The garden

The weather is perfect for pruning

warm, dry (ish) 

I have spent most of the day and a good day last weekend back out in the garden

That first work day of the year is a momentous one for any gardener

As you see the first shoots peeking up 

the ground is warming

the garden is waking up and so to do my gardeners fingers

Have you been watching Monty Don's French gardens on BBC

Last night he was talking about secateurs and how they changed the way we garden

Invented in 1818 by a French Noble man called 

Marquis Betrand de Molleville

who fled to England during the French revolution

Secateurs gave gardeners a way to make a clean cut with less force and 

get into places that were previously unreachable

 They literally shaped they way people gardened 

and still do today 

 

While everything is looking a little bleak in the garden right now 

there is something so promising about those bright green spikes poking through the debris

and it reminds me of what I can look forward too

 foxgloves in the garden last summer

last June in the garden

Clematis  and honeysuckle

The resolve and promises that this year it will be different

I will weed once a week

I will remember to stagger my seed planting

I will clump plants together to create impact

I will clear another patch of border from the grass

I will finally get around to reclaiming the vegetable patch ...........

well, I may achieve one of these

but the great thing about gardens is 

whatever I do, whether I procrastinate or not the garden will do it's thing 

the plants are not waiting for me to make a decision 

they are getting on with the business of growing 

I look forward to june and july when I can sit and look again at a green patch bursting with life 

but for now I am content with the promise