Blogging With ME, Big Scary Birthdays, Brief Gardening Snippets, And Black-Headed Birds

Primula denticulata alba

It was a shock to realise the other day that I haven't posted here for nearly four months. In fact, looking back, my previous couple of posts weren't about my garden at all: my last gardening post was around eight months ago.

This is partly due to my usual brain fog, and partly to my not having been able to do very much gardening lately. The latter was not so much because of the physical limitations of ME or the relentlessly wet weather, though neither have helped, but because we need to find a gardener to do some major clearance for us before we can do much more ourselves. And finding a gardener, when you have severe brain fog and need an unscented non-smoker who's willing to do the work in several short afternoon installments, completely organically, is not the easiest of tasks.

I also found garden blogging difficult last year. I made too much effort to keep up with a couple of regular memes, at the expense of having time and energy to blog about anything else. I won't make that mistake again. It was interesting to follow the memes for a while, but I couldn't manage to do it all the time, and I shouldn't have done it for as long as I did. It's meant I haven't finished (in fact I've barely started) posting my tour round my new garden, and I haven't blogged at all about the things we have managed to do here so far. Unfortunately blogging with ME, like gardening with ME, is an ongoing series of choices: you simply cannot do all of the things you want to do.


Assorted Narcissus

At the moment I'm also very conscious of my approaching birthday: I will be 50 tomorrow. I don't usually pay much attention to birthdays with zeros on the end, but this one is making me feel a bit daunted. When we moved here I was 47, and I had hoped that by now we'd have got a lot more done, both to the garden and to the house. But for various reasons last year was not a good year for me, everything seemed to move at a snail's pace, and I ended up feeling quite dispirited.

So what have we managed to get done over the last eight months? In no particular order, here are a few snippets:

* R dug up clumps of Achillea, Eryngium, Lillium, Narcissus, and Galanthus and I put them into pots to keep them safe out of the way of the coming clearance.


Eryngium seedheads

* We had a much-needed week's holiday on Exmoor in the autumn, staying in a cottage on an organic farm.  It was the highlight of our year:  the sun shone every day and we were able to visit gardens and go for walks on moorland, through woodland, and along the beach.

* I washed out a couple of dozen pots and three bird baths.

* I bought a pot of pansies, curry plant, and ivy from a garden centre sale, reduced from £20 to £2. I don't normally impluse buy, or buy ready-planted pots, but this was worth it just for the pot, and the pansies brightened our winter.


Assorted pansies

* I acquired some "free" (pay postage) Agapanthus (3 white and 3 blue) and Lavenders (a mix of purple, blue, and white).

* R dug out huge quantities of Japanese anemone roots from the corner bed which is eventually going to be my herb bed.

* I consulted with gardening friends about which shrubs would make a good mixed evergreen hedge for the bare side of our garden, and made a list, and we started going round garden centres looking at some of these shrubs (and also looking for them online).

* We bought an Ilex crenata shiro-fukurin which will eventually be part of the hedge, and I put it into a bigger pot for now.


Ilex crenata shiro-fukurin foliage

* We put a tarpaulin over the shed roof, secured with ropes, to keep the rain out. It's an old shed which we'll eventually replace, so we just wanted a temporary solution to the leaking roof.

* R cut back the Solanum which collapsed all over the lawn during a storm, bringing a large section of trellis with it.

* We bought a baby Amelanchier - it's 3' tall so it's going to take several years to get as big as the mature one in our previous garden, but it cost all of £4.99 so we think it was a bargain!


Amelanchier blossom in our previous garden

* We measured the whole garden in detail, so that I can do a proper design instead of relying on my original quick sketch plan.

* We visited an organic fruit tree nursery to ask for information and advice about growing fruit trees, and made a list of possibilities.

* I was given an Aloe Vera, much to my delight - I was intending to buy one! I've never had a houseplant before so this is a new departure for me, but I use a lot of aloe vera gel so I think it will be very useful.

* I weeded all my pots, and repotted a few things which were looking cramped or low in compost.


Anemone blanda

* I planted tomato, basil, parsley, and bean seeds.

* R made a start on digging out the front lawn, which is thin, weedy, and awkward to mow. In the long term we're going to remove the whole of the front garden and start again, but he was keen to get rid of the lawn sooner rather than later, so he is digging it out and I'm going to plant annual wildflower seeds there for the time being. Suggestions please, for what we can do with the turf - he's already filled a dustbin to rot down to make compost, and we don't have any other spare containers.

We also kept the bird feeders topped up, and did quite a lot of watching birds in the garden over the last few months. As well as all the usual suspects, this year we've been pleased to see some new visitors. We have a pair of blackcaps which are here most days now, we've also seen siskins a few times, and we've had one visit from another black-headed bird which was either a marsh tit or a willow tit (apparently it's very difficult to tell the difference, and baffles even experienced birders, which we certainly are not).


Black-headed birds

Now we are making plans for our other garden visitors, in the form of insect houses and bee tubes, among other things, but we need to wait until we've found a gardener and had the clearance done before we can put them up.

And at the moment, to deal with my feelings about turning 50 and struggling with the very long and daunting list of necessary tasks which we haven't yet done, I'm making a different sort of list - one of 50 things to do while I'm 50. On it are small things which I will enjoy doing and which I think I have a good chance of being able to do, such as visit a special garden, eat a summer pudding, walk round a wildflower meadow, and enlarge a favourite photo to put on the wall. That way, even if we continue to be unable to get the bigger things done, at least I can make this more of a "feel-good" year.

It's not on my list, because I don't know if I will be able to do it, but I will certainly try to keep this blog updated a bit more often over the coming months, and to get back to that garden tour I'd intended to finish posting by now ... .

Edit 18/05/16: It's crazy, given how much I struggle to blog at all, but I've started a 50 Things To Do While I Am 50 blog, so I can record all the things I manage to do. Click the title if you'd like to know what I've done so far.

Gardening With ME - Mañana

Aconites

Sorry about the long absence from blogging! This post will hopefully explain it - and is a contribution to Julieanne at Gwenfar's Garden's occasional meme about gardening with ME and other chronic illnesses.


Ericas

Contrary to some of the peculiar stories about ME which occasionally circulate in the media, people with ME are not "exercise-phobic". On the contrary, most of us are really keen to get out there and garden (or walk, or dance, or whatever it was we enjoyed doing before we became ill). Unfortunately though, the main symptom of ME is "post-exertional neuro-immune exhaustion" (PENE) - in other words, any exertion, physical or mental, causes us to become, not just "tired", but physically ill - it makes all our other symptoms worse.


Cyclamen

This means that we have to learn to relax and not try to do everything at once. A lot of people with ME find this really difficult, especially when there are things waiting to be done! Many people, when they are first diagnosed, try very hard to keep doing the things they used to do before they were ill instead of pacing themselves. This simply doesn't work, and they end up making their illness worse, sometimes permanently so. So people with ME have to learn to be laid-back and laissez-faire, to put off until tomorrow the things we simply can't do today, to realise that if we still can't do them tomorrow, well then we'll do them whenever we can. We'll do them mañana.


Hellebore

I'm quite lucky in this respect. Years ago, when I was a student, I was excessively punctual, turned up to appointments ten minutes early, handed my essays in well before they were due (much to the annoyance of my fellow students), and kept rigidly to a time-table. Faced with a long list of jobs - for instance at the moment I'm conscious that there are weeds to pull up, seeds to sow, plants which need potting on, a lawn to rake, and fruit trees to buy and plant, as well as that horrible front garden which I want to dig out completely and redesign - I would have wanted to get out there and get started immediately, and to keep going until it was all finished. If I were still like that now and didn't have ME, I'd have done all the things which gardening magazines and websites list as "March jobs" before the middle of March and right now I'd be busy making a list of things to do in April.


Primulas

However, time spent living in Northern Ireland after I graduated cured me of this need to get everything done "in time". I don't know what it's like there now, but when I was there, the people were very laid-back. Turning up to an apointment early meant being not more than half an hour or so late. No-one rushed, no-one hussled. If they didn't manage to get something done one week, well then they'd postpone it until the next. Mañana was a state of mind.


Iris

At first I found this really annoying, but over time I realised that I couldn't beat them, so I would just have to join them. While I still like to get on with things as soon as I can, I've learned that it doesn't actually matter if I don't get it all done today - I can still get it done next week, or next month, or next year. And if I don't get it done at all it won't be the end of the world.


Vinca

This has really helped with my ME - it meant that when I was first diagnosed and told to pace myself, get plenty of rest, and stop activities before I started to get too tired rather than when it was too late and I was shattered and ill, I was able to adapt to this lifestyle without too much difficulty. I can still do things, but I can't plan to do them to any kind of timetable. People with ME can't make plans because we never know when we will have good days and when we will have bad days. I have to do things when I am well enough, and if I'm not well enough, I have to just relax and think - well, mañana.


Crocus Vanguard, Ard Schenk, and an unknown yellow one which was here when we moved in

I still make lists - as Julieanne pointed out recently, people with ME need lists because we just can't keep everything in our heads, and it's very satisfying when we can tick something off them! However, I try not to feel under pressure to do the things on them by a particular date. I no longer think in terms of "March jobs" or "things to do in April".


Forsythia

I'm not saying it's always easy, or that it isn't sometimes frustrating when it's a lovely sunny day and I don't have the energy to pick up a trowel, let alone dig a hole with it. However, it's something I have to live with so there's no point in fighting against it. I'll go out and dig up those weeds whenever I do have time and energy, but if I don't get a border cleared today, well the weeds will still be there tomorrow. When I have a good day I'll pot on some plants, but if I don't get them all done this spring, then I can do some in the autumn - or I can do some next spring. When I have a less good day perhaps I'll be able to sow some seeds, but if I don't sow them all this year, they'll keep until next year. And all the other things will wait too. After all, I waited 7 years before I was able to move house, so what's a few months before I get my fruit trees?


Ranunculus Brazen Hussy

I think this mañana attitude is good for the wildlife in my garden - it means that the there are always patches which I haven't yet cultivated, messy bits of garden I haven't managed to tidy. And you know what? I think it's also good for me. Not just because it's better for my ME that I pace myself, but also because it means gardening is always enjoyable, it never becomes a chore. When I am well enough to garden it's always a treat - and that's the way I think it should be.


Assorted Narcissi, including Rijnveldt's Early Sensation and Topolino

As for my lack of blog posts - well, I had a very busy February with other things and I'm still catching up. It's not just physical activity which causes PENE, it's mental activity too, and the subsequent exhaustion doesn't just effect my body, it effects my mind as well. If I write too many emails or look at too many websites, I just don't have a functional enough brain to write a blog post, or even a comment on someone else's blog post.


Viola, here when we moved in, but I think it's Viola cornuta

Like the gardening jobs, I have various blog posts in waiting. I've been meaning to join in with this meme for a while, and I also intended to join in with garden bloggers' bloom day in February. And then in March. Oh well. The photos in this post are the ones which should have gone in those two posts - my blooms for the last two months. Never mind, mabye I'll make the April GBBD - or the May one. Mañana.


Anemone blanda

For more posts about gardening with ME, head over to Gwenfar's Garden.