Sunday, September 7, 2008

If you build one, why not two?!?

O.K. It starts as I think I would like to dig up that space between the two sidewalks and make a big cottage garden with indigenous flowers that are more prairie flowers than anything else. Then.....I think this is a wonderful idea because I wouldn't have to mow that area.

My neighbor asks, "Have you been to that nursery down the road?" "No", I said, "I thought it was a wholesale nursery." "Oh, no, they sell retail too. And their prices are much better than W.....'s. ( Another popular nursery) H and I bought our big holly bushes there for only $60 apiece."

On the way home the other day I stopped at the nursery down the road. OMG! They had everything and then some that I wanted. It was like a candy store. So off to home I hurry to measure the space and write down some flowers I would like to have.




So now I have to clear out the grass. I tried the old hoe method that they showed on Ask This Old House. Didn't work. The grass is too tough and thick. So I got out the trusty pick and chop, chop, chop, chop, I had a space about a yard across. This is not going to work either. Takes too long and is too hard to do. So out comes the old rototiller. RRRRRRgh! Works some, but the grass bound up the tiller. Sigh! This is going to be a tough job! Only because I bought some stupid flowers.

This spot is 24 feet on one side, and 31 feet on the long side. It is 9 feet across the short end.

So along comes H, my next door neighbor with his tractor. We worked until after dark and the ground is naked. Except along the edges that I will have do by hand. He wants to disc it up to loosen everything up. Then we can move the topsoil over and Voila! a flower bed. So the next morning-yesterday- he comes over with the tractor to finish up our mess. He had piled up the piles of stuff at the edge of my ravine. It is covered with honeysuckle, wild morning glories, and kudzu. So it is deceptive where the edge is. So he pushed it to where I had mowed, and wanted to look at it in the daylight and mark the edge.

In the conversation, he said he would go ahead and work up that spot in the back where I wanted to make a garden. So off he toodles out to the back yard to work on the bald spot where the pool had been. Weeds have begun growing there, but I figured I could work that up easily.

We have to pause here to discuss my logic. My Daddy always said I have the damnedest logic he had ever heard. Well, when the pool was removed before I bought the place, my logic says, "Oh, a bald place. It could be a garden." Meaning, I wouldn't have to work hard to dig up grass. Well, I have never had an above-ground pool. So little did I know that they had put in red-clay fill and packed it down to make a hard base. And there were lots of rocks for drainage. I kinda got a feel for that when I dug up my little spots to put in the plants I transplanted from my old place.

Well the tractor died after a short while. So now I have a dead tractor in the backyard and part of a bald place. After H left, I worked for a coupla hours digging out rocks, and piling up rocks in the wheelbarrow. I dug out weeds along the area he couldn't reach with his tractor.

So long story short, I bought some plants, and suddenly I have two beds to work on-one front and one back. Sigh! How does one get into these messes?



No comments: