Happiness is…

Happiness is whatever you want it to be. I was watching “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel” on Amazon Prime the other evening and Mrs Maisel’s mother said “don’t wait to be happy”. What incredibly wise words. And before you start to wonder – I’m happy. Even the most tedious tasks give me happiness which is just as well because this garden of mine requires an enormous amount of weeding particularly when I take my eye off the ball. Where there are mature trees on the site with plenty of shade I’ve tried to give an atmosphere of woodland which means it cannot be too manicured and yet not overrun with weeds. Getting the balance between tidy and wild is tricky. At the moment I think it is too wild so I’m having to spend time weeding. Thankfully the soil under the trees is largely leaf mould so the weeds are relatively easy pull up.

After a half hour of weeding the big yellow trug is full and I’m forever back and forth to the green wheelie bin but I’m getting there. Some of the plants that were set out by Jane now require more space and the process of weeding gives me time to think about the look of the garden, where things are doing well and where  shrubs need to be moved or rescued.

Gardeners generally say plants have two choices – they can either live or die. This isn’t strictly true, there is a third option where it limps along, not flourishing but not dying either and when this happens I find it really difficult to cut my losses and ditch the plant. I’ve got a rhododendron that I removed from under the trees about 4 years ago and put it in a pot on the patio. Every year it seems to get slightly smaller however I cannot bring myself to take it out of the pot and put it into the compost. I’ll give it another couple of years…

And despite all my gardening efforts I still find time to sit by the back door with a cup of tea and a piece of cake. The second chair is totally redundant but I leave it there just in case someone (Dominic Cummings for example) illegally visits and shares some time with me.

You never know because that man certainly gets around.