Teetering on the brink

Sun_Addict

It’s such a shame that it’s so difficult to buy something made in our own country. A lot of manufacturers switched to outsourcing in cheaper countries unfortunately. Same with the call centres. All about profit and cutting costs 🙁

Cherryfudge

Well done on the extra money! Very encouraging.

EatingBeans

Hope all you mothers out there had a lovely Mother’s day. 🙂

Given that it was sunny and reasonably warm, I was determined to spend at least a bit of it in the garden. I wrapped my face up from the wind and took the pups out to play and take stock of things. I was pleased to see most things had made it through the winter, but everything still in pots was bone dry. So out came the hosepipe to give everything its first water of the season. 

Sadly, with me being so ill over the past week or so, I had also managed to let my lovely bathroom palms dry out and they were on deaths door by the time I clocked them yesterday, so my number one priority was to try and save them. Given their desperate need for repotting, I decided I would plant a couple of the plants currently in big pots in the garden, into the ground, freeing up the pots for the two palms in the bathroom. Two plants, surely I can manage that right?

The ground wasn’t exactly hard but a few spades in and I had to sit down. No worries, I thought, I’ll just dig a bit and stop, dig a bit and stop. Which I did. One canary island date palm and a clumping bamboo now safely in the ground, I got on to repotting my musa bajoo banana palms into their new bigger pots, and soaked the hell out of them, hoping they forgive me for their temporary abandonment. Sadly, they have lost a lot of their luscious leaves in their desperate struggle for survival, but if they come back, I am sure they will replace them in no time as they grow like mad when they are happy. Back to the bathroom they went, now with a table each, and all being well, they will grow away really strongly with the extra tlc, and I can harden them off in May. Ordinarily, this would have barely been enough to consider myself having ‘gardened’, but the insane level of fatigue that came after, suggested otherwise. I sat in the garden for another 20minutes or so to feel a bit of sunshine on my face and let the puppies run around some more, and then I staggered back inside. 

dd2 took one look at me and suggested I lay down before I fall down, and she was absolutely spot on. So, dirty clothes and all, I headed straight to my bed, (which is thankfully downstairs), and I just crawled on! dd2 covered me up and I slept for 3hours straight. Even once I woke up, I was too tired to even turn over. I just lay there for another hour or so until I could finally move my limbs. This is not the tiredness/soreness you get from working out a bit more than usual, this is fatigue so bad I didn’t have the energy to even sit up. 😢

Thankfully, like the treasure that she is, dd2 wizzed around and did all the cleaning again this weekend. And, having seen the state of the very happy, but very muddy dogs, she gave them each a bath too, even though she had literally just finished cleaning the bathroom! 😬 Then, in a bid to try and make me feel a bit better, she cooked a roast dinner for us all to make sure I got some good food into me. Poor girl must be knackered. I know how much she has done this weekend and even when I am well I would have been tired after it all. She’s only 16yo bless her! I seriously don’t know what I would do without her atm. I gave her some extra cash as a bonus because my gosh, she earnt it. 

And what have I learnt? I need to prioritise just keeping things alive until I am considerably better than I am. Watering will probably be my level of gardening for a while. Levelling the ground and sowing the grass will have to wait. Absolutely no digging. 

Sadly, I am thinking the GP might be on to something with the long covid idea. 😕

Cherryfudge

Wow, what a day for you! I'm feeling post-viral and needing extra sleep but not nearly on the scale of yours. Your daughter is a hero for being so perceptive, caring and hard-working.

I'm glad you got your plants sorted - it would have been sad to lose them - but perhaps give some thought to what is the minimum you can do to keep them going over the next however long. Perhaps have a list of them and ask one of the girls or a friend to water them once a week? Carrying water is heavy.

I hope you feel better tomorrow, but go gently on yourself however you feel.

EatingBeans

Thanks @Cherryfudge  I am glad to report that no carrying of water is required. No way I could do that. I am really lucky to have an ultra long hose so I simply turn it on, point at plants, then sit down until I need to move again. Thankfully I collected most of the pots together last year to make watering them easier until they make it into the ground so a lot can be done from sitting in one position. This is good because in the height of summer they would all be dead within a couple of days without watering. It still takes a good 20+minutes to water them all. 

The reason I have so many in pots is because the last house I lived in was rented and I wasn’t allowed to plant in the ground. There were literally no plants in the entire garden to start with, except for a half dead lawn, so everything I bought to spruce it up, lived in a pot. When I moved, I simply brought all of them with me, including the trees! Sadly, the whole of this garden was gravel and concrete so before I plant anything I have to remove that, and whilst I have already cleared certain areas, there are still plants in pots destined for areas with 6ins of gravel on top. Yesterday I was just planting into a previously exposed and prepared bit of soil (the easiest type to possibly dig), so I know the rest are destined to stay in pots for a good while unless I can convince a dd to take up gravel shovelling, (again!). 🤣

That said, to get dd2’s apple tree in the ground, I might have to enlist my brother’s help too, since it is a good 7ft high and 5ft wide even after last years pruning! The pot it is in is the largest I have, which until last year was home to my Amelanchier, the oldest tree I have. (All the trees have been specially chosen/have meaning, and the Amelanchier is in memory of all the pets that we have lost - my first two labs were buried under an Amelanchier). I managed to get the Amelanchier in the ground with the help of dd2 last year and repotted the her apple tree into that enormous pot, as the ground isn’t ready where hers is to go. I was only barely able to lift the Amelanchier then, (when I was fairly fit pre-covid), so no chance I would attempt it now, and dd2 for all keenness to help, she would no way be strong enough to lift it. 

So yes, time to take stock and work out what absolutely must get done it order not to lose the most treasured things. Watering will stay with me for all the days I can, and the dds will pick it up when I can’t I am sure. I think covering the exposed soil with something would probably be the next biggest help, so that the dogs could have free run without coming back in so muddy. They are going to need to run in the garden more if I am not able to take them out and dd2 can’t be bathing them every day. Yes, that is the next thing to plan. 👍

Cherryfudge

Those sound like very good garden plans - I'm rather in awe of the great big tubs with trees in! And the really long hose is a good investment. I have lots of pots too, following a time in our lives when we moved often and I took my plants with me. Now they all need not only watering but also weeding!

Andyjflet

For info, Peugeot is owned by Stellantis who are an American / Italian (Chrysler) owned manufacturer, along with Vauxhall, Jeep, Alfa etc etc

EatingBeans

I did not know that about Peugeot @Andyjflet  
I still thought it was French and had a manufacturing plant in the Midlands. 😬 Just shows how out of date my knowledge is on that subject!

Thankfully I have only bought one new car in my lifetime, and I have no intention of doing it again. 

weenancyinAmerica

EatingBeans - On one of my visits to England, I spent an hour in a store in Hull (Woolworth's type store) looking for items made in Great Britain. In the entire hour, I found one - an Easter Egg. Everything else in the store was made in China. I had been staying in Hull for an extra three days because of wet leaves on the train tracks. It was quite an eyeopener for me. I try to be more careful in what I buy everyday and especially what I buy when traveling.

EatingBeans

Oh, and if anyone likes the idea of trees in pots, I thoroughly recommend the Nurgul range in B&Q. Almost all of my pots come from this range as they are just so good. I find the trees do best in the large round ones with the integrated water retention area, and I literally soak them until the water flows out the bottom. Trees are thirsty things! Those pots have stood through years of frosts and a lot of manhandling even when fully loaded, and not one has ever broken. Those with the water retention area also come with built in wheels which is great on patios, though not so great over gravel, so it’s often a two person, one sack truck job, aka one stubborn mother who doesn’t have the patience to wait so walks it back and forward a lot avoiding toes, whilst getting smacked in the face by branches! 🫣🤣

Another great thing about getting a lot of pots all from the same range is you get consistency in colour. They do a wide range of shapes and sizes, so I have everything from short square ones to the large round ones and everything in between. The only downside I find is the price.

Full price they were well out of my price range - it would have cost me well over £1000 for all those that I currently have had I paid full price. But, if you are willing to wait until they start selling them off you can grab some real bargains, especially if you are ‘flexible’ on the colour. 😅 Me, I opted for the colour it appeared that noone wanted and I filled my garden at a fraction of the price. I have to admit, the HOT PINK wouldn’t have been my first choice either, but, with so many all the same it has become something of a statement. Never before have I had so many people comment on my plant pots! 🤣 For a while, I planned to paint them but honestly, they have grown on me (and I am really not a pink person). Being so bright they add a bit of colour even when the weather is gloomy. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it! 😁