This week I took in the geraniums (pelargoniums) from our back patio. It was time to overwinter them indoors.
As I did so I remembered selecting geraniums to give to the nursing home where my husband was waiting to return home after his stroke. In April we planted together, from the wheelchair, left-handedly, into the planters in the sunny garden there. We promised to return and visit. Maybe we will go back and see how many plants survived the drought before the sodden autumn weather took hold.
I recalled moving and rearranging geraniums on our own patio too. I deconstructed my husband's home-made plant stand for herbs and moved the plants across to a corner by the back door. I then took the geraniums outside. At that stage I thought we could place the small ramp for the wheelchair at the back patio doors. The second patio door proved recalcitrant and the ramp itself too small, the angle too steep. I rearranged the geraniums again.
Shortly afterwards we were given a longer ramp. Single-handedly, with a cold chisel, fuelled by the euphoria of returning home and once again from the wheelchair, my husband demolished a strawberry planter constructed from old decking to give the ramp an adequate 'runway' up to the back door. I replanted strawberries at the wrong time of year (April/May) as they came into flower in one of this year's prolonged periods of dry weather. They did fruit and survive and now look as though they were always intended for two permanent raised beds next to the shed; beds where my husband had buried kitchen compost before his heart attack.
As often happens we still had too many geraniums, so we gave a plant to a kind neighbour who was somewhat surprised by its large size and reciprocated with fruit cake.
They are going to need tidying up, picking over and ridding of caterpillars - surprising they do infest geraniums - in the days ahead. Our back patio room has taken on its winter aspect. Some things remain constant.
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