Saturday, 11 April 2015
I had two goals this weekend: to not leave my property and to get a great deal of weeding done.
Allan spent one of the weekend afternoons weeding his garden area and part of ours, and the other on a non-boating excursion (tomorrow’s post).
Allan’s photos of his garden:
my reading day
I started to read a new library book and was immediately smitten with the story, a memoir by Amanda Palmer, the singer-songwriter of the Dresden Dolls. I am in the dark about the last 20 years worth of alternative music, which used to be my lifeline. My ignorance is not from getting old; it’s because I lived with someone who increasingly used music as a method of sleep deprivation; when he was angry and drinking, he would play loud music all night (and then sleep in while I went to work). I learned to crave and love silence so very much that I have since then not wanted to have music on in the house. The 3 AM loud music chap and I parted ways over ten years ago. It’s sad, really, to lose the desire to listen to music. Allan listens in his workshop or on headphones. I often think if I became an invalid, I would use the time to catch up. Anyway, I watched three Dresden Dolls videos (Mechanical Boy and Anachronistic Girl and another one by just Amanda) and read a bunch of her lyrics in the book and now I’m a fan, although probably a fan who can’t just sit and listen. I would go see her in concert for sure, if I lived in a city. Wish she would perform at The Sou’wester.
She named her band after one of the most memorably harrowing and agonizing scenes I have ever read in a novel, one that made me cry buckets and that I don’t want to think about because it makes me too sad.
Being that memorable is the power of good writing; I believe it was in high school or soon after that I Slaughterhouse Five.
This is what music used to do for me:
And when I listened to songs by Amanda today, I knew that it still could.
Having been married to a Leedsman for a couple of years (1987-1990) for a number of reasons, one perhaps being his accent, I enjoyed this about her courtship with author Neil Gaiman:
my weeding day
Much as Smokey and I would love to have continued to read, the sun came out so by 1:40 I was outside. My first thought was to weed in the front garden. It’s embarrassing that people can see weeds when they look over the fence. I remember a friend and I making fun (between ourselves) of a professional gardener whose garden was all weedy. He was kind of a mean fellow, so we had our reasons to make fun, but looking back on it, we were just being mean ourselves. It amused her, and she was going through a terrible time, and I would have done much to amuse her. I would have put on a clown nose and danced a jig…or participated in a private mean-fest about the guy’s garden…just to make her laugh for a minute. (Usually I feel sympathy when I see someone’s weeds.)
It is, we all know, much better to refrain from meanness, even in self-defense. Now it would be karmic justice if someone looked over my fence and make fun of this pro gardener with a zillion weeds.
With good intention, I took some before photos:
Two things changed my mind and sent me to weed in the back garden instead. One: It was a busy Saturday on the street with lots of people (which is perfectly reasonable), and I felt a need for quiet gardening. Two: I remembered that I still need to fertilize the back garden and that I can’t until I get some carpets of weeds out.
This called for a whole new set of before photos.
I started with the area above because it is a hellish spot. Once upon a time, in a budgetary crunch (because I was trying to put all extra money to getting our new house paid off…and I succeeded), I added some free horse manure to this area. It began as a “clean” debris pile of autumn clean up garden clippings on top of newspaper, and I swore I would not let the bad aster or Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ get in there. Now I have an area with a very nasty grass from the manure AND with Bad Aster and Lucifer!
Oh! And another thing I did: See the purple leaved honeysuckle climbing the clothesline poles at both ends? I had suddenly had a brainstorm when looking out my bedroom window in the morning that it is a great view blocker, so I dug up some rooted pieces and planted them along the east and west side fence where I want to block less than stellar views.
After weeding, I had a look round the bogsy wood garden for plants from Todd and found some that are emerging.
As you can see, some areas are not as thick with weeds as others (thank goodness).
The weather called for one more good day on Sunday (good for weeding, not reading) and then a storm on Monday (please! so I can finish that excellent book!).
I hope that you get the weather that you want.
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Thanks; it worked out perfectly, if only my energy level were higher for gardening at home instead of frittering away the time.
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I can hardly get my head around all the plants and beds and WORK in your yard alone! What incredible beauty. (I love the semi-circle pattern of Allan’s garden in one of the first photos in this post…..) G. spent several hours yesterday trying/hoping to get rid of some incredibly stubborn – and prolific – ornamental grass that we once thought attractive. I weeded less resistant patches of wild violets & misc. weeds…
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Guess what I did yesterday at home (a week after today’s post): hacked and hacked at a Carex ‘Ice Dancer’ that I edged some beds with and now loathe in those locations!
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Oh, I’m glad to hear there are others who don’t like heather in the garden. I like it in other people’s gardens, but for some reason it just doesn’t look at home in mine. And it doesn’t like me either, cause it always dies.
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And I’m glad to hear there is one other besides me!
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