As I sit here savoring a delicious Advil...

Saturday morning I went to Berkeley for a couple hours of light digging. The charming Julia had offered me free plants from her front garden via Freecycle, so I went off expecting to find few things left as other gardeners were converging on the spot over the weekend. But no - she had more Agapanthus, Crocosmia, Cannas, and succulents than I could stuff in my car. I even found a couple Amaryllis belladonna bulbs I think, growing amid an agapanthus forest.

I dug and dug. I dug some more. The car was full and I was still digging. I was sweating. The sun was beating down. The neighbors were looking at me funny. My back was twingeing. And I barely made a dent in the endless supply of plants! Thank you very much Julia - what a difference this will make to P. Garden!

Of course then I returned to the homestead to plant them all and suddenly I regretted my greed: now I had to dig more holes to plant them! And of course, unlike the lush soils of Berkeley, where you put your heel to a spade and it slides in, here at P. Garden one applies force to the spade and instantly hits rocks. So, I wasn't so much digging as hacking, violently.

After a few hours of this frenetic stabbing and scrabbling at the unhelpful ground, with no lunch, I just about fainted. Leah our Special Guest Arborist also spent many hours today pruning the tops of the (now flowering) cherry plums and they look fabulous. She also brought 2 Vinca minor (periwinkle) and a Russion sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia)! Oh how I rubbed my hands together with glee: Matt thinks we will be strangulated by Vinca in the night, but he's wrong. Wrong, I tell you!

I felt like such a wimp telling Leah I was done for the day at 3.30pm, but in the end it's very lucky I did - I went down to Pacifica to see our horses and one of them was suddenly very sick.* I had to rush him ot the vet hospital and didn't get home til midnight. Argh!

Today I'm going to plant the rest of the Crocosmia and mini Agapanthus that I tarped up for the night. I'm just going to let this lovely Advil kick in before I hobble over to the garden to see what awful plant location choices I made yesterday during my feverish battle with the dastardly dirt...

* It was colic, for those who know horses. He didn't require surgery overnight so we hope to pick him up today :)