Cleaning Up

 - the garden that is. The local council does a green waste collection once a year and it's ours this week. The weather has been kind with a succession of sunny days so we've been working at getting as much of what isn't suitable to compost out the front. This is quite a challenge (aside from arthritic hands and general "spoon" shortages) because we have a battle axe block (we're in the corner of an "L" shaped roadway). This means most of our block frontage, which is very narrow, is taken up by our driveway and the small area that isn't has a power pole stuck in the middle. Our neighbour usually kindly lets us add to her pile but this time she doesn't have room - due in part to the recent Council tree planting in inappropriate places on the verge. The situation is compounded by the fact that we somehow have to get our ordinary rubbish bins out for collection and we've taken up most of the space we usually use for that. With some difficulty we have piled everything as far as we can from the power pole. Let's hope they use some commonsense and that we're among the first to have our pile removed. 

The good thing is that we have pruned everything that needed attention. Most of this is in the form of invaders from our neighbours. This is not the fault of our current neighbours - we're very good friends with them and they are battling these nasties as much as we are. The trouble is that back in the dim and distant past someone - several someones in fact since the problem comes from two of our five neighbours - inflicted some vigorous succulent creepers on us all. They are different and both are attractive but invasive. Unfortunately both also shoot from any leaf that's knocked off which wouldn't matter if this didn't happen frequently but as they're brittle every time they're so much as touched leaves fall and we invariably miss some. They also shoot prolifically from their roots - one is actually forcing the panels of the fence apart and cutting it back just encourages it to grow more. Sigh.

On a more positive note Virgo's husband, who called in with her and the children on Fathers Day, spent some time relining the lily pond which developed a leak a while ago when the back fence was replaced. Miss Five and I had spent some time cleaning it out a few weeks back but the rocks which hold the lining in place proved too heavy for us to move. The pool relining actually turned into fun time with Miss Five and Master Two having a great time paddling in the filling pool. The water is currently maturing and in a few weeks we can put in new lilies and some local pigmy perch to control the mosquitoes. In the meantime I'm thinking about ways to restore the cool, green lushness that was there before the fence was put in while making very sure - since there will need to be coverage of the fence - that I don't create the sort of problems that I've been dealing with elsewhere in the garden for myself or my neighbours.