"let your boat of life be light, packed with only
what you need - a homely home and simple pleasures, someone to love and someone to love you,
enough to eat and enough to wear
and a little more than enough to drink:
for thirst is a dangerous thing"

Thursday 7 April 2011

my two most fun days of the year.... so far

the first one was in early january, while still on holiday, when together with sidney, a gardener i headed for the BB's (busiest brother) house in bergvliet and got stuck into the garden.  i had studied what was there and it was going to be easier to just pull everything out. i left sidney to do the dirty work and took lucie (BB's lady) shopping.  have you guys been to little orchard nursery in constantia?  if not go, it is worth it.


we got there early and loaded the car with more plants than anyone would have thought possible (thankfully michael was not present to witness what got loaded into his vehicle).  this place is awesome and so so cheap.  not all starke ayres quality but pretty damn good and half the price (maybe quarter). take a look -
http://littleorchardnursery.co.za/.   they have a list online of what is available and delivery is free (don't tell michael).
BB and lucie liked what i had done in my garden so it was relatively easy.  basically purple and white - salvias, lavenders, a camellia or two, a couple of ice cream bushes.

Breynia disticha - for those who like to learn

they had agapanthas on special at R17 a plant so threw in half a dozen of those as well.  i had dug out some plectranthus (spur flowers) from my garden and lots of groundcover. 

plectranthus
lucie left for work and boy did sidney and i work - dug in heaps of bounce back into 2 new beds and cleared out practically all the rest. deciding to extend the beds was worth the hard work in the end.  at lunchtime i ducked out to woolworths and we had a 10 minute break while we downed a ginger beer and gobbled a steak pie.  bonding in the true sense of the word. sidney is too sweet but highly irritating in that he repeats everything i say to him, back to me, but with a stutter.  it can be pretty funny but it was far easier for me to say "sidney, look we must dig like this" then just move on leaving him to give himself the instructions.

it was hard work in the hot sun but it was so great to see the garden take shape.  when BB finally gets to take a peek at this blog he may feel a very slight bit of guilt and send me a picture or two so that i can show you.  i visited there last week and 3 months down the line everything is growing beautifully, thanks to his state of the art watering system (he is always at work and lucie is now back in london) so without the fancy automation who knows what it would look like. 


arb dry garden

give them their due (ok jenny, ever the diplomat) they have also worked in the garden and have renovated the water feature into a lovely pond with stunning water lillies all now in bloom (ok, 2 are blooming).

i did say 2 most fun days but this has taken awhile so the second favourite day will have it's own post.  boy this is so much fun i did not realise how late it is getting.  it reminds me a bit of those stories we used to read when we were young -

jenny and lucie went to the  . that is not jenny in the picture. 
she is a bit
they spent lots of BB's .  BB did not mind cos he now had a pretty .  BB was very grateful to  and  for working so hard.  he was happy to buy them a  and a

 for lunch.   are happy.

best i stop now before i lose the few followers i have.

bedtime, goodnight.

5 comments:

  1. Hey Jenny, I am loving the blog, keep up the good work.

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  2. This is the best! Your BB and I love our beautiful designer garden. By the look of your pictures Sidney's transformation is even more impressive that the lilies.

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  3. So now that you're a horticulturist too, can we hire you? Do you give discount to followers of your blog?

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  4. definitely nix but i am not fooled - you want to see sidney at work.

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