KNOWING WHEN TO WIND DOWN GARDENING

I've been telling friends for well over a decade that 'next year' I will wind down on any gardening that has become more of a chore than a pleasure. As usual, starting spring, I ignored my own advice.  However, I am no longer young (that's all I am saying), have a balance disability, and it has come to the point that I must take my own advice.  If there is no joy in doing something, why do it when you have a choice? I have always liked sweet peas (Lathyrus odoratus) but this year I planted some and found that the daily, constant, dead-heading to keep the flowers coming instead of the plants putting energy into creating pea pods, has been just too labour intensive when I have better things to occupy my time. 

Lonicera periclymenum 'Scentsation' (honeysuckle) and Wildeve rose

So, this morning, I pulled up the obelisk in the north-facing border and look what was putting on a gloriously but rather untidy, display behind it: Lonicera periclymenum 'Scentsation' (honeysuckle), and Wildeve rose. I will not be cutting either of those back until next spring and now that the rose is putting on its second flush, I will no longer dead head the spent flowers but leave them to form rose hips. 

I removed the sweet pea plants from the obelisk and put the foliage in a pile on the garden border, under the shade of Acer Katsura, where they will die down naturally.  I put dead fern fronds there too.  Here is my 17 year old Ragdoll cat, Alfie, chilling out.  You can see how the dead fern fronds have died back quite nicely, covering soil. This is Alfie's patch.

Ragdoll sleeping in shade of Acer Katsura

My compost bin, you see, runneth over and I have never pretended to run a neat and tidy garden but prefer it to be natural and nature play its part. Doing this, under Katsura, creates a mulch over the roots (I don't put it touching the tree's trunk) and it was notable that during the recent prolonged drought, Katsura wasn't affected at all. 

Gr8 garden compost bin.