Monday, August 26, 2013

Weekend doings

I've got sore and sunburnt shoulders, but I managed to weed and mulch the big bed alongside the driveway (the one pictured in "Hell no, I ain't gonna mow") on Saturday.  Broccoli Boy mowed the lawn and we took bags of weedy clippings over to the Public Works grass recycling.  Should be good to mulch the clippings at the next mow.

The mornings are a bit chilly, which is nice when I have to go out and work my tail off.  It's also been quite wet lately, and I found dog stinkhorns hiding with the weeds amongst the herbs and irises.  They look like orange Nerf darts with muddy tops.  Once I got rid of the sun-occluding weeds, the stinkhorns started drying up in the August sun... and I didn't get a photo of the funky looking things in full "bloom".  Here's one I got from the web:

Dog stinkhorn
 

I did try to start a new bed behind the shed (it's a northen exposure, mostly shade) on Sunday before my mom and aunt stopped by for lunch, but I was deterred by a great amount of trap rock buried under the soil.  I'd have to spend more time on amending the soil and screening out that rock than I care to, so I think that I'll make raised beds or a container garden back there instead.  I can't even see that spot from my house - it'll be more for the neighbors' viewing pleasure than mine.  I suppose just having repaired the shingles and painting it a few years back was an improvement, but I like to make pretty things for people to look at.  In any case, the shipment of plants I got in from Royal Dutch went into the shady bed on the east side of the house instead.  I have to call them because 4 of the poker primroses that I received were just mush, and I doubt that anything is going to come up.

Next weekend, I think I'll try to dig the black-eyed Susans out of the sloped wildflower bed and start trying to tame that area a bit.  I like the wildflowers in June, but by August they look like a weedy mess.  The Chinese forget-me-nots (while beautiful & blue in June) are now gnarled grey things with the stickiest Velcro-like seeds ever.  I had an unhappy incident a few weeks ago when I got them stuck in my hair.

No comments:

Post a Comment