LysmachiaMoon's blog: I get lots done

Yesterday (Friday) I spent about 3-4 hours finishing up around the bog garden. I planted 2 hibiscus in the bog, then I tackled digging up, dividing, weeding, etc, the margin. Was very happy to see that my single plant of "Amythest and Snow" (I think ??) Centaurea was happy to divide into about a dozen plants! I was able to put in three nice patches, interspersed with iris. I noticed last spring that the colors of the Centaurea and the colors of one of my "found" iris (I call it Roadside because that's where I found it...I'm so witty and creative, you know?) worked so perfectly together. Of course, being the dim wit that I am (*finger in nose* Duhh...them flars are purdy!) I forgot to mark which clump of iris was which, so I just took a fling at it and hope that I got them close together. If not, I promise I'll mark the correct clump next year and move it...

I couldn't understand why I was so dog tired after that job was done....then it occurred to me. It's the up and down. Dig a few spadefuls, down on knees to weed out the couchgrass. Back on feet, dig a few more, down again. Then down on knees to divide, stand up to move to planting area, down again. It's worse than attending High Mass. *har*
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Today was another very good productive day. I got a call for Leaves Pickup...made two trips to the nearby trailer court and came back with a total of 20 bags of leaves (only one shredded with grass clippigns...that uber wonder stuff got spread on the extension Pond bed as mulch. The other bags went into the woodland garden, to further smother out weeds.

Then, ran up to Walmart to get some cat food and bought 12 of these intriguing little globeshaped solar lights. They are perfect little spheres, made of a clear crackled plastic that looks like ice. I saw them last time I was there and they've been percolating in my head...at $1.50/each....hmmm....where can I use them? Then I had this brainstorm....what I'm going to try to do is arrange them in a sort of hemisphere (not sure yet what to use as a base...sort of like a big glowing mushroom cap. That would be so perfect in the Storybook garden.

Stopped at Lowe's to buy some pebbles for the bog garden "Isthmus." Got 3 bags and then snapped up a dozen nice size hostas for $1 each! These are normally $6 each and now I'm sorry I did not buy more. Of course, they aren't the really magnificent varieties, just run of the mill green and green-and-white, but you really can't have too many hostas.

THEN, since I was all the way out there, I headed up the mountain and got a nice load of woodchip mulch and a small load of compost. All this is earmarked for my 3 rhododendrons that I need to plant in the Pine Gap. I also got some nice long straight weathered logs to use as edging along the Top Border. Early this spring, I put in some logs at one end of the top border to see if it would help hold back the mulch/amendments and keep the hens from getting in and kickign everything down the hill onto the lawn. It worked and as importantly, the Husband did not bitch and moan about it..he actually liked the idea. I thought he'd gripe about it because of running the mower along it, but apparently this is not a problem. So, today, I went ahead and did the rest of the border. Now I can really start to mulch that bed for winter.

THEN, decided to go ahead and plant the bargain Crepe Myrtle I got over a month ago. It was orginally either $18 or $20 and I got it for $10. When I went to plant it, knocked it out of the pot and it fell into TWO plants!! YAY! Two for $10! Planted one in the upper Casey Cave bed, planted the other in the crescent bed next to the flowering cherry....and since I was there, I dug over another section of the crescent. Ye gods, what a job. That monster grass is like trying to dig out thick mats of wire.... I've still got a pretty good chunk to go, but at least it's well past the halfway mark on the crescent. I think next I'll go ahead and plant several rose of sharon in there as well. I want a good thick hedge curving along the south and west to protect the bench from the worst of the summer sun, provide shade and give some privacy from the neighbor's house. I'm also trying to have as much scent as possible...I've got the cherry tree, a mockorange, and I'm going to move the pink knockout rose there (as soon as the dratted thing decides to call it a year and stop blooming!!).

After all that, it felt so good to come in out of the chilly damp windy weather (our first real taste of November!) and have a cup of hot tea and a hot shower.

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