I spent about 4 hours on the slope this weekend. Too bad it was on a project that doesn’t look like much. Pretty much I dug up and moved a large bush into a new space that involved a large hole that I pick-axed at the top of my backyard slope. Then I planted a smaller shrub into the newly vacant area in my raised bed. I then put down landscape cloth across a third of the top of my slope and beauty barked the area. The new bush is happy and the area is looking good. I carried 4 bags of beauty bark and 1 bag of planting compost up the hill which was exhausting. Thank goodness I work out at the gym 3 days a week or I don’t think I would have made it! Eventually I will do the remaining two-thirds. I finished off the weekend’s work with the planting of 8 baby bear pumpkin seedlings that my oldest daughter started from seed. I planted these on the slope and mostly in peat moss as they will get full sun all day and the area tends to dry out quickly. I finished off by surrounding the seedlings with slug poison. While adjusting the sprinkler heads on the slope today to accommodate my new plantings, I checked on the seedlings. There are dozens of dead slugs surrounding each seedling. Truly disgusting pits of death. I hope the seedlings don’t mind all the slime. Today I also planted 6 impatiens next to the patio and beauty barked the area. A light day after all the hours I put in over the weekend.
Oh, and I almost forgot, my husband and I cleaned our fountain for the first time since we’ve had it running and installed a filter on the pump. The fountain was amazingly clean and wasn’t really due for a cleaning, but since were were dismantling the pump we did it anyway.
Next project for me is to figure out how to discourage a family of crows from hanging out in my yard quite so often. They are as big as chickens and can’t be up to any good though I haven’t quite figured out why they are here other than to periodically drink from my fountain and sample the climbing rose buds on the trellis. Not too many bird droppings in annoying places yet.
Newly blooming:
- red penstemon
- Phlomis russeliana
