It's been a while since I've posted and I know that enquiring minds really want to know up to what this really old woman has been. Well...if you don't really care, you may be excused to find better use of your time. This is not required reading!
The yard work has been keeping me busy for the spring and early summer, this year. Which is usually the case. What makes it more interesting/harder work this year are the confluence of two happenings: 1) unavailability of quality mulch, and 2) weather that teeters between rainy and hotter/sunnier than hell. I cannot work in the sun or in the heat as I am prone to sun/heat stroke - or - at the very least, heat exhaustion. As I've written at Paying for my sins gives me exercise, my big challenge this year has been to rid us of the sumac that I was foolish enough to plant. It had thrived and, as previously stated, it will be at least a couple of years before I can declare victory. Defeat is unthinkable! Each week, our trash barrel has been completely stuffed with sumac roots that I've dug/pulled up for the past several weeks. The photos, below, show how the largest sumac planted areas look, today. The photos show the same area, but from nearly opposite viewpoints. Note, too, that I have taken out a couple of the small redbud trees and trimmed up the remaining ones.
While working in that area for a few minutes, this morning, I took the opportunity to transplant a small crepe myrtle bush (photo, below). I don't know whether the bush came up from seed (I find hundreds of seedlings all over the place) or from the roots of nearby old crepe myrtle bushes. As was the case for the small crepe myrtle bush that I planted in the same planting bed earlier this year (thought I had posted it but can't find the photo or posting) in either case I don't know the parent bush. It could be a dwarf cerise-colored crepe myrtle, a white full-sized crepe myrtle, or a more reddish pink full-sized crepe myrtle. (For photos of possible parent bushes, please see The past week or so at Casa CC - 7/27/2019.)
Most of my yard-work time during the past week has been spent de-weeding/grassing the planting areas that are farther from the street, but in the same stretch of yard. The next photo shows about one-third of the area in which I've been working. At the left side of the photo, within the area delimited by the steel posts (installed to keep Fred's occasional fence-fall from further damaging my plantings), one can see a multitude of crab grass plants awaiting my attention. I was working in that area, this morning, when it started raining. (It is a hot, muggy day and it is now (5pm) thundering out there.
Did I fail to mention that I showed more agility, this morning, than I would have laid claim to? I heard something crashing down and ran into the middle of our back yard where I knew I would be safe from falling trees/limbs. It was an unnecessary exercise as the branch from a huge walnut tree stayed on Fred's property, this time. He doesn't trim his trees (or anything else in his part of the woods) which leads to such dead falls. It was not a small limb! (I took a photo, but the bright sun made it impossible for me to see the viewfinder and the offending tree isn't in the photo!)
My mini meadow is coming along nicely this year. The next photo shows it in all its glory. Note the milkweeds - the seed pods of which deserved their own photo. I'll post the pod photo on the neighborhood website to see if anyone wants a pod or three.
I bury our green garbage. It enriches the clay of which our soil is comprised and reduces the strain on our city's sewage system. Our city requires that no garbage be placed in the trash bins. That is what garbage disposers are supposed to make unnecessary. Many of the buried treasures send up shoots - mostly from potatoes and melons. They have a tendency to try to escape their confines. The photos, below, show a couple of examples. In the first photo, a melon plant of some sort has shriveled up in the past day or two - maybe from too much water????
To round out the posting, here is a closeup of the little things that have been hanging from our small trees over the past week or two. I'm thinking they are army worms like the ones that destroyed much of our fescue lawns last summer. Kevin is supposed to be sending his lawn specialist out to tell me what we need to have done.
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