Meet Sergeant Spade...
Aargh! Sergeant Spade has been assigned to slice through the weeds in the Hump, starting with the paths. Private Hoe just didn't do the business. This morning's mission is logged to start at 0900 hours. Hopefully it will not take 900 hours to complete!
The Driveway Lawn is Sunny!
Sorry about this military nonsense. It's just that I started calling this task Major Weeding, hee hee. Naturally the Major then wandered off to have a cup of tea, leaving his underlings to sort out the problem.
Golden Tribute Roses
The Plan...
It's all part of my larger plan to have the new garden in The Hump garden looking cared for. And all my other garden areas tidied up in time for Christmas Day. All around there are little non-weeding things to do - Foxgloves and Aquilegias need trimming, roses dead-heading, my last pots of flowering annuals need to be planted.
I have thirty (!) bags of rotted horse manure to spread, and I have enough mulch to cover it with, to discourage weeds. One of the so-called 'mulch mountains' in the Driveway Lawn still needs dismantling. That's a job for Sergeant Scoopy Shovel, guaranteed to produce some sore shoulders...
Gardener reporting for duty...
OK. Shorts, cotton shirt, hat and sun block - ON! Yes Sir/Ma'am. Gardener reporting for duty.
Lawn edges need trimming - the lawns look wonderful after they've been mown, and the edges need to complement them. All the last visible forget-me-nots have to be pulled out. Any that are stuck deep in the middle of the borders can stay put. The Alkanet (a perennial forget-me-not) needs trimming so it will reflower for the bees. And so on. And so on. This campaign will take some time...
Three Hours Later...
So far so good. I've cleared the paths around the new rose gardens and the potato patches. Being wise to the wily ways of weeds, I've laid thick mulch over them.
Horse Manure Bags
On the way back to the house and lunch I filled the wheelbarrow with trimmings - just for a bit of variety. Now the first cricket test of the summer season is playing, so I'm listening to the commentary. Nice. Very, very nice.
And Much, Much Later...
I returned to a much wilder place in The Hump where the weeds were knee high. So I ditched the spade and started pulling. Wow! Three barrowfuls of weedy mess, and I'd cleared maybe three metres of path. The Periwinkle and Lamium has taken off (both extremely robust ground-covers, and both welcome in this 'semi-wilderness' area), closely followed by swirls of Cleavers (such a nuisance).
Two Invasive Alstroemerias
All the Alkanet needed a severe trim. I comfort myself my the fact that these four thugs were already here over twenty years ago. But now, with the extra sunshine - oh boy!
Buster on the Mulch Mountain
My cricket radio rattled on as New Zealand accumulated runs, and black Buster watched as the mulch mountain (her warm, snoozing place) got slowly smaller. Serious Fact : There is absolutely no point in clearing weeds from a path unless the surface is then covered with mulch.
Two Days later...
Two more days of weeding, and Sergeant Spade has done very well. As has Sergeant Shovel, spreading horse manure and mulch on the garden. Not to mention me! More paths are cleared and mulched. If only the cricket was going as well as my gardening. Hmm...