Each step forward...

creates new steps to be taken.  I have had a very positive day, starting with meeting our accountant for the first time and then finalising the business account, but it really did result in an even longer to do list.  Next time I will make sure I have some of the team with me because I realised today how much there is to learn about running a business, business law, employment, tax and so much more.  We all need to take every opportunity to learn and make joint decisions as they arise.   


The day has made me think, perhaps as we learn and move on, we can create an accessible guide about the stages to start up a business.  It could be useful when we begin working with new people and during inductions.  Working on projects such as accessible guides would give us the chance to pass on all the new things we are learning and the business skills we hope to develop.


The next thing to do is to sit down with the list and decide who will do what, set some deadlines and be ready for more hard work and exciting challenges.

Garden Blitz

This post is coming much later than intended, but unfortunately I am stuck in a catch 22 at the moment because to fund the plans of ZCE I am working full time and putting a percentage of my wage into the social enterprise.  This means I have little time to do the work of ZCE.  The social enterprise can have my money, but not my time or vice versa and in reality it needs both.  The way I intend to end this problem is to employ a Project Assistant/Support Worker, but more on that another time.  This post is about the event last week at Bromley Y garden.

Firstly I need to thank the wonderful volunteers who gave up two and a half hours last Saturday 3 September to help at Bromley Y garden to get some of the areas under control and tidied up.

We had excellent weather and everyone turned up ready to work, but also to enjoy being outdoors among friends.  Not everyone was happy to be photographed, including myself,  but I did manage to get a couple of pictures -

There is more information about the garden and the work to be done there on the Zinnia Horticulture page.  As the first event organised since ZCE went live I was really grateful for the support and with the outcome and I am really looking forward to the next challenges. 

How I love to prune

Today I spent two very happy hours pruning a hedge of Jasminum beesianum, Roses, Honeysuckle and Clematis.  This was not for a Zinnia Horticulture job, but in my own garden.  I moved to a new house in January with a garden that comes close to being my dream garden (if there were a few acres for animals it would be).  There are some incredible mature plants, including a pergola with a Grape vine and Wisteria I think could be 20 years old.  Both are in need of serious pruning and the Wisteria flowers were disappointing, but we’ve had buckets of grapes.   It is a job we will have to tackle later in the year when the fruit has gone.

Nothing in the garden has been properly pruned or trained in many years including the hedge and I have been looking forward to starting to get things under control.  I could not identify the Clematis this year because it was lost behind the Rose, but I have chosen to take it right back.  When the new shoots show in the spring I can train them forward to flower to the front of the hedge.  I have tried to identify the rose, but until we came to this garden I had no interest in roses and there are a number of possible plants it could be.  It is a dark almost florescent pink that fades to a lighter shade.  In my garden it has reached about 10ft tall with an 8-10ft spread and it repeat flowers. 

There are many reasons why I love pruning.  It is a job I can become lost in.  I see it as a reverse puzzle because, with each branch I take out, I can see the ones which need to follow.  It is not a strenuous job, so on a day when I want to take on something more relaxing (by which I mean more relaxing than digging over the vegetable plot or putting in a pond) it is ideal. I think I like to restore order, but I also like the promise held in a pruned plant when the job is done.  It might look rather bare, but of course in the next season the new growth will be fresh and the overall result much better.

In my garden there will always be something to be pruned and I am going to have ample opportunity to indulge myself.