Ordinarily I'm not one for making New Year's resolutions, but with a new garden, and a new garden blog, to keep going I thought I'd break with my usual stance and jot down some goals for the coming year here.
Written down they seem pretty unambitious, but with the weeks already flying towards February it won't be long before I'm looking back on the year and wondering where it all went. There'll be plenty more to do in the garden but as a minimum I'd like to be able to say that I've achieved everything I've set out here. There's a mixture of new experiences to expand my knowledge and skills combined with some improvements specific to this garden, all of them are going to be fun!
1. Grow something from seed and eat it
Confession: I did try this for the first time last year, but had to abandon my crop of spindly rocket and mizuno to the slugs when we moved. In any case, the only growing space I had to hand was the spent compost of a window box which dried out, causing the rocket to bolt. This time the crop has got to feed us, at least for one meal.
2. Grow some soft fruit
Because, yum! A soft fruit bush to me represents one step closer to a settled home. It's an investment plant, one that you feed and nurture and crop year after year. There's a big psychological kick to be had from growing some soft fruit.
3. Move the hydrangea
There is a hydrangea bush in our garden. You wouldn't know it though because it is planted under a very successful hibiscus and didn't get a look-in last year. The hibiscus stands sentinel at our gate, very beautifully, and on the other side of the gate is a bare space. This imbalance is even more striking in the bareness of Winter so my plan is to even up the symmetry of the garden and give the hydrangea a chance to flourish by moving it to the other side of the gate. One of the first things I did last year was to even up the sedge grasses in the garden path, and that single job has had the most impact on the garden so far; I'm hoping that moving the hydrangea will be equally successful.
4. Convince the landlord to invest in some border plants
Winter has killed off the soapwort and other ground cover plants in the bounday border and it's all looking a bit bare. I'm building up the courage to ask our landlord whether he would invest in some grasses to create a soft boundary line which still allows the garden to borrow space and planting from next door.
5. Blog more
Surely every bloggers resolution, but on the days when I do get it together and post I'm finding that the blog feeds my gardening interest as much as my gardening feeds the blog. Already it's been great for me to look back on the last part of the gardening year and remind myself of what I started with and where it has got.
