↑THIS was how that front bed looked when I bought the place, the wide angle lens distorts things so it looks MUCH deeper that it is in life.
Then, the weeds, oaks, Virginia Creepers, Mimosa, poison ivy, English Ivy, and god know what else that had simply been covered with mulch, NUMEROUS times, began to emerge.
I fought, I pulled, I dug (which was nearly impossible through that shredded wood mulch, and the VERY hard soil) and I cautiously sprayed.
It all kept coming back.
SOOOO.
I began removing the old mulch, and it twern't easy let me tell you.
Look Closely at what was under all that
On the far left you can see the sheet covering all the mulch I'd removed.
Then I began using my tiller, to dig, and i'twern't easy, this ground besides being hard, is filled with rocks, and roots, all of which make that tiller bounce out and nearly make me "hairut my seffusses" 🤣.
As you can see I had two bags of "Black Cow Manure" as one step in amending the soil
After all that tilling on Thursday, that night I was a seriously hurting unit. My hip bothers me in the evening most days anyway, but all that bending or stooping to pick up roots or rocks, done me in.
I did nothing Friday, especially since and had a pre-existing appointment with the ortho doc.
So this morning, I raked some more, the spread some Peat moss, the black cow
The lighter brown stuff is the peat moss
Then once more using my tiller to mix all that together, I had a more pleasing and homogenous looking bed
What is that orange thing, you ask?
In that spot I'd had to dig deeper using a mattock to get out the stump of something that should never have been allowed to grow that close to the walls in the first place, which left a hole.
Should I fill it back in, after having spent the time and effort to dig it, or, since at some point (soon I hope) I want to put in a water feature of some sort, I opted to dig it even deeper with my tiller, so I put that 5 gal bucket there to hold it open
Now I have almost now manure left, all my potting soil went into this bed as well.
I don't have a clear plan on what is going in the bed, nor what type of mulch to put back in there, but it won't be that ugly black stuff.
What I took out may go around one of the trees, or along the cross ties inside the yard, or along the edge where the trees and bushes are now.
I did find and save a number of bulbs, some of which I know are the Grape Hyacinth I put in around the sego palm, but the others I don't know what they are, one in particular was buried very deep
And so the tired puppy has struck again, and I finished just in time before the rain started to drizzle, I am watching the first fight over my feeder out my window now, which is quite entertaining
"Nearing Completion"
by
Jerry E Smith
©06/19/2021
all images are mine
by
Jerry E Smith
©06/19/2021
all images are mine