trailing over it to hide the stump. As I was lopping the branches back my trousers occasionally brushed against the lemon verbena growing in a pot on the patio releasing a delicious lemon sherbet fragrance.