The elephant’s tail

I do not know where to start.  The only bearable tactic is to do a few things nearest to hand and avert the eyes from everything else.  I rely heavily on the extraordinary staying power of the vegetable world.  (Click for the gallery)

The daughter of five dried-out leaves stuck in a pot and left alone on a windowsill for six weeks

Frozen and scorched, saturated and desiccated, where I forgot it

Unpruned, unwatered, unfertilised in a corner consisting mostly of dust and bricks

Planted too late last year, poked carelessly in among the bindweed, been flowering for seven weeks without pause

Last year the rootball was so bad I hacked chunks off it with a bow saw

Lonicera fragrantissima: starved in sour compost for years, finally levered free of its pot and given root room

Bits of perennials left to get on with it for a whole winter: convalescing

Fragments snapped off, or dug hastily from odd spots, herded into a cool corner to live if they can

Lily of the valley, and I paid actual money for this – supposed to be invasive, so will it have the character to cope? But oh, the scent.

But there’s no doubt about it: I am a terrible gardener, I’m not showing photos of the vegetable garden for about a hundred very good reasons, and I am all behind like the elephant’s tail.