We think we own our gardens… Do we? November #gardenjournal

Monday, 6th of November 2023 [96]

My gardening posts this season are rather scarce. As I look through my spreadsheets with Hive post, it’s been a few months since I posted any garden update.

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That is mainly because I haven’t been gardening much either!

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As I walked around my garden this weekend to capture the state of it for this month’s #gardenjournal that question came to mind… do I even own my own garden? From a legal perspective I sure do, but looking at the cover picture of this post? I’m not too sure 😂

Can you see the the square pot in the bottom right corner of the photo below? Barely, right? No word of a lie, this whole magnificent beast of a juicy green carpet comes directly from this barely visible pot! And carpet it is indeed, I love walking on it, it’s super soft and the plant doesn’t mind either.

I purchased a few pots of this plant that I can’t remember the name of 😂 for £0.20 each on sale a few years ago. Coupled with a few other plants for my hanging baskets areangements and while all the other flashy flowers are long gone, this one not only has a life of its own, but also provides an endless supply of plants for hanging baskets. It creeps in between other pots and… I love it 😍

My project succulets went kinda south. I got all excited about succulents propagation couple years back and I’d bring plants and leaves from wherever I could find them.

They were mainly for my own arrangements, but once I realised I have too many, I decided to pot some up and sell them on fb marketplace or carboot sale when I was still attending them. I think I sold maybe 3 and got bored/lost interest. As a result they grew legs and climbed out of the pots, making my windowsill a mess.

So off they go into the garden. With a few others in the front garden I already tested their hardiness and while indoors I kept forgetting to water them, outside moma nature could bask them in sun and rain to their heart’s desire.

The resourecful part of me, almost forgotten Consuela put them there thinking I’ll remember to repot them and sell eventually, but Ernesto the donkey didn’t think it was a kind of fun he wants to engage in this summer. The donkey had all the great reasons to be the donkey with all the health issues we had this year and the succulents didn’t mind. They just blended into the rest of the greenery that owns my garden.

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Next season there will be a lot of crying when I get in there with my secators to tidy up before replacing the rotten wood!

While I wasn’t gardening much as such, there was a lot of work done in my garden this season. The fence and shed were replaced, but about this in another post, as this one is limited to 10 pictures (I read the rules @riverflows 😉)

As a result various items were moved around the garden and my old toilet that was left there to one day serve as unusual flower pot ended up sitting around my blueberry bushes together with the gate that lived behind my shed.

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And in between those pots? Grass and grape hiacynths that I planted a few off by the fence and also decided to take over my garden. Not that I’m moaning or anything. That side of the garden turns into masses of blue/purple in spring and I absolutely adore it!

I was gonna tell my handyman to be careful with that gate, as it might squash my miniature fuchsia, but did fuchsia mind?

Not at all! It just grows through the holes of that gate, making for many pretty pictures.

So do we really own our gardens? We might think we do, while in fact they are owned by Gaia itself. We might try and take over that piece of land and arrange it our hearts desire. We might read and watch educational materials to learn how to grow to our best abilities, but the last word is always that of momma nature. She’ll decide what will survive or sometimes give us unexpected gifts.

That pot below? Was meant to be a pretty succulents arrangement too. Instead it spilled out of the pot and gave me many more spiky succulets for other pots too!

Had I tried to achieve this, I’d probably fail, but I just left it there to do its thing.

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While I felt some kind of way about neglecting my garden this season, the garden really didn’t mind. I watered it sparsly when the heatwave was ongoing at the beginnibg of the summer, but later on it was raining a lot, so I was mainly just picking up fresh blueberries and strawberries and trimming the bushes in preparation for the new fence.

Now that most of the construction work is pretty much done, I’m hoping to return to my gardening activities with double the strength next season 😁

Until next time 💙