Spring is Springing
…But I always feel it. We haven’t had budburst yet, when tree buds start to open (that I’ve seen), but I have seen some dahlias poke their heads up, and there are flowers everywhere.
If you don’t have flowers in your garden at this time of year, can I recommend (mostly for next year)-
Jonquils and daffodils
Hellebores
Violets
Snowdrops
Daphne
Double petalled hellebore- isn’t it gorgeous!
What I am obsessed with this week
We are midway through a double-fisted landscaping situation where we have two enormous projects on at the same time, down the road from one another.
They could not be more different, despite being in a similar environment with a similar (high) budget.
We are working closely with builders on one of them, and there are multiple daily emails flying back and forth, multiple phone calls, etc. The other one is radio silence mostly, and my emails fly into the abyss whenever I send them (although it is for a longterm client, so I am neither surprised or bothered by this)!
I am also just an ‘installer’ for one of them (the one with lots of builders). I had no hand in the plans, which were done by an award winning national designer- I just have to point and wave and get staff to dig holes…
Digging a trench, while the builder builds a fence at the same time, surrounded by pipes and footings, in the pouring rain because it has to be done before the next day. Woooo!
A few things have really stuck out to me during this time, and the key one which the builders would like screamed from the rooftop is that timelines and schedules have no meaning. We are juggling around 10 companies to create, provide, deliver and install a number of items (building hard landscaping, putting in irrigation, delivering soil, putting in a spa pool, creating and installing a gardening trough, plants from nurseries, freighters delivering all of the things, my company, the builders company, electrician, plumber, the landscaper and the projects co-ordinator). We simply cannot run things to a timeframe, because there are too many moving parts which we cannot control.
On the other site, it is just me…well, and the painters, but they are not in my way. Well, it is me and three large tree nurseries, the hi ab (crane) company, two smaller nurseries, three freighters, and two labourers (contractors). But I am well used to that flavour of mayhem, and I am in charge of ordering, so I can just make things happen at whatever time I want them to happen. If the trees haven’t arrived, we can plant the other things. If nothing has arrived, we can dig the holes. We can weed, and mow, and put buckets of soil strategically around the place. Does that mean I can say for sure that I know when we will be done? Absolutely not.
One thing that has become more and more apparent to me as life goes on is that it is so much more important to allocate an extra few visits (of whatever length they need to be) to just stare at the garden and think. I remember when I started gardening, one of my clients told me that he would pay me just to think about things, and I never fully understood what he meant.
Plans are made and then they fall through. Neighbours might need to be taken into account. The client might be unhappy with some plant or other- or it might not be available. You have to work around the natural environment and you have to pivot.
If I ever make my millions, or just make an exceptional reputation for myself so I can call the shots, I will be a landscaper who never shows anyone a plan, but just turns up and gets to work. While I weed, I look at the view, the house, the hills, the windows. I look at what is already there, and the soil type, and I walk up and down the path screeds of times every day. That is when the thinking is done. That is when I get my ‘aha!’ idea, when I realise people’s eyes always land on this one spot, so I need to put something great in there. I get to see the light move throughout the day and I can work it to your advantage.
This is why I love maintenance gardening so much. You get a good feel for the garden and you know what it means to live in it. And as the seasons change, the garden can be changed to be optimal in every season.
At one of our landscaping properties, it has been altered and mapped out in my head so many times that I am just arriving and getting to it. Sitting on a ledge and emailing the nursery, again, to see how many of xyz they have and whether they can deliver by the end of the week.
At the other, I am completely at the mercy of all of the other trades, and the existing landscaping plan, (which at one point necessitated us digging 1m deep holes for 55cm pots, because the landscaping plan cares not for the slope of a hill, and the trees have to be exactly as described).
So, we shall see what transpires! I don’t know what I can share in terms of photos, but I will ask…
Oxalis is everywhere
I’m not a huge fan of dealing with oxalis at the moment, because every time I try to weed it, I seem to break it instead of getting the bulb, but it has turned up everywhere with a vengeance all of a sudden. See below, the one that one could mistake for clover-
The problem is that it will grow straight back if you don’t get out the bulb, which unfortunately seems to be breaking more than coming out! Here is the bulb-
So to do this, you need a flatter, long thin tool (like a butterknife!). Slide it down beside the stem and gently, gently pull the green to see if you can pull the whole plant out. Mine keep snapping, maybe you will have more luck.
That’s it from me this week, have a good week everyone!