Happy New Year! And I resolve...

Fell asleep to the sound of fireworks: woke to the sound of shotguns, I hope they eat what they shot out in the wetlands.

Reading Monty Don's Ivington Diaries (you will have to order it from Amazon.co.uk, it's not available in the USA until later in 2010, you'll receive it within a few days from .uk):

Monty Don's Ivington Diaries at Amazon.co.uk

One thing that always comes across from Monty's work is how he gardens "with" nature, and not against it. I have to remember that... and so here are my gardening resolutions for 2010, made public so you can check up on me and squish me if I dare to complain once about mosquitoes.

- Build a bat house, paint it black, and put it somewhere sunny so that many bats will come and live here and eat all the mosquitos
- Build a house for the purple martens, so that the ones that take their summer vacation under the siding can bring their cousins and they can eat all the mosquitoes that the bats miss while they are sleeping.
- Find and plant even more Japanese irises and other irises that love having their feet wet
- Continue seeking-out hellebores and plant them in the shade
- Either remember to dig up the non-hardy bulbs, or accept that they will only last one season
- Stop stockpiling things that might-be-useful-in-the-yard-one-day, call Jack and make space for that greenhouse. Or coldframe. Or lower patio. Or all three...
- Don't pontificate any longer about the pond/pool/concrete tank. Sort it. By end of March.

That's enough for now...