With the beautiful weather we’ve had lately, and new patio furniture encouraging us to sit outside, I am once again motivated to work in the garden. I spent most of the year watching our garden to see what would grow. Now I’m feeling more aggressive — ripping out weeds and trying to help the other plants flourish.
I have some trouble with this process. And not because I’m lazy. No, the trouble is that wildflowers and weeds are attractive to me. For example, at first I thought our morning glory was gorgeous, with its white, trumpeting blossoms:
But then I watched as it crept over every other plant in the garden, strangling them and stealing their sunlight. Finally I gave in — the morning glory had to go.
I also defended the blackberry bush at first. I love blackberries. But the branches have been invading the surrounding bushes, winding over and through them, far overreaching their limits. And after reading up on pruning blackberry bushes (and the positive impact of pruning on berry yield!) I’m going after those prickly invaders, too.
Thankfully, my parents are in town and pulling out bindweed is my mom’s idea of a good time. So the two of us pulled and unwound and ripped out a good chunk of the morning glory. And then I spent some time ripping out more. I cut back some of the blackberry bushes, and the results were pretty dramatic. We only worked on a relatively small part of the garden, but I’m proud of how much we accomplished.
Here’s how it looked just a month ago:
And here it is now:
Don’t look too closely, though — there are some giant thistles in the back corner of the garden. I really want to pull those down, but first I have to work my way back to them. There’s a good deal of grass and horsetail to get through first, and there are some other unknown plants in the middle of the garden that I’d like to identify before banishing them altogether. Oh, and then there’s the dandelions …
Expat Linguist 