The garden project week 1

So far I am sticking with what I know in the garden. I pulled weeds in the one garden area I already care for and directed John and Jake to do their own various projects. Jake mowed, after the standard number of threats were made. It is amazing how good weeds look when they are all a uniform length. John walked our front yard with some sort of weed killer to hopefully rid us of the front dandelions and keep the weed patrol happy.

Measuring the concentrate

Walking the grounds

As I was pulling all the prickly weeds out of the hostas as I do every year and wondering what I might say about gardening this week since I tried nothing new I realized that while I feel like this is going to be my first year of trial and error gardening that in fact I have been learning things about gardening for years. I have been a homeowner for an amazing 16 years and our last house was also purchased from a big gardener so surely I have learned something in all those years. Here is a totally random list of what I know about gardening and plants:

• Even if you cut down 7 feet of clematis vines in the spring the new vines will climb all the way back up 7 feet, you did not just kill the only thing that seems to take care of itself in your yard. They really are dead vines not just dormant.
• If you buy a seed mat of flowers out of a magazine and just set it on some black dirt without killing any of the usual weeds or in any way preparing the soil and then just barely cover the mat with enough dirt to keep it from blowing away and then don't pull any weeds when they come up because you don't know the difference between weeds and flowers none of the flowers will grow.
• Eventually tulip bulbs will stop producing flowers in the spring if you do nothing. (I didn't learn what you are supposed to do but I do know that much.)
• Ugly and over grown bushes pop right of the ground if you loop a chain around them and attach it to a truck.
• Large cucumbers will suddenly appear on your driveway if you plant the seeds in a weedy spot next to the driveway and forget about them all summer long.
• Rabbits like tulips
• Iris' will eventually get killed by weeds if you do nothing.
• Weeds can grow as tall as me.
• Mulch really makes even bad landscaping look good.
• Weeds still grow through mulch.
• If your bushes look bad you can't make them look worse by doing a little pruning.
• If you let your sister help you clean your yard she might accidentally pull the honeysuckle out. But that is ok because you probably had pretty much killed it by then anyway.
• Baby clematis plants don't grow well when you plant them in the heat of the summer and then don't water them.
• Nothing but weeds really grows on the boulevard where all the road salt ends up when the snow melts.
• If your grass dies in the summer from lack of water it will still come back in the spring.
• Concrete is a good way to fill in flower beds that overwhelm you.
• Landscaping books tend to assume you know what they are talking about.
• All landscaping work is back breaking. Yet strangely rewarding. Although I am still unclear if the trade-off is worth the effort.
• If your husband doesn't fix the lawnmower for a month that is his way of telling you he wants you to bring it in and have it done for him.
• You don't have to mow in July if you don't water your grass.
• A fence hides weeds from the weed patrol.

I am really looking forward to learning some new stuff this summer. This week we are hoping to meet with a designer who is going to help us finalize the paint colors for our house. I have a concept in mind but John and I don't do color selection. The house is way to big to choose the wrong color. So still no new gardening quite yet. Self-employment is a feast and famine business. We are moving into the famine stage for the next couple weeks but I should be able to hit the garden stores in a few weeks. Until then it will be all about how I am killing weeds and pruning bushes.