Well, he’s not Richard Armitage but my Bob is still my favourite gardener!

It’s that time of year again, when wise gardeners review all the mistakes they’ve made in the past year and make strong resolutions for what they’ll do better next year.  Here are my ten resolutions for 2013 and I advise fellow-gardeners to take heed of them.

1.  I will make a monthly budget for buying plants and garden tools and STICK TO IT.
2. I will send in my catalogue bulb orders in time for the planting season and not frantically shove them into the ground long after the due date and then wonder why half of them don’t come up.
3. I will buy only those plants that suit my climate, my garden and my lifestyle.  This means not being seduced by the latest award-winning rose that flaunts a demonic rash of black spot at the least hint of humidity and needs two full-time gardeners to minister to its finicky needs. (Though if Santa had granted my Christmas wish and brought me a gardener who looks like Richard Armitage I’d cheerfully suffer the black spot and a lot else besides!)
4.  I will (cheerfully) do my exercise routine every morning so my ageing body doesn’ t succumb to gardener’s lumbago.  Exercise is a lot cheaper than a hip replacement.
5. I will wear my knee-pads when weeding and planting.  Knee pads are a lot cheaper than a knee replacement.
6. I will make my own compost and it will be perfect – crumbly in texture and sweet to smell, rather than a sloppy, stinking sludge.
7. I will re-design all the areas of the garden that don’t work well.  I will put this down on paper and not just keep it in my head.  I will also ruthlessly chop out and throw out all those plants that are old and tatty and beyond rejuvenation, or just in the wrong place, but  for which I have developed a ridiculously sentimental attachment.
8. All my new plantings will be in perfect taste and harmony, with careful selection as to colour, texture, height and width.  I will NOT buy plants just because I fall in love with them, or because my friend Maureen has one in her garden, or because they are cheap.
9. I will not use any pesticides or weedicides, however tempting it is to kill things by squirting them with stuff out of cans and bottles.  I will instead use tried and true natural methods (even though they take hours and hours and don’t work anyway and I say this every year but run out of time and patience and all my plants get eaten and rampant giant man-eating weed aliens from distant planets invade the garden and…)
10. By this time next year I will have the best garden in the street.  If not in the neighbourhood.  Possibly in the whole suburb.  Or even the town. Or the state….or the country…or the universe…of course I’m dreaming!

But that’s what New Year’s Resolutions are all about.  Dreams that just MAY come true.

So Happy New Year to you all.