Certain jobs in the garden are not really jobs. They are pleasures. I work consistently to keep the bird bath cleaned and filled with fresh water from the water butts. And MY birds know it is there. It is the hottest ticket in town…if you are a bird.
It is such a joy to watch them and it doesn’t matter how many times they may have visited before, each time as if it is the first time. Have a drink. Have another drink. Jump in. Jump out. Jump in and splash a bit. Jump out. Jump in and REALLY go to town with the splashing. Jump out onto the rim. Poop into the water for good measure. (Why DO they do that???) Fly over to back of the nearby chair for a good preen and fluff up and then fly off refreshed, while the long-suffering lady who lives in the house goes out to change the water…again.
Bees, wasps and other essential pollinators also need water and a shallow dish filled with pebbles makes a great place for them to get a drink.
Now, as for laziness in the garden…I am all for it.
I don’t do a lot of flower gardening but I do love blue, cascading lobelias. We have an old, rustic, wooden table next to the bird table that displays the flowers I do pot up on the table top. In the middle is a huge pot and in the middle of the huge pot (on a hidden stand) is a pottery strawberry pot. I have NEVER had any luck with strawberries in the thing but lobelias do just fine. They put on a tremendous show all summer and are then forgotten about as soon as it gets cold.
I am not one of those gardeners who is poised, waiting, for the next job to do in the garden. Things get left. All winter. I usually don’t think about the strawberry pot until it is time to go around again. This year I bought my new plants and they sat around in their flat pack for a few weeks as I had so many other things to do. When I actually got around to planting the whole thing up again, I found this:
In several of the little cups, lobelias had either self-sown their seeds, which I am happy to report that they do quite happily, or the roots had over wintered. I shall let the little chaps carry on now that they have worked this hard to get here.
My other lazy triumphs are the pelargoniums that overwintered outside the back door against the South facing wall:
And here are the baby chili plants that are coming up under their parent plant:
The parents were over-wintered in the lounge and are still going strong.
They are looking a little woody now so baby replacements will be welcome. Will they come true to the parents? Who knows?!? It’s all part of the fun.
Sometimes, just sometimes, “Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow” really pays.
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Quotidian 