As an aside, I want to point out our unintentional floral genetics experiment. The tall colorful flowers are phlox. Originally, we had white phlox and dark pink phlox.
After a few years of neglect, we now have salmon-colored phlox, as well as light pink and light pink with dark pink centers. Ah, the birds and the bees... but I digress...
Just taking out the unwanted plants would be difficult, as they had intertwined and intermarried with the wanted plants. I decided that the best course of action would be to take out everything and sort later. (Do you see the encased wire attached to the house? May I just ask why it was thought to be a good idea to mix electrical wires and an area where there is much digging to be done? You will be happy to know that we were very careful and didn't electrocute ourselves or lose power to the house once.)
These lucky plants are The Chosen Ones. Like all Chosen Ones, that means they will suffer through a great ordeal. In this case, lying in a heap in the sun until the ground opens up for them again.
It took an hour to lay down the weed sheeting and fasten it. Part of that is that I blithely tossed one bag of fabric pegs into the cart at Home Despot when I really needed 6 bags. This resulted in a few trips downtown to the hardware store. One thing that we should have bought during these many trips was a trowel. We couldn't find the one we thought we had, and we didn't realize it was MIA until it was time to dig. You will note below the purple sandbox shovel and the red beach scoop that we pressed into service instead.
In part because of the tools we were using, in part because of the lateness at which we started, it was evening before we were finished with the planting and mulch spreading. There is a lot of space now, and I was wondering if I went too far in eliminating plants. But it is a relief to the eyes not to have the jungle.
10 comments:
"Home Despot"
Intentional, or not? Perhaps you have a tyrranical dictator of a gardener?
Idea stolen from Rian, and I'm pretty sure did it intentionally.
Rian is laughing uncontrollably at the idea of poor Floywks planting with a purple plastic sand shovel.
Rian has tried that with a YELLOW plastic sand shovel and discovered that it is very hard to accomplish.
Poor Flowyks.
And the garden looks lovely. Ye left the right amount of space. It will fill in some.
What...? What?! Did I miss something?
*checks garden*
*checks for presence of purple shovel*
*checks rest of blog to see what else I've done without knowing about it*
Hmm. I think you will find Mater's garden far tidier than mine, Rian dearest. Although, I am much flattered that you associated such tidiness and organisation to me. :)
It looks lovely, M&O. It will be even better when everything spreads nicely. Such a satisfying task as well, isn't it?
Drat. Yes.
Rian was oddly thinking of Flowyks...
Nevermind.
Rian meant MATER. I think perhaps I was thinking of Flowyks at the meet.
The garden looks lovely, MATER.
Thank you, Skywolf, for the compliment. It is the tidiest thing on my property-- inside or out. At least *something* is neat.
Rian, I am still trying to get over the sorrow and being called by another's name-- not once, but twice. The grief is twining it's tendrils around my heart like an English Ivy.
The grief is twining it's tendrils around my heart like an English Ivy.
Emano, you are beginning to sound like rian.
But back to the garden ...
Like you said, emano, at first glance that garden looked pretty good. I didnt see all the weeds until i looked at the enlarged picture.
Now you've done all that work, you'll have to provide us with regular picture updates like H is doing.
I'm curious to know what happens to those plants in winter. I suppose i should go back and read H's garden entries, but i'm here now. So i shall just continue rambling here. See, something like impatiens ... well i'm used that being a year-round plant. Growing and flowering all the year preferably in shady spots. But this is in Sydney (no snow in Sydney, emano). So what happens to your impatiens when it snows? Does it survive the winter?
Impatiens in an annual, their job was to provide some color to the place. The mums are annuals, too, but I have heard of people who dug them up and brought them inside, and then were able to plant them again in the spring. I suspect the tales to be legend, though.
Mums survive Rian's winters, although just barely. Perhaps they would surive Fl- MATER'S winter if she tucks a blanket of pine needles about them.
They survive our winters, too... although, admittedly, ours are far less severe. It's a bit late now, I suppose, but if you plant them in pots, you can bring them in to warmer weather, or even just put them right up against the house, where the residual warmth will keep them from frost damage. I do this yearly with my geraniums, and they seem to do remarkably well.
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