Mowing and Weeding

Sorry the pictures aren’t up yet, I’ve kept too busy to blog properly, although I have tried to keep the facebook going.

Mowing and weeding are all we are doing right now. Ohio has turned into a rain forest, it seems, the perennials are lush and the grass abundant. Unfortunately, the fields have flooded and the crops are under stress, portions have already died off from being drowned out. The bugs, including prolific mosquitoes, are now appearing – what was left of the rose blooms were infested with Japanese beetles.

I thought I was one step ahead of the weeds in the renovated part of the gardens… but as always, I underestimated their nefarious ability to burst forth with July conditions. And here they are!

My favorite tools for weeding are an adze and a simple little tool called a cape cod weeder. I still use the dandelion weeder at times for the tap roots of those types of weeds. The warmed earth of sunshine after rains (like this week) are ideal for pulling out weeds; once the soil drys out the roots are entrenched and take alot more work to remove. I always hate vacations at this time because the garden really gets away from you in July, anyway, I’ll have my work cut out for me this month if I am going to make headway into the main part of the garden.

Highlights this year are the hydrangea I put in last year, Endless Summer, and the lavender hedge again is a feature (I had to replace so many plants last year, but it was worth it). I’ve let the Shirley poppies and Calendulas seed among the hedging… just because my eye was hungry for flowers now that the border is in shambles with weeds, etc. That will get top priority over the next couple months- although I don’t know what metamorphosis it will end up with. A renovated garden is never quite like its predecessor, the situations change, your experience and tastes change, so the garden always undergoes an extreme makeover as you bring it back under cultivation.

I have so much to blog about – I really need to just sit down and write! I’ve been reading multiple gardening books, several that I really love and plan to order on Amazon this summer. I have to really love a garden book to buy it. And there are a couple pretty plant combinations in my garden this year that I want to post about. But all I do is weed and mow, mow and weed!

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