Editing Progress
on having less in a tiny border
Last week I wrote about a long-time problem, which operates in all areas of endeavour (except childbearing, where rather sensibly I only had two - wonderful as they are - instead of the eight I’d imagined when I was 18) and always demands my editing attention.
This is, first off, an extremely long-standing, capacious, willingness to tolerate the imperfect. Or mess, as some of my friends and relations call it. I sometimes look at a room and think ‘Help! There have been burglars!’ and then realise it was me, pulling all those drawers out looking for some item I once put in a safe place. But it is not just my own mess. It is messiness in general. I can stand unhealthy amounts of it. Today at Calderstones found a Geranium Rozanne (no one would call her neat, either) which someone had bunched together with some black garden twine and tied to a support stick.
‘Why has that been done?’ another volunteer asked me.
‘I expect this has been done by a garden volunteer who doesn’t like mess, wants things tidy,’ I replied, cutting the string and removing the stick.
‘It is a bit of a mess,’ said my colleague. ‘Let’s cut it down and it’ll start again.’
And so we did. I made a mental note - I would have left that because, polar opposite of the support-stick-gardener I am, I had hardly noticed the mess Rozanne was making of herself. I’d have walked right past.
Second, I am over-prolific. I do too much. Make too much. Take on too much. I’m seventy now and I’ve had a life of it, and have necessarily learned some self-editing but, as I wrote last week, in garden terms I’m still young. I’m new to it. And I’m always over-proliferating. I gave the example of Very Small Pink Border looking exactly like something I would do.
I promised I would report back on my efforts. Here’s the before:
First, I set to, trimming down the Atriplex Halimus, which I had realised it too big for the spot.
Yes, good to cut it down, but it is a plant that grows to two metres.I can’t keep cuting it off at the waist. I need to replace it with some other grey-leaved evergreen shrub that only reaches 1.00 m or a little over. What can that be? A Cistus is the obvious answer…and I’m looking at Beth Chatto’s Cistus Monspeliensis. Grows to one metre. But what will I do with the Atriplex? Move it to Front Garden where I want more shrubs.
Secondly, you can see that in the ‘Before’ picture, I’ve moved three large pots of Agapanthus round the corner.
It was Patient Logman who suggested moving the Agapanthus away from the path, which was a great idea, immediately giving a feeling of space. I put them out of sight, in front of the big metal pot that holds the Oleander, so that only the handsome blue flowerheads are visible. Pleased with that.
I’m not sure whether the Albizia will thrive or even survive. I choose it to cast gentle shade, but mediterranean as it is, I think it is struggling in the gravel and sand it’s planted into. Watching brief.
Last week I said I would move the Salvia Patens ‘Blue Angel’ (which is in a pot) , and I did that, taking it out of the centre and placing it next to the Fig pot. The other Salvia there, which is in the ground, immediately moved over and stretched out - ah, space!
I had said I would add more of the delightful Clarkia unguicularis, but I took them to Calderstones instead, muttering, edit out, not add in, as I put them in the car. i realised part of my problem is the hoarding instinct - keep that, keep that, you might want it. I’m going to try to address that and get rid of stuff…
And speaking of ‘stuff’, I had to move a lot to create a clear space in front of the edited border. None of that shows in the ‘after’ shot. But here it is:
Hhmm. What shall I do with all this?
Well, first things first, I took the tomatoes to Allotment, where they should have been a month ago. Tomorrow I’m going to plant the Ageratum Red Flint in that white box (of which I have seven more, the rest went to Calderstones.)
But enough of my mess. Here’s the Nellist Border at Calderstones, not yet totally overcome by the proliferation tendency, and not just my own work! Thank goodness for colleagues who know how to say no.
The bottom end, in full south facing sun, is looking parched and thin. We need to grow our shrubs. Water! Mulch! But even so, and despite my wobbly camera work, I think it is looking rather Good in that particular Garden.
It's so hard to cut back and edit, because all you want earlier in the year is for things to GROW. My late Dad, who loved his garden, nevertheless had the local tendency to tie everything up with electric blue plastic binder (baler) twine. He was an agricultural merchant, so had plenty of the stuff to hand. It gave plants treated this way a sort of surprised panache.
And , continuation from last week, my determined, business-like but garden loving daughter, who lives in Sweden and has a tiny balcony, spent the last week cutting back and clearing here in Shropshire. Space! Soil!!! Who knew what a difference it would make?? She did. Wise wise person. She got that from her step dad.