4 posts tagged “gardening”
We've been entertaining almost every night for the past week. If it's not entertaining, it's a business meeting at home which entails, well, some sort of entertaining (coffees, teas, drinks, chocolates, sweets, etc) till late hours, certainly later than I am used to. And it's not over yet. We've looking forward to entertain my sister and her friend tomorrow night...
BUT, today was MY day in the garden... after a business meeting which lasted all morning and ended up with a potentially good partnership. But after the gentleman has left, Frances and I attacked the garden centre and came back with more than 180 seasonal flowers! Geraniums, Allisums, Colliuses, Salvias, little purple fluffy things, Snapdragons and Alternanthera... so Arif and I went and planted all of these things in their respected places around the garden, watered them, tinkered some more in the garden till about 6pm.. it was tiring work to be sure, but it is that kind of tiredness that makes you feel that you actually accomplished something! So I won't complain about the gardening this afternoon. I enjoyed it a lot, and hope to do some more of it tomorrow.
For now, enjoy this picture I took through the Cassia (scrambled egg tree) looking into the front garden. Once I get my "proper" Canon camera (I hope!) I will take another picture from the same place and you should see the plethora of colour and texture that should have taken good hold.
The season has started!
and I'm not really complaining. In fact I'm enjoying the sense of pain! I know I know, but I'm no masochist really, it's just that contented feeling that you have worked hard and have given it your best and hope that things will turn out well, as I'm fairly certain they will, fingers crossed.
I spent the whole of Saturday in the garden, doing this:
Apart from the petunias, I've got tall grass which I placed at the apexes of the curves to provide backdrop.
Of course, I had to redo the complete drip system as well as move the sprinklers a bit inside. Unfortunately I have had ot cancel one which was right in the centre in front of the jar, but I'm sure it's not necessary as that patch is now serviced by 10 sprinklers so I should still get good coverage.
I've also planted some yellow and orange marigolds in other flower beds, but offset them with the shocking red and purple petunias. I hope the effect will look okay, if not, then I'll yank them out and put a different variety.. it's still very early in the season to do this!
I think I found out why my irrigation system is so screwy of late... it looks like that the drip system valve is stuck open, so anytime the pump is on regardless of which zone, it pumps water through the drip system as well. Needless to say that utilises an awful lot of water, hence the tank of 5,000 liters finish in less than 10 minutes, leaving two halves of two zones bone dry.
I think there is nothing really as nice as a good, well maintained, lush, lawn. I see this and I just want to sit on the grass for a while or lie down on it and just chill out.
Alternately, there is nothing worse than a patchy lawn. It is ugly and eyesore
This is unfortunately what has happened to my garden lately, and I think I solved it: that part of the lawn was starved of water! And I think it is a malfunctioning solenoid or a blockage in the main line or something of the sort. That zone receives the same pressure as all the other zones, but when the pump is on, the risers hardly break the surface and just lethargically dribble water rather than really spray it out and cover its circle. I just assumed that the pressure was as good as the other zones; in fact I reduced the pump's pressure last week as I thought the other zones' pressure was just too high.
This afternoon I thought I would really investigate so I donned my swimming trunks and switched the pump on. I was armed with a screwdriver and pliers just in case they are needed "in the field"; however, they weren't. The reason, as stated above, was plain to see. I went and increased the pump's pressure appreciably and will monitor all zones through the coming week to see if there is any difference. I'm sure there will be... I am determined to get my lovely lawn back.
