Wednesday, 24 April 2024
at home
We had had rain overnight, what a relief! I ignored its perfection as reading weather because I have a lot of garden projects on my mind.
I decided my plant (and garage) sale (which will be Memorial Day weekend along with the “World’s Longest Garage Sale”) needed a few more plants so I spent most of the afternoon potting up two colours of Geranium macrorrhizum, enjoying the pine-scented foliage, and assorted this and that starts that I got while doing a bit of weeding. I ended up doing this planting during a couple of hours of light, windless, not too cold and not at all bothersome rain.
With the planting project done, I was already soaking wet but not cold so put on a dry hoodie and walked around the garden with a long handled four-prong fork to work in some evergreen fertiliser that I had applied around some various new conifers a few days ago.
The native fringe flower which I have way too much of is looking rather grand right now.
The bed by the deep path, with too much dwarf comfrey and a very nice Spotty Dotty.
My nemesis, the beautiful native maianthemum, is ok in this west fence bed (because I cannot win)..
…but in at least two other beds I must do battle with it on my next weeding day. I also wish it was not in this bed but that is another battle I will not win in my lifetime:
I admired this area by the deep swale:
…and these ferns in a small bed by the metal path.
I look forward to soon weeding the bridged swale:
Looking through to the willow grove, I see more masses of maianthemum, which will go dormant in early summer and will disappear when I pull the yellowing foliage off.
The deep path:
From the other side, I used the long fork to pull out two huge shot weeds. You can see who was helping me.
More garden views:
In this bed that I expanded last year…
…where I wasn’t sure the Impatiens omeiana, which I once found so hard to grow, would survive, it has gone rampant, as it also has in other areas where I transplanted some to try to make sure I didn’t lose it. I might even get tired of it. Many people find it hard to grow; it needs the perfect damp conditions. Where I had recently thinned some out, a piece of Podophyllum ‘Spotty Dotty’ had emerged from its original location. That is great.
You can see how the impatiens wants to take over! It might even get to be as annoying as the maianthemum in the bed across the lawn!
It must be nice to just enjoy the garden without thoughts of weeds and good plants gone bad.
I did some pruning that I meant to do yesterday, but will save that story for tomorrow’s post because this has been long enough.
Ilwaco community building
Allan had gone to the library and the bank and V’s Market and returned with two photos of one of our old jobs, at the community building which houses the library, where instead of weeding, someone had taken a whippersnipper to a couple of the garden beds.
I am happy to report that this does not bother me, even though I think it is a shame they don’t have anyone who knows how or is willing to weed. This job was one of weeding gardens that someone else had planted and was one I hadn’t even wanted to take on because it was a battle with bindweed and orange montbretia. It became Allan’s job, even though I helped him sometimes, and was one we dropped to hasten our partial retirement.
You can never enjoy a garden. It could always be better. It is always about to get worse. The weather is never helpful. In fact gardening is much like golf.
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