Or so TS Eliot said*, and it seems likely he was thinking of me sorting out our garden today.
Having at last got the gites flood free and re-decorated in time for the first arrivals on Saturday it is time to turn our attention to the garden. I say ‘our’ although Mrs B has sneaked off east for a few days so really it’s just me…
Unfortunately after a year or so of sunshine and drought the last week or two down here in SW France have been very wet and miserable – and still are. So I have just spent the last three hours kneeling in the drizzle weeding a gravel terrace.
Gardeners seem to have a special ability to kneel for hours poking at the soil with no particular discomfort. I am not a gardener and have no such special ability. And no way of knowing what is plant and what is weed.
I was neither / Living nor dead and I knew nothing … in a cold blast I hear / The rattle of the bones
After 30 minutes my back seized up completely – happily in a bent over position so I could carry on with the weeding, although I now have to sit curled up to use the computer keyboard, which is a slight disadvantage – and my fingers were bleeding from the roses I kept accidentally grabbing in an effort to pull out dandelions.
Note for future: a gravel terrace seemed like a good idea at the time, and looks very nice, but a great big slab of concrete would have kept the weeds down rather more effectively.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish?
Anyway this afternoon I have another rainy day challenge – a leylandii hedge we planted a few years ago to give extra privacy and protection from northerly winds to the little gite has, as you might guess, grown rather fast and will soon cast the whole cottage into darkness.
Very pleasant if you like to holiday in Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. Less so if you want to enjoy the sunshine and look over the sunflowers.
So this afternoon you can cheer yourself up while you are inside in the warm sipping your hot chocolate – just think of me, up a ladder in the pouring rain, trying to prune back the undergrowth while the rain runs down the back of my neck.
*The Waste Land, TS Eliot, starts…April is the cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain. Other quotes in italics above are from the same poem.
I don’t kneel, it’s easier to spread a bin liner or foam mat and sit cross legged on that, or use one of those children’s plastic stools from Ikea. It’s a wonderful time to be weeding, now the clay is really moist the roots come up with a gentle tug so except for the biggest dandelions you don’t have to dig them up with a fork. If you don’t want to destroy the planet by using Roundup or sodium chlorate (which seems to be in plentiful supply for farmers despite the ban) you could try boiling water.
We planted a laurel hedge which is fast growing, not quite as fast as Leylandii, but we have a good screen after 3 years. The weeks of rain has its compensations, everything not killed by the big freeze is now growing in profusion.
The plastic stool sounds like a good idea, think we might even have one somewhere. Happily for me Mrs B is usually the gardener here so I only get involved every year or two – or when tractors or chainsaws are involved, and I’m not sure I can safely use that a chainsaw while sitting cross-legged!
We’ve got various hedges – I think there might be laurel in the one around the pool but I can’t be sure – luckily we only planted a very short (albeit now tall) section of leylandii as an emergency measure.
Leroy Merlin does a great line in ‘rigger’ gloves, easily the best I’ve found for dealing with brambles and/or roses. Current pair has lasted over a year unlike any trendy, so-called gardening gloves I’ve previously tried. So no more excuses on that front!
Thanks for the suggestion. Today I’ve moved on to choppng wood in case they want to light the fire – whoever heard of such a thing at the end of April!!
April is always a bit odd, I remember last year we opened the pool early in April and then it snowed on 5th May. I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow morning, my neighbours daughter is getting married.
A good strong weed killer is definatley the solution, have a good receipe from the green keeper at the local golf club. It kills everything, and best of all it kills down to the roots so little chance of it returning. However if you take this route do not spill on yourself as you seem to be a weedy in the garden and would not wish you to go the same way as the weeds.!!
Hey I’m very butch with a small sit-on tractor-mower!
Mrs B likes splashing around the weedkiller but it leaves dead weeds everywhere which take months to disappear – doesn’t matter in most places but terraces and courtyards covered with dead weeds aren’t so beautiful.
I envy you so much…. even with the horror stories…. wish I was there..
The horror stories don’t last so long! Today was a lovely sunny day, garden looking very green, went for a bike ride, much more entertaining than last week’s challenges…
Tell me, are there any places in France that you have NO strong, persistent wind? We are considering retirement one day to a mini guest-farm with some organic herb and veggie growing in France, so am looking for a place that has enough sunshine to grow tomatoes, and no howling wind.
??
The south-west, including for example Dordogne, Gascony and Lot-et-Garonne, isn’t particularly windy and gets plenty of sunshine, and typically gets occasional downpours or storms in the summer months as well which helps reduce watering effort!