mares tail – Gardening within LiMitS

Rearranging stuff!

I may have overdone it today! I moved things around and set up a border for the flowerbed in the front. I also cut down some spiky bits and stabbed myself in the process; maybe I need to invest in armour?

But it’s not possible to add to the garden waste for collection as it’s full, full, full! And I am trying to avoid further digging cos as I said last time, it wipes me out, fatigue like I have any number of autoimmune conditions all at the same time.

But I moved the little slabs to the front and almost made a circular ring round the bed I have ignored for a while. It needs compost I think and I will use some of the bags I bought on the last trip to the garden shop, which I haven’t visited in a while. I’m not sure whether we checked the ph there but the weeds are rampant…

Trolley was one of my best bargains this year!

I feel a bit more positive after achieving the circle and cutting back the rose which had regrown and I thought I had killed when I dug over that bed. I’ve added a few bulbs (it felt like a lot!) that I hope are not found by squirrels.

Washing off the pea gravel was taking too much water. It will go under the slabs. Hubby got a very heavy crow bar and an even heavier tamper which l had to pick up from the Post Office.

From a distance it looks almost circular?

Swapping jobs today!

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I am trying to finish a paint job I began under lockdown… it’s involving climbing up ladders and trying to stay stable which as most MSers with vertigo know is not as easy as it sounds. Roof lights were asked for but I always thought we’d get someone to do it? In fact when I first took our collie for a walk and she went for someone before I pulled her back, the man she lunged at turned out to be a decorator. A year in and she is much calmer on walks and doesn’t seem to need to protect us, her current herd.

Husband has shifted the greenhouse and in a definite reversal has been in the garden all morning. He is going to purchase some Perspex panels to save the glass from dropping apples. But it looks like the shed is going to be built over the herb garden after all. Which was the original intention?

It also means losing, or cleverly sculpting, the two trees in this corner which we haven’t identified. And replanting some of the herbs.

The greenhouse frame was moved by three of us, while I held back the roses. We are dismantling the arch which was rusted through and again that changed the vistas through the garden. I feel like I am now keen to finish the painting and get back outside!

Arch will find a new home? Or will go to the tip?

Weeding again!

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Rome wasn’t built in five years, and wandering round our shambles I felt despair and anger! But I’ve given myself a talking to. And started in on the mares tail. Front garden full of lots of seed heads from alliums and other beauties we have enjoyed this year but the mares tail, bindweed valerian and other pests also threatened to do away with the things I have planted. Nothing a bit of elbow grease and perpetual vigilance won’t do away with.

I’ve read on forums that some of these thugs need to be beaten over a long period and I have left them alone because I’ve been working and down in the dumps. I’m not blaming anything in particular but my screen time has been through the roof. And the weeds are overpowering every area I have worked hard to clear.

Clearing an area where we have the littlest shed, I asked a question. My other half has been planning to build two more sheds, but I think we are still better to use the area I’ve planted herbs. I can replant a herb garden and we can move the quite diddy greenhouse onto the cleared slab? Hubby has agreed to rethink. Well I think we both are, as this garden is still a work in progress and doesn’t have a particular area which gives me joy. Working on it! Calla lilies are shooting up in some boxes atm. Yay! More flowers to come…

Phormium is getting strangled. Think it’s vine weevil…

Much needed Rain!

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The hottest days have cooled down again. Today is fresh and I feel quite good about the weeds! Shock horror!

Actually I lied! But I have discovered another horror! And we identified this new terror after it had chewed it’s way through lots of buddleiha… and I spotted the leaves first, then the huge beetle which was identified as a cockchafer beetle or a May bug. They will eat trees, bushes and flowers! The larvae grow underground and eat roots then the bugs emerge round about now. Eek! Not what I wanted to hear. I honestly don’t want the adult eating my garden but I am not going to go out and exterminate them… catch 22!

Vine Weevil AKA cockchafer beetle AKA May bug native to Europe.

I went back to work this morning to a very different college/exam setup. I was wiping everything multiple times. Think I will take gloves tomorrow! Afternoon to relax methinks.

So my penance…

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For cutting off the electricity my penance was weeding. Smallest helped but got to use my hedge gadget! I am not sure I will learn how to use that this year? But we/I pulled up lots of mares tail and pulled out dead valerian. That also appeals to miss helper? Hard to miss and not the prettiest when it is dying.

And the mares tail is everywhere… this may be the worst mistake of our house purchase. To not know the weeeds… Five years in and we haven’t really made a visible mark on the garden but my intention to be working and the reality are different. I am lucky to be working, don’t get me wrong, but zero hours don’t contractually make you well off. I will do as much as I can over the next month and see whether I can ‘magic’ something into my life that I had to put on hold, due to Covid restrictions like everyone in the world.

Thursday is our garden collection day and the grass cuttings are rather pungent. But adding a load of other weeds today made the front garden a little tidier. Little one didn’t get up to the top of the hedge but thoroughly enjoyed using my new hedge gadget and my new tipper cart. I have to do a little more digging and soil shifting to lay out the slabs I want, and we have to order a tonne of sand and some lime cement to lay the slabs properly. I am not a big strong builder and neither are the rest of the family, so we may be a while getting the slabs laid. Oh well…