Gardening Forever, Housework Never!

Every now and then I get the urge to work in the garden and do a re-vamp somewhere. I never get the same urges for cooking and housework however, funny that!!

Anyway, when we moved into our new house here in 2007, I was into the garden before the paint had dried on the walls, digging and planting, and Rob and I carried and spread a few tons of 'klippies' (small stones) onto the paths around the actual planting areas. These areas changed daily however, as I tried to get a fork into the soil and either managed and planted, or hit a rock and moved on! The garden kind of grew where it could, and it was a thing of wonder!

And now, eight years later, some of the shrubs have come to the end of their lifespan. Sadly, the lavenders and 'salies' have a shorter lifespan than a lot of other shrubs, so I have patches of dead bits in between live bits! Plus, the 'pavement' area outside that looked stunning a few years ago, looked sad and unkempt with aloes and gazanias all tangled and the odd bit of dog poo balanced on top. Goodness knows what dog it is that enjoys hovering above a sharp bit of aloe, but it got to the stage that it all had to GO!!

And 'go' it did!

Well. Eight years ago I would have climbed in with no problem, but eight years ago I didn't ache in as many places as I do now and I could bend a lot easier too, so we decided to ask our Gardener Des to bring a friend with him so that we could share the heavy work and clear all the rubbish.

Des with his trusty 'kruiwa'!

So, on Wednesday Des brought Willem along with him. Now, Des has a problem with his hand as he had an accident a few months ago and broke his thumb badly, so he is unable to use that hand too well. I was hoping that the friend he brought along would be a robust youngster, able to cut and dig and toil and tote bales all day.

Willem worked like a dervish!

But when I saw him, my heart sank. He looked older than me and is as thin as a stick of liquorice, and I was concerned about his health!

But they proved me wrong!

We worked all day with a break for breakfast and lunch and while Willem chopped and dug and heaved, Des 'drove' the wheelbarrow and added our debris to the large pile of garden refuse across the field that is waiting to be collected by the Municipality.

Now look at it!

Rob kindly nipped off to the nursery to buy some bags of klippies and I moved a couple of wheelbarrows to new places, and in no time at all the pavement area was done! Apart from the fact that I ran out of klippies!

The 'kitchen window' bed.......before..........

Then we moved to the back! And we sorted the small bed near the kitchen window so that I can see down the garden now and keep an eye on anything else that needs doing!

And after, what a difference!

And that was the end of Round 1. Rob drove the men home and they will be back on Tuesday for Round 2.

Sigh!!

And, of course, Basil had to be in on the action.

No job is complete without a Basil to help!

Helping Rob trim the bougainvillea!

I wonder how he would cope with the wheelbarrow!