The Rush of Spring
What a day... finally the large Torbay Palm tree that came home in the truck from my show garden at GW live last summer is safely planted in my garden.
For almost a year it has sat like a living colossus guarding the entrance to my drive for no other reason than it was too heavy to move elsewhere. But today with the help of Barry my brother, friends Rich and Steve and some druid-style engineering we heaved it up the walls and across the lawn into its planting hole.
We used every trick in the 'Stonehenge-makers handbook' from rope pulleys to branches used as rollers under the pot. The only hitch was having to pull the plant out before it touched down in the bottom of its hole because Steve noticed that a frog had fallen in and needed rescuing.
I love the plant in its new position (I have to say that as even my brother has made me promise not to involve him in such a back-breaking escapade again!) but I also love that feeling that a major job has been ticked off the list.
Greenacre is a garden with a long list of things to be done. We're just about to get the fences up for a row of terraced front and back-gardens and we're all working on themes and ideas to plant them up. While there's a huge satisfaction in finding a home for the large plants moved from Berryfields, it's the simple successes I'm really enjoying - the lines of vegetable seedlings emerging through the soil and the flowers and silver foliage plants in front of the greenhouse knitting together - and the hardy annuals - the larkspur, marigolds and cosmos in our urban meadow. Part of the fun of spring is revelling in rush to get everything planted while the soil is still moist and get the garden set for summer but really the best bit for me is the rush of happiness at seeing seeds and plants growing away on their own.
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