Catching Up
Well, today I finally got started on one of the projects I’d planned for last April or May. Given how often we go out flying when the weather’s good, I haven’t been able to keep up with the flowerbeds, so I’d planned to convert all three of them to perennial (preferably evergreen) ground cover of a type that chokes out most weeds. Naturally, after major surgery I wasn’t able to — and I spent a good part of the year being extremely thankful that Carl and Audrey are so understanding!
But at least today I was able to start cleaning out the biggest bed, the one around the big pond. It’s way too big to do in one day, but I’d estimate I got about a third of it, including yanking out three of the four rosebushes that’d reverted to rootstock and looked downright pathetic. The fourth, I think, will be beyond my abilities, and maybe a bit much for the lawnmower; if Mr. E. thinks so, I’ll ask Carl to come over and yank it with his tractor.
Audrey recommended picking up some pre-emergent weed preventive, so I’ll definitely be doing that — I think the name she mentioned was Preem, which is sometimes combined with a fertilizer, but I’m not positive. She said it worked on the bed around her big pond, and I sure didn’t see many weeds there, so I didn’t take much convincing!
Now I’m looking forward to the gardening catalogs arriving. Besides the usual drooling over veggies, I’m going to be scheming about ground covers and decorative stepping-stones (I picked up a couple cheap at yard sales this year, painted them, and really liked the results, so I got another one at the hardware store — it looked like a really faded ladybug — repainted it, and am eager to find more. They look a whole lot better than the plain slate I was using (still am, till I can get more pretty ones), and even if I can’t get much winter color from the plants, they’ll provide some.
