It all started when I was mowing the lawn one day. I've been eyeing that Neglected Flower Bed for over a year, and gradually advanced over to it with the lawn mower. Just a clip here, a nudge there. Before I knew it, 75 percent of it was gone. What a liberating feeling.
Something more painful than childbirth: digging out 10+ years of someone else's crap. |
So, back to the mower. The stuff reminded me of - sorry, it's disgusting! - untrimmed pubic hair, and I could finally stand it no longer. I have yet to spray RoundUp or anything similar, and was under the insane impression that digging up clumps of carpet-like roots would somehow do the trick. After a good rain, the ground is nice and soft, but those roots are still there, waiting underneath the surface to sprout once again and choke the life out of my new plants. And those trees there? The big ones are ancient pines; the smaller ones with lots of leaves are, I'm pretty sure, weeds that have gone to seed. Lovely, no? That other one in the middle I'm hoping is not a walnut, which are notorious for killing just about anything planted next to them. (Well, not entirely; obviously vinca thrive next to them!)
Two years ago: The Yard from Hell. Pachysandra to the left of me; vinca major to the right...here I am, placing an order for 10 gallons of RoundUp. |
Ironically the campus that we live on decided the front corner and one side of the house looked bad, so they hired a landscaper to take care of it, but decided to leave this hot mess for us. WTH?!
And now ...
Sorry for the awful window screen in the way... You can barely see an outline of where the Neglected Flower Bed #1 and #2 used to be. It looks like we dug up a swimming pool or something. The brown spot in the bottom right corner is where I'm currently digging. But at least you can see - and get to - our garage now. Who knew there was a nice little brick and stone path under 20 years of crap?
So that's where I've been...just to prove to myself that I do have other interests besides birth. :D
3 comments:
Morning Glory is the bane of my existance!!
Round Up is wonderful, if nothing you actually want is around.
I love the caption on your first photo. Hilarious!
I WISH I could get morning glory to grow! I even planted seeds that started coming up and told my husband NOT to pull them, which he acknowledged. The next day I hear, "Sorry, but I thought those were weeds and I pulled them out." So much for morning glories ...
Wow! What a difference!! One of the first things we did here was pull out a bunch of juniper 'creepers' and trim back the azaleas!
You have so much more YARD now!! It looks great!
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