Gardening friends

Annie gave us a Japanese weeding hoe a few years ago, and it has been at work this afternoon.  Excellent tool: we found we were fighting for it when we were both in the garden, so had to get another!  Our friend Bob recommended we get a folding kneeler with handles that help those of us with elderly knees to get up after kneeling.  Another excellent tool, and the other way up it doubles as a stool to perch on when weeding slightly raised borders.  Yesterday the grass was just about dry enough for its first cut, so I took a couple of boxes of cuttings, leaves and fallen twigs off the grass.  The battery of my new plaything had held its charge over the winter: I just need to remember which lever drives the blade and which the wheels: they’re the other way round cf. the old petrol job.

While doing my little-and-often weeding stint just now I was reminded of the generosity of other gardening friends: sedums from Pat and from Peter and Elizabeth are coming back to life.  The fuchsia magellanica alba I nicked as cuttings from Tony’s garden are coming back to life (and yesterday I repotted a few healthy rooted cuttings taken last back end).  The epimedium Jane gave me for - I think - my 60th birthday is doing nicely, and the cyclamens she gave me are steadily taking over.  Looking to the giving direction, the penstemon cuttings I took for neighbour Mary last year have rooted well for the most part, and should be ready to pass on in a month or so.  Lynn’s acanthus is coming into vigorous growth again, and I hope to have some fuchsias ready to give her in a month or two (I failed at the last attempt!).  

Three deliveries today: a bag of red onion sets, precisely six sweet olive tomato seeds and a new heated propagator with seven little trays and covers.  It is compact enough to fit easily on the sitooterie window ledge, and I’ve already sown the nicotiana seed in one of the trays.  Most other seeds need to wait a bit longer, and that is going to test my patience!