About ten years ago, Dear Husband turned to me one day and said "I like what you are doing with the gardens, but I'm not going to garden any more." I was dumbfounded! I didn't have a response. I couldn't think of anything to say. (No snide comments from the peanut gallery!)
There wasn't any question of simply shutting down the gardens, so I kept on by myself with an occasional hand from DH moving a full wheelbarrow. Gradually things began to run down. There are too many gardens here for one person to care for, unless that is the only thing she does. To make matters worse, my mother would buy plants and hand them to me and ask me to make room for them in the gardens.
Our home was once part of an old nursery. On the southwest part of the lawn there are two pods of evergreens. Junipers, I think. The main road into the nursery passed between those evergreens. When we were building the house, I cleared away an area of dead branches that must have looked like a cookie bite from above in the pod nearest the house. I planted day lilies and daffodills and a few odds and ends. It was my first garden here.
Well...when DH stopped assisting me with the gardens, that was the first garden to fall apart. It's the farthest from the house, and it sits in an area that can't be seen from the house. So, sadly it succumbed to nature. Sumac took hold and destroyed the clean lines, and raspberry, grapevine and thistle followed.
I've been hacking and pruning back what I could do on my own, but it wasn't sufficient.
This morning, Dear Husband said "I'm going out to work on the evergreens." and I though ..."the Aliens have come and taken my husband and left a stranger in his clothes!" I went to work with him. He took the chainsaw to the sumac and I dragged the cut trunks to a pile. I worked on the raspberries on the west pod while he started hacking away the weeds on the east pod. I sat and watched him work for a few minutes.
HE'S in good shape. He works construction, and while he doesn't lay brick every day, he does load and unload the truck almost every day. Even he was hurting by this afternoon. I've found muscles I had forgotten I owned. We paused for lunch, and then he went back to the evergreens. I went to finish uncovering the roses. I spent about two hours removing leaf mulch, moving compost and pruning the roses and miscanthus (ornamental grass to the uninitiated).
I discovered that a rose, a butterfly bush, five chrysanthemums and a Michaelmas Daisy that we had wintered over in the garage had made it through the winter. I pruned them all back and set them out. Tomorrow, I have to sieve the soil from the pots we used for container gardening last year. We use packing peanuts in the bottom of the pots for drainage, and to make the overall container lighter, so I need to separate the soil and the peanuts, and then refill the containers. I also plan to rake up the lighter cuttings from today's work.
So...you can see why I'm saying "Ouch!" But I'm delighted to have those evergreens cleaned out. I hope everyone had as good a Saturday as I did. And I hope the aliens keep DH just a bit longer.
Comments (2)
Good grief! How ambitious you are! (But, we all knew that.) When I say that I've done some gardening, it means that I've pulled some weeds. HH and I cannot work together on anything because he is geared for high speed and I am constantly in granny low. (It was perfect in Seattle where the folks across the street were the opposite. HH worked with Christine and I worked with John on yard work!) HH takes care of the grass (as long as he is at home) and I take care of anything that isn't grass (although many would charge me with neglect). I'm trying to get some sumac started (yeah, I know it's invasive, but I have a perverse sense of humor!) Hope you soaked in a hot tub to get the soreness out. Have more fun tomorrow/today.
Posted by Cop Car | April 4, 2004 4:56 AM
Posted on April 4, 2004 04:56
I love the feeling of soreness that goes with accomplishment! Congrats on the gardening, I commented before on a photo you had posted and I can imagine your yard is beautiful! When I was in high school I used to spend a week or so every summer in Wyoming helping my grandpa cut down dead pine trees, cut them into fire log sized pieces, and hauling them in and out of the truck to stack by the cabin. I can not tell you how sore I'd be by the end of the week, but it was also such a great feeling to help my grandpa. Also, I couldn't admit to a 75 year old man that he could still kick my butt in the stamina department ;)
Posted by Jenniy | April 4, 2004 10:34 PM
Posted on April 4, 2004 22:34