We’re feeling overwhelmed

From time to time I’ve written about our garden and gardening. I can’t remember specifically what I wrote, but it was probably about our battles with the land around our house which we struggle to keep in some sort of order. The thing is, if we’re honest, neither of us like gardening, it’s a never-ending chore and the more of a chore it seems, the bigger the garden grows.

We have a lawn at the front with some random shrubs between us and our neighbour; we did have a smoke tree which was magnificent, and when the bracts were full and the sun shone they really did look like puffs of smoke. Unfortunately, one windless night it decided to fall over, fortunately into the road. Outside our fence to the right as you look at our house is a strip of land – part of it which contained a holly, a small rowan tree and a prickly shrub which has clusters of white flowers. Unfortunately, a vigorous blackberry bush has decided to join the party – the birds love the thicket, but we have to cut it back a couple of times a week so people can walk along the path without being poked in the eye.  Then there’s a strip where some hydrangeas who love us are growing nicely, and a well-behaved bamboo (I understand that sometimes bamboo goes crazy, but ours is very calm)

To be honest, although not acres, our back garden is really quite big. Behind the house is the lawn, at the side of the lawn is a quince which has been overwhelmed by a very recalcitrant bramble, and occasionally in spring some bluebells. At the back, along the wall is honeysuckle which refuses to flower, or to die, some raspberry canes, some currant bushes, a gooseberry bush and an anonymous tree. We thought it might be a holm oak but it isn’t. It has small dark, leathery evergreen leaves, black flowers and small black berries. We have never been able to discover what it is.

At the side of the house is a drive, and on the other side of that is a problem area, where the previous occupants had covered it with shingle and kept their caravan. The drive leads to a garage, but the shingle continues to the back wall. We manage, after a fashion to keep the lawn mown, although we suspect there is a spring or stream beneath it because the grass grows so vigorously however baking hot the summer. We live very near the sea, and there’s a rhyne (stream) about fifty yards away, and other damp and soggy areas all around. The shingle area, though, is a great problem to us as weeds, brambles, thistles and other vigorous plants we don’t want, flourish there.

When we first moved in, nearly two dozen years ago, we decide to create some raised beds and grow vegetables – it would be nice to have fresh veg, and also save us money. Husband made four beds and for a while all was well; however, we just couldn’t keep up with the amount of produce we had – and we didn’t have people we could give it away to. One bed we then sowed with flowers, in another we had fruit bushes, and in the third herbs and aromatics, and the last was veg.

To be honest, we always struggled. We’re not keen gardeners, we’re dutiful – to an extent, but we have other things to occupy our time, other things we really love doing. The children left home and the teeny amounts of veg we needed, even with packing the freezer with the excess and making chutneys, pickles and jams, meant growing them became a chore. The things we tried to grow were no match for the persistent weed, and no doubt you have guessed the rest.  We go out and do battle, trying to encourage each other, but we have no enjoyment in it, although we do applaud ourselves for trying, but we’re very easily distracted. It’s got to a stage now where we’re feeling overwhelmed.

So this afternoon, out we went, he mowed the lawn, I attacked the weeds and the triffids – which I’m sure regrew behind my back every time I turned to empty the bag, and all the time I was thinking that I would come out again tomorrow and it would have all grown back.  I kept hoping it would rain – but of course if it had done it would just have encouraged them, the brambles, the briars, the nettles and plantains, the thistles, the creeping things, the stinging things, the prickly things, the smelly things, the beastly things, the ivy, the ground elder…

I raked  up the cut grass and then we went inside and had a cup of tea.

My featured image is of a rose we had, but beautiful and aromatic though it was, it didn’t love us, and now it is no more.