At the moment, my wife and I are in the summer performance and teaching lull... not so many students, and the ones that are taking lessons over the warmer months are doing it on an ad hoc basis... and there is no university work and the performances are slow at this time of the year.

So, that means that we are both spending a few hours in the garden pretty much every morning! Sometimes admiring our handiwork... like the Jasmine plants that are just starting to flower and that give off a really nice fragrance.

Like most gardens... there are large jobs, and a pile of smaller ones that take very little time, but need to be quickly done.

This particular bush at the front has really nice red flowers that attracts a lot of birds and bees... but the last summer it has come down pretty heavily with these white clusters that turn black and then eventually kills the leaves on the branch.

We have tried fighting it with white oil as recommended... but to no avail... and so, the time has come for more drastic measures, and I will just cut off every branch to try and let it start again...

... and it is done! I hope that it will survive the summer!

Meanwhile, my wife has been hard at work prepare this section of the garden for the next retaining wall section that will house another set of veggie boxes. First it needed to be weeded, and then covered up with black plastic to cook the remaining weeds stems and to keep everything suppressed until we get started on the work itself.

Fiddly work... but we have the willpower and the technology!

... and done!

And what was I doing whilst my dearest wife was doing that section? I was weeding and woodchip mulching the adjacent area in the garden bed area. Since we took out the large wattles, this area has been getting too much sun... and that means that the weeds and grass have started to get out control. So... weeding, card-boarding, and mulching was in order!

Each day, I clear a couple of square metres... and then immediately lay down the cardboard...

... and then cover with the rest of our woodchip mulch. We are running out of the woodchips... I will have to check in with the local arborist if he has a truckload that he doesn't mind dumping in our front corner again! He's pretty happy to do it, as it saves him a trip to the green waste tip...

Hmmmmm... more things to clip... that will be another chore for later in the week. I will have to go around and prune a whole heap of things that are either broken or starting to drag on the ground.

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